Gigglebit: What would life be like in a virtual afterlife?

22 Dec 2014

Gigglebit is Siliconrepublic’s daily dose of the funny and fantastic in science and tech, to help start your day on a lighter note.

In the film Transcendence, Johnny Depp’s character is murdered and in a bid to keep him alive, his team of researchers uploads his consciousness to a quantum computer, only for him to connect himself to the internet and try to take over the world.

While the film itself wasn’t exactly Oscar-worthy, the concept of being able to live forever by uploading your consciousness to a computer has often been talked about as a potential outcome of humanity in a possible Utopian vision where we all live in harmony online.

However, while Hollywood and science fiction are quick to draw un-realistic scenarios, what if the idea was made into reality by drawing on the worst aspects in a commercial digital dystopia?

What if corporations and lawyers got their hands on the concept and turned your digital life into a hellish commercial existence?

One person who did that was Tom Scott with his frighteningly-real video about the Life Network, where in the future, everyone is uploaded to once they die.

Avatar online image via Shutterstock

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com