Cat Matson keeps coming back to South by Southwest Interactive to have her mind broken, thinking shaken up. Both those things happened when she watched the keynote presentation by Martine Rothblatt.
Cat interviewed Martine Rothblatt, author of Virtually Human: The Promise – and the Peril – of Digital Immortality about cyber mind clones, helping people to live longer lives, how your social media footprint is creating the future you and how starting life as a man has impacted her success as a woman. The essence of Martine’s work is to keep people living longer and happier lives.
Martine strives to accomplish this through her pharmaceutical company, United Therapeutics Corp (she is the CEO) where they work to create an unlimited supply of transplantable organs so that people don’t have to die due to an unavailability of them. In line with enabling people to live longer and happier lives, Martine attempts to go three steps forward by researching ways to keep people alive forever through mind cloning. Mind cloning works by putting people’s mannerisms, personality, recollections, beliefs, attitudes, and values into a cyber form. They may then be downloaded into a regenerated human body, allowing people to live forever.
Cat was mind blown from Martine’s explanations of having computerised versions of ourselves in the future and was excited at the prospect of having a digital doppelganger. Included in this video is:
- Is what you reveal on social media a copy of your natural self?
- How does what you post on social reflect your values, thoughts and how well is it creating a digital you?
This episode was filmed at the 2015 South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. Cat Matson is the CDO – City of Brisbane. Get your copy of Virtually Human, here.
