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In the case where it is transferred into a computer, it would become a form of artificial intelligence sometimes called an infomorph. In the case where it is transferred into an artificial body to which its consciousness is confined, it would become a robot, albeit one which might claim ordinary human rights, certainly if the consciousness within were feeling (or were doing a good job of simulating) as if it 'were' the donor. (See cyborg.)
However, even if uploading is theoretically possible, there is currently no technology capable of recording or describing mind states in the way imagined, and no-one knows how much computer power or storage would be needed to simulate the activity of the mind inside a computer.
Uploading, in this sense, is a common theme in science fiction. One of the earlier instances of this theme was in the Roger Zelazny novel Lord of Light. Those with a strongly mechanistic view of human intelligence, e.g. Marvin Minsky, or a strongly positive view of robot-human social integration, e.g. Hans Moravec, Ray Kurzweil, have openly speculated about the possibilities and their desirability.
An extremely crude means of moving (if not exactly 'uploading') consciousness using current technology is the head transplant which has been done on primates. Another such crude means which some researchers think is feasible in the near term is the whole-body transplantA whole-body transplant or brain transplant moves the brain of one being into the body of another. It is a procedure distinct from head transplant, which involves transferring the entire head to a new body, as opposed to the brain only. No technology curr which moves only the brainFor other articles about other subjects named brain see brain (disambiguation). In the anatomy of animals, the brain or encephalon is the supervisory center of the nervous system. Although the brain is usually cited as the supervisory center of vertebrate. Since it is not easy to tell whether a body contains its original brain, nor necessarily easy to tell whether a body has the head it was born with, some of the identity questions are identical for these methods and those based on robotics. However, these methods do not involve copying the mind nor moving it into a non-organic medium, such as an electronic computer. Accordingly, they are technically quite different, and subject to normal limits of organic bodies and brains.
True mind uploading remains speculation; the technology to perform such a feat is not currently available, nor is it expected to be for several decades at least. The most likely method we can foresee is serial sectioning, in which the brain tissue and perhaps other parts of the nervous system are frozen solid, sliced apart or ablated layer by layer, and each layer scanned at high resolution, perhaps with a transmission electron microscope. The scans are then recombined and uploaded to appropriate emulation hardware (i.e., an artificial brain). This would require MEMSMicro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS is the technology of the very small, yet not within the realm of Molecular nanotechnology. MEMS devices refer to mechanical components on the micrometre size and include 3D lithographic features of various geometries but would not seem to require molecular nanotechnologyMolecular Nanotechnology (MNT) is nanotechnology using " molecular manufacturing", an anticipated technology based on positionally-controlled mechanosynthesis guided by molecular machine systems. It involves combining physical principles demonstrated by c. A more advanced hypothetical technique that would require nanotechnology might involve infiltrating the intact brain with a network of cell-sized machines to "read" the structure and activity of the brain in situ, much like current-day electrode meshes but on a much finer and more sophisticated scale. It might also be possible to use advanced brain imagingBrain imaging is a fairly recent discipline within medicine and neuroscience. Brain imaging falls into two broad categories structural imaging and functional imaging. The former deals with the overall structure of the brain and the precise diagnosis of in technology to build a detailed 3-dimensional model of the brain using non-invasive methods. It has also been suggested (for example, in Greg Egan's "jewelhead" stories) that a detailed examination of the brain itself may not be required, that the brain could be treated as a black boxThe term black box theory is used in philosophy in mathematics (to mean what???) The term is important in philosophical contexts, because various philosophers have proposed black box theories for various fields. Probably the most prominent such theory is instead and effectively duplicated "for all practical purposes" by merely duplicating how it responds to specific external stimuli. This leads into even deeper philosophical questions of what the "self" is.
The idea of uploading human consciousness in this manner raises many philosophical questions which people may find interesting and disturbing, such as matters of individuality and the soul. Vitalists would say that uploading was a priori impossible.
Uploading consciousness into bodies created by robotic means is a goal of some in the artificial intelligence community. In the uploading scenario, the physical human brain does not move from its original body into a new robotic shell; rather, the consciousness is assumed to be recorded and/or transferred to a new robotic brain, which generates responses indistinguishable from the original organic brain.