Virtual Immortality for Virtual Eternity

June 15, 2007

For centuries, humans have been trying to beat mortality through technology, employing such fanciful (if chilling) methods as cryonics, or the freezing of cadavers in the hope that science might one day stumble upon a cure for all ills. Now, the National Science Foundation has awarded a half-million-dollar grant to the universities of Central Florida at Orlando and Illinois at Chicago to explore how researchers might use artificial intelligence, archiving, and computer imaging to create convincing, digital versions of real people, a possible first step toward virtual immortality. (THE FUTURIST)