Hmm, this ties into a theory I was concerned about last year. There has been talk about uploading our brains to a computer. I was skeptical (and remain so to an extent) of this being perfected in such a way as one would retain the spark that makes one a human. Here is a link I have saved on this as it disturbed me greatly when I read it.
https://www.popsci.com/article/science/neuroscientist-who-wants-upload-humanity-computer
The other day, there was a blog post here on Steemit that talked of the EU wanting to pass legislation that would legally recognize robots as people.
(Not sure of the etiquette of posting a link to another post so to be safe I didn't post it)
I remembered when I first began reading of this stuff some time back, my first fear was that if this could be done, our minds would be collected onto hard drives into a library, much the way the Vatican collected other cultures information and hid it away in their library. Now I am seeing posts like this and the one I linked above, and it strikes me the whole thing could be more sinister than I had feared.
I have read for years of plans to depopulate the earth (agenda 21 being the most common talk). Are they going to trick people into the idea they will be immortal if they but give their consciousness to the machines? That we would have full legal protection as robots being a step to easing fears? Is it even possible (as I question), or perhaps just a trick to get volunteers to depopulate? Or worse, will it one day be mandatory as they are making vaccines?
"Everyone knows humans are destroying the planet. Become a robot and quit being so selfish. Besides, who doesn't want to live forever. What do you mean you want to remain human? I am turning you into the authorities. It is selfish people like you who cling to the past that are going to destroy the world if we don't stop you."
I doubt it's possible in the short term. Maybe never. We don't even understand how consciousness emerges from the brain fully to be able to replicate creating nit ourselves, let alone clone it to data machines. The best I think we could do at some point is like the movie Transcendence, a copy of memories that would form the identity, but wouldn't be like the original fully.