Immortality

SUMMARY 

(most of information below are from 2018 and will be updated soon)

As immortality based on cryonics, mind uploading, genome engineering, etc. will not be available very soon, we propose another solution.

Using technologies available now, with help of a bit of creativity we can collect data that in the future enable us to re-create you.

Technology needed to re-create you will not be available in next dozen years. Maybe in next 10000 years. Thanks to artificial intelligence after Singularity (real, fully functional, not this one advertised for 2045 or 2029). Now we focus on collecting the best data concerning you.

Project includes also proposals as:

- Growing AI on Mars 

- growing real AI instead of programming it - SATI (Search for Artificial Intelligence)


Immortality. The Idea 

Largest and richest companies in the world are working on similar projects. Google’s longevity spin-off company, Calico (short for California Life Company) was established in 2013 to tackle ageing and age-related disease. Google has backed Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity University since 2008, and now the futurist is even on the books at the tech giant. The co-founder of the university, Peter Diamandis, is also at the helm of Human Longevity Inc, which aims to build the world’s largest database of human genotype. Then train computers to use the information to fight age-related diseases. 

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, a pediatrician, have pledged $3bn to fund medical research over the next decade. Their goal is to “cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century”. The first step in their ambitious plan is the Biohub, a $600m research hub that will bring together biologists, chemists, computer scientists and engineers to work on projects including research into infectious diseases. The Facebook chief executive isn’t the first of the superwealthy to branch into health. Bill Gates’s Microsoft announced that it wanted to “end” cancer using artificial intelligence. So pursuit for longevity has long history and bright future. And there is something that mentioned projects have in common, they do not offer immortality yet.

So Welcome Back is about delivering you services that Google, Facebook , Elon Musk are not able to deliver yet. Although they are working on that tirelessly. And maybe they will be able to offer these services for people born in XXI century. But I', not so optimistic to assume they will be able to help us. To help forgotten people born before year 2000. And Welcome Back is here to fill that gap. To offer efficient immortality. Not for rich only. 

***

Pharaohs in ancient Egypt had a simple recipe for immortality. Building a safe in shape of a pyramid, embalming body/ heart and wait for the afterlife. It worked somehow but not in the way that Egyptians dreamt of. Now we can reconstruct them in 3D and we know about their history. But their souls are gone. In many religions, the afterlife exists for everyone. Without the need of spending money for expensive tombs. But we are not able to verify claims of priests. In recent times we have more and more options and promises on on immortality so I have listed them below. 

Cryonics 

Cryonics as you probably know is the deep-freezing of human bodies at death for preservation and possible revival in the future. Often only brain is frozen. People hope that they will be restored when new technology will be developed in the future. About 500 people have been cryogenically preserved worldwide. There are 3 companies in US that offer cryopreservation ( Cryonics Institute, Alcor, American Cryonics Society) and KrioRus in Russsia. 

Problem with cryonics is that we do not have yet technology that enable mentioned companies to revive customers. We have to wait until restoration to full health is possible. And cryonics is quite expensive. Full body freezing cost is between 36000USD and 200000USD, depending on company. In fact process is called vitrification – there is no no ice formation or ice damage . And to make efficient freezing, companies need access to body as quick as possible after death. That is why some companies are interested in creation of cryostorage facilities in Switzerland or other countries where euthanasia is allowed. In case of cryonics we have no copy so when accident arrives immortality is gone. 

DNA preservation 

Companies offering DNA preservation are not usually considered as immortality business but they offer services that could be used later for cloning purposes. To put it simply – they will be able to recreate copy of you. But body only, not a mind. Some companies as Illumina and Google Genomics offer just sequencing of your DNA and storage of digital copy of information. Some as Twenty5 offer preserving your organic DNA in a cold warehouse. Cost vary – from 425USD for storage in underground vault to 3000USD initial fee for digital copy of DNA. Problem with this solution is that we can not store our minds, memories, souls. 

Mind uploading (Whole brain emulation ) 

Scanning a brain and then uploading it into computer is not possible yet, so no company offer such form of immortality. But research groups are working to make it feasible in near future. There is Google Brain where Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and expert in artificial intelligence, is one of prominent researchers. Google Brain project's official goal is not mind uploading. But as we know that Kurzweil is very interested in consciousness of artificial intelligence and immortality we can assume that he will work on possible solutions. Company of Elon Musk - Neuralink is developing ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers. So it is pretty close to brain uploading. There is Swiss Blue Brain Project, Human Brain Project and others. Brain is rather complex structure so we are not much closer to full emulation than we were 10 years ago Good idea here is what Neurokernel try to do. They try to emulate the fruit fly brain. Shortly – mind uploading is not possible yet and will not be ready to commercialize by a few next dozens years. 

Life extension. 

Extending the human lifespan - that is what facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg wants to do. Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's goal it to cure all diseases using advanced tools and engineering breakthroughs. They want it happen by the end of the century. And there are much more companies that are working in this branch. From manufacturing of drugs, supplements and hormones, through gene therapy to injection of blood products from young donors. For example Human Longevity Inc. have created the world’s largest database of sequenced genomes and phenotypic (physical traits) data, to uncover unprecedented insights capable of transforming healthcare from reactive to proactive. As we are able to slow down the processes of aging, we can not reverse it or even stop it.

Although in 2015, Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of BioViva, treated herself using gene therapy, with the goal of not just halting, but reversing aging. She has since reported feeling more energetic, but long-term study of the treatment is ongoing. So if you need immortality from now on, this approach does not work yet. And there is no clue that it will works in near future. 

There are long living animal. There are animals, let's call them immortal, like hydra - simple animal that can revitalize itself with a fresh supply of cells . But most of species need death to develop themselves. Rule is simple here. If given species do not evolve and don't make itself better fit to environment it is killed or pushed out to less profitable environment by neighbor, competing species. So individuals die to give ground to new ones. Young, with different DNA. And some of these new are better adapted. They fighting better, can eat another food, have better brain,... And so on, and so on. Natural selection. We are designed to die because it was profitable for us. And I think that problem is our whole design and not some individual genes, telomeres. Without redesigning ourselves we will not find solution for immortality. It would be too simple and too miraculous. But I could be wrong. We will see. We will keep trying, because we do not need to be mortal anymore. Now we can be winners thanks to our technology. Some years ago we started to change our bodies. Consider heart transplantation. Many people live longer thanks to this standard procedure. 

So as you can see I'm not super-hyper optimistic here. It is hard to believe that any miraculous drugs that substantially prolong our life will be invented in next 50 years. An you know that brain is complex stuff so it would be not mind uploading before 2100. As for cryonics – the largest structure that they frozen without any visible changes in structure was rabbits brain. So whole human freezing is still a challenge and you can not expect they will find a way to do it tomorrow. I believe that immortality is real for our grandchildren, maybe for children born after 2000. Discoveries will come, for sure. But for us it would be too late.

So what we can do? Anything? Yes, there is a hope. Hope for us, forgotten people born in XX century?

***

Until 2021 I worked for world's largest IT companies on advertisement and search engine markets. I supply them with data that they use to make their artificial intelligence better and better. I'm not an engineer nor IT guy. I just provide them with human judgment. It is called data annotation. Most of us deliver data for machines for free, just by using computers, internet, smartphones. 

On January 2018 year Google unveiled 'Cloud AutoML'', which is aimed at helping businesses to start building their own high-quality custom artificial intelligence models using advanced techniques. It for image recognition and you do not have to be IT guy to use it. There are other AI tools designed for non IT professionals. So AI is not field reserved for narrow elite of anymore. It is not much more complex than using your most favorite office suite. All mathematics is inside, you do not have to think about. You just choose algorithm and some options. You provide data and wait for results. Of course more complex task you need to be solved, more data and effort for model building is required. And machines still answers only relatively simple questions.

From one hand I, as kind of insider, see that the progress in this field is not astonishing. Artificial intelligence as academic discipline is more than 50 years old. And now, last year and probably this year we have another wave of optimism in this area. More news in media, more smart business people that sell their stuff as software containing AI. But it is rather more advanced marketing that any breakthrough in the field. But it is true that machine learning is more widely available for plain people like me and you. And no, I'm not disappointed with progress in AI.I see constant movement forward, I'm patient. But to obtain real artificial intelligence we have to change way we are working on that. Don't you think that it would be better to grow it? Instead of try to program machines better and better, find new algorithms and heuristics to use them? Because it is how we are doing it now. 

Search for Artificial Intelligence. And lets's grow AI on Mars. 

Each time I screen again book of George B. Dyson - "Darwin among the machines", same thought arrives. We can not design real artificial intelligence. It will emerge from chaos and abundance of free computing power. Now computing power is still expensive and companies that have sufficient resources will not invest in fundamental research. 

But from the other hand pioneer in artificial life - Nils Aall Barricelli  was very,very, very independent researcher and he was doing miracles with his computer in 50's. 

Why not to help machines to communicate and develop themselves? Introduce standard in machine learning that will enable machines to communicate with each other. Just some space, communication channels and processors free to use by machines, some incentives, seeds maybe etc. And then constantly asking them some simple questions. And wait and try to spot some signal. Like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) does it. They monitoring space, searching for signs of transmissions from alien civilizations. We can do similar. Just by giving machines space, time and chaos. And listen for the sign. 

It could be something like evolutionary computation but without any Master, with some idea in  mind, that controls the system.

Many people are afraid of AI. They taking about nightmare scenario. Like on Terminator movies. Ok, so let's grow it on Mars. We can not live there without complex devices. Frankly we do not need that planet Lets give Mars to AI, machines and robots and in future we help each other.

Why I'm talking about AI? Because cit is crucial to the idea. We need AI, but happily it is not important if real intelligence arrives in 100, 1000 o 10000 years. Will arrive some day and that is sufficient for us.

So what I'm planning to do ?

Re-creation

We will re-create you in the future. Whole you. Your mind and Body. You will be back here.

To re-create you we need now just very good data about you and way to secure it by long period of time. You will be immortal but after a short break. You will not even notice that you were non existent by some period.

How it will be possible? Let me show you simple example.

I have a robot toy. let's call him „Rei” . He looks like this. 


He is simple being. We can make him immortal by freezing him. I think that with robot it will work even now.

We can do Reverse engineering, dissasemble him, se what he is consist of, how he works. No problem at all.

We can replace parts when needed, like we exchange hearts, kidneys, arms at humans.

We can stole plans from factory and recreate him after 1000 years.

But these solutions will not work with humans. What will work?

Assuming that the robot consists only of appearance and movement we can recreate Rei even now. 

Look and movement are only features of Rei in this sample. So I have photo of Rei (of course I can have more if I need it to recreate the robot's appearance in details). Smart guy with 3D printer can make Rei's body based on pictures only. Time consuming but not very difficult.. 

How about second feature – movement? I programmed Rei to move this way – one movement forward, turn right, one movement forward, turn right, one movement forward, turn right...  Yes, he is programmed to draw square. It is Rai's whole life. In reality shape he draws is not square. He is not perfect. 

Next step is registering part of his life on movie. A few minutes only. Then I loading movie to organism video tracking software. One I use is called ToxTrac* . Software tracks movement and output is data - x and y axis coordinates. 

I load data in machine learning software. I tried with H2O AI software which works well with classification tasks but seems to have problem with prediction of time series. It did't work well so I used simple online tool that provides ARIMA forecasting model. https://www.wessa.net/rwasp_arimaforecasting.wasp Problem is that this allows to predict only 24 steps. But for idea presentation it is OK. I do not try to find perfect solution for Rai here ** 

On picture you can see predicted movement (x axis) on orange background (on right side). Line on lighter background is real movement data.

Predicted movement data (x axis and y axis) on drawing with Python turtle looks like this.

Green line – history of Rai life that was basis for prediction. 

Read line – real movement that predicting algorithm did not know. 

Blue line – movement that was predicted by algorithm (ARIMA RMSE) 

Prediction is far from being perfect but run with default settings. Nonetheless we can see that algorithm can easily predict tendency - direction and change of position. Need just some time to tune settings of algorithm And with a bit more work it would be easy to predict whole simple Rai's life. 

Seems that for such task as mine best model is ARIMA but as I'm not professional programmer. Playing with new software or solutions that will satisfy me would take a weeks, not hours. And as this is only for idea presentation I will not try. Each delay in Welcome Back's progress means than many people will not be able to be recreated at all. Welcome Back at this phase is about gathering data and not recreating (for this we have to wait hundreds years or more). But research on recreation possibiliies will start immediately after data gathering centers are build. 

What is important – we have data (movie with part of Rai's „life”) and we can test it until our model is perfect and predict movements of Rai. When model is ready and works 100% we can recreate Rai. We can print body on 3D printer and make him move as on movie. 

Of course for Welcome Back Project purposes we will not just record movies. Humans are multidimensional. Data we will obtain needs much more complex attitude and sophisticated tools. We need a lot of data for person's model training and verification of the model. But this problem is solved, we know what data we need to recreate exact person in the future. As for details – it will be keep secret for some time.  because I'm interested how competition will address this problem. More ideas – more profit for humanity.

When we have data, we just secure it and wait until moment when AI will be smarter than us arrive. From that moment, which is called technological singularity, growth of artificial intelligence and it's potential will be exponential. So machines will be able to easily solve our recent problems, including problem with creating perfect model of given human, based on secured data.  

Where this model will be loaded is secondary issue and will depend on you. Maybe you wish your mind to be loaded into machine (sooner), maybe into your recreated human body (later). Your choice.

There is one ethical problem which have to be solved in the future. As we will be testing if given model of you is perfect, we would have to switch off models that are not perfect. Some will last only milliseconds and will not be conscious. These near perfection will be tested longer so we have to find a way to test model not as a whole but as sets of particular components. I mean testing components without putting them together before we are sure that we have perfect person. Same as before.

***

Infinite Monkey Theorem 

What is interesting even monkey can type model of any human. It is a bit strange but logical. 

You probably have heard about infinite monkey theorem. The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. Probability is extremely low (but technically not zero).

Same with mind uploading. Monkey randomly can type all data of your brain. As conscious brain is more complex, monkey will need a lot more time. But still probability is not zero. If monkey has infinite amount of time, finally it will create perfect model of your brain, ready for downloading. 

Good news is that we do not have to rely on random processes to create perfect copy of you. We can read your DNA and gather many information regarding you, your knowledge, behavior, etc. So creating perfect model of you requires less random attitude and less time than metaphorical monkey with typewriter.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

Our method is not as perfect as mind upload. So you can expect that some minor memories will be lost. But good news is that your behavior, views, opinion based also on these past memories will be on it's place, unaltered.

We will secure many kind of information from you, and often from people you know - relatives, friends but as people constantly are in touch with many information, some less important ones could be lost.

We can also expect some effect similar to these caused by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in physics. You can never simultaneously know the exact position and the exact speed of an object. I mean that processes of collecting information from you will change a bit your behavior and mind. But influence will be negligible. In mind uploading there also will be problem related to the principle. As you proceed downward in size to atomic dimensions, it is no longer valid to consider a particle like a hard sphere, because the smaller the dimension, the more wave-like it becomes. So mind uploading scientists will have to accept some approximation of values taken from neurons.

Data collection and storage centers 

When mind upload will be possible we do not need Welcome Back's data gathering anymore. But until that, during transition period, people will be able to secure their immortality and wait until machines will be smart enough to recreate them. After singularity, acceleration of progress of technology will be fast and we will recreate you.

Keeping data secure is relatively simple. A few copies kept in a few secure places and refreshed periodically.

Data will be kept in at least 3 countries. Offline. To avoid potential dangers.

Plan is to made centers of data collection and storage in North America, Asia and Europe. When possible also outside of Earth. In each center there will be exact copy of data, constantly refreshed and protected against loss of smallest bit of information. Part of your fee will be invested in secure and conservative way so in the moment that you are recreated you are much wealthier too.

And we want to create solution not for rich only – cryonics costs too much. So we will gather and store information about your mind and body (medical information + DNA/cells). Then after the singularity arrives (moment when artificial super-intelligence will surpass our intelligence) we are going to re-create you.

Future

When I thinking about the moment that artificial intelligence will be able to re-create us, the world that comes to my mind differs a bit from environment we know. Humans will not exist in present forms. We will get rid of our bodies. Why to use them when we have chance to upload our minds to any machine we want? We will not stay here at Earth. We will be traveling through other galaxies. Earth will be some kind of  nature reserve.

I think that after recreation many of us will be interested in keeping their bodies for a while. So it is probable that we will not recreate all people in one moment. Although we will secure some land for future needs. Depending on situation we start with 1000 to 1000000 people recreated, then after we check how it works we will decide what to do next. Of course people will have different options to choose from. In case that Earth is overpopulated they can wait or be recreated for example on some space station, or somewhere else. For obvious reason I can not predict the future. It is difficult to predict Bitcoin exchange rate tomorrow. So I will avoid to develop more futuristic scenarios here.

***


I never dream about immortality. I always accepted a fact that we die and I was not in interested in the topic. I did not think that immortality is possible. And some day this idea I talking about came to me. I did not considered as something unusual, and just started to think about consequences and chances. And it looked well so I started to work on that. I did not spring out from bath tube shouting “Eureka”. After a few weeks I realized that the idea is somehow not very obvious and I tried to find out why it came to me. And I do not sure. But most probably this was intuitive answer from my brain. Brain solved my problem. Problem was – limited speed of light dogma. I always wanted to lift the restrictions. Make intergalactic travels possible. But as I'm not a physicist  nor a genius, I knew that only thing I can do is a help a bit. And die. Because I was also sure that scientist will not find very quickly a way to travel faster than light. 

But some day my brain just gave me a solution. Just connected my problem to my recent job in machine learning environment. Solution is not perfect but workable and affordable. To wait until artificial intelligence will be able to solve very complex problems better than us. And we can wait, securely stored as data. 

And this is a solution for all of us - forgotten people born in XX century. And not super wealthy only.

I wish you all to live until immortality of your actual body and mind is possible, but if you are rather realistic person you can consider this solution as good alternative.

archive blog: http://reition.blogspot.com/ 

Perks & Donate 

Would you like to help offer to ordinary people services that they can never afford before? Help them to see the future? To enjoy their life more ?

Even your one dollar can make a difference. Really. Because this campaign frankly is not about money, it is about your support. If you give me your support, I will ask professional investors for necessary funds. Substantial funds, because centers I plan to build will costs a few millions. You decide if you want this project to succeed or not. With your dollar you delegate your power. I will negotiate with investors in your name...

In return for your support you will be back on Earth earlier than non-backers. In case that you prefer t-shirt, there are some among perks.

***

Your support is needed to make better marketing (some services would be paid) but what is more important, to show people which I want to have in my team, that I have support already. From you. Thanks to this they will give me a bit of their precious time for free. And they will help to make this project successful. We will be able to build centers where we collect data from our customers, their bodies, minds. And store data securely. Then re-create each person. Same as before.

If this campaign succeed (if I collect at least 4000EUR), with part of collected funds I will start Beta service for people that can not wait anymore. As quick as possible. Beta service means collecting and storing very basic information from them now. Because some people will not live until centers are build. But unfortunately after re-creation they will feel like after an accident where their lost most of their memory. And they will have to learn how to be themselves. Data I can collect that way will be very insufficient. So I do not recommend this Beta service. But everyone should have a choice. And I will try to help these people as much as possible.

When I thinking about the moment that artificial intelligence will be able to re-create us, the world that comes to my mind differs a bit from environment we know. Humans will not exist in present forms. We will get rid of our bodies. Why to use them when we have chance to upload our minds to any machine we want? We will not stay here at Earth. We will be traveling through other galaxies. Earth will be some kind of nature reserve.

After re-creation many of us will be interested in keeping their bodies for a while. So it is probable that we will not recreate all people in one moment. Although we will secure some land for future needs. Depending on situation we start with 1000 to 1000000 people recreated, then after we check how it works we will decide what to do next.

Customers will be re-created in future according to their numbers. If in time when re-creation would be possible Earth is overpopulated some customers with bigger numbers (for example over ten thousands or million) would have to wait for their turn a bit longer.

Perks are assigned in accordance with the purchase order (first one who buy Clear Pyramid perk receives number 5, last one number 10, etc.). And then, if you have number five, you will be re-created as fifth person in the world.

Pyramid is made of water clear polyester resin (with colour pigment on top for most of perks). Height - approx. 1.5 inch (4cm). Inside of the pyramide there is capsule containing your number (hand written), hair from my beard (DNA authentication), two copper balls and air. And beautiful eagle on top.

This perk is made for you to thank you that you were one of first people who backed the campaign. ( Please check if it is allowed to send such items to your country). Handmade production, so delivery may take up to several months. 

€1000 EUR

Pyramid (clear)

This perk includes: Re-creation number ( from 5 to 10). Assigned in accordance with the purchase order. 100% reduction for service of gathering data from you and storage service until re-creation. Pyramid (polyester resin) with capsule (inside my beard hair DNA). Height - approx. 1.5 inch (4cm)

€100 EUR

Pyramid (red top)

This perk includes: Re-creation number ( from 30 to 80). Assigned in accordance with the purchase order. 50% reduction for service of gathering data from you and storage service until re-creation. Pyramid (polyester resin) with red top, capsule (inside my beard hair DNA). Height - approx. 1.5 inch (4cm)

€50 EUR

Pyramid (green top)

This perk includes: Re-creation number ( from 200 to 500). Assigned in accordance with the purchase order. 30% reduction for service of gathering data from you and storage service until re-creation. Pyramid (polyester resin) with green top, capsule (inside my beard hair DNA). Height - approx. 1.5 inch (4cm)

€41 EUR + Shipping

Pyramid (blue top)

This perk includes: Re-creation number ( from 550 to 1000). Assigned in accordance with the purchase order. 15% reduction for service of gathering data from you and storage service until re-creation. Pyramid (polyester resin) with blue top, capsule (inside my beard hair DNA). Height - approx. 1.5 inch (4cm)

46EUR 

T-shirt "You'll be back". Sizes available: S ,M, L, XL 

As on picture. Send by post. 

About me.

My name is Krzysztof Kurpiecki. I'm not famous but I'm not anonymous.

I'm registered in Poland as sole trader since 2007. As „Baltic Griffin” under NIP number:- PL 7441343773 . Trade name/brand I use is also Infotimes. If you are looking for some information worldwide, you can use my services: http://www.infotimes.pl/english/

For a few years I was publishing my articles in most popular weekly in my region: Kurier Ilawski ( https://www.google.pl/search?q=Krzysztof+Kurpiecki+kurier+iławski&oq=Krzysztof+Kurpiecki+kurier+iławski ) and on politics blogs over internet, including website of Jerzy Targalski ( https://jozefdarski.pl/autor-publikacji/krzysztof-kurpiecki ) who is geopolitician very popular here ( maybe you have seen video of him with his cat :-) https://youtu.be/JtB7qwhPhhg )

 

And I'm on Linkedin since 2006 ( https://pl.linkedin.com/in/krzysztof-kurpiecki-9b2a602 )

So shortly – I'm real person which you can easily verify.

And about my beard. It is simple. Usually I live in Poland so in winter I have a beard to protect me against cold when I wandering through forests. Rest of season is relatively warm so I'm shaved :-)