Regardless of whether the human "hardware" is the important bit, we are producing hundreds of thousands of new "hardware units" every single day. One of the pr

Regardless of whether the human "hardware" is the important bit, we are producing hundreds of thousands of new "hardware units" every single day. One of the primary drivers behind colonization of the solar system is that it simply isn't possible to provide a comfortable lifestyle for every human already on Earth, much less all those that are coming. Of course, if we get to a point where we can upload human consciousness to anything other than biological grey matter inside a human skull, all bets are off, but I think it's hard to argue that we might achieve that breakthrough before we could colonize Mars at the very least.