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The Ethics of Rebooting the Dead
- Beggers1960 6y ago"The notion of resurrecting people as digital entities is becoming less hypothetical. But just because something can be done, doesn’t mean it should be." I'm sure I've seen this episode of Black Mirror before... On a serious note, this is quite sad and raises questions about mortality in a digital world.
- nkrisc 6y agoI think the question of ethics here concerns the living, not the dead. The deceased are gone; they have no rights, they can't be harmed, they can't be wronged. Even the desecration of remains is an affront to the living, not the dead. All that's left is for the living to respect (or disrespect) the legacy of the deceased, but as far as I'm concerned there is no question of ethics. So yes, I think it's quite disrespectful to "digitally resurrect" someone and have that avatar do things the real person wouldn't do. In fact I think having it do anything is disrespectful because can we truly say what another (now deceased) person would have done? That's an unanswerable question, there's only speculation. The ethical question I see is whether it's right to unleash this upon the living. Though I suspect it will happen regardless.
- Beggers1960 6y ago"The ethical question I see is whether it's right to unleash this upon the living. Though I suspect it will happen regardless." Absolutely. Once the cat's out the bag it's difficult to get it back in there. What also concerns me is - as mentioned in the article - the psychological or emotional impact this could have on people. Not good at all.