Earlier this week I wrote about whether AI might someday attain intelligence. Maybe even consciousness. That question alone is enough to keep philosophers, technologists and late-night podcast hosts busy for years.
In this op-ed, I want to look at the mirror image of that question.
Instead of asking whether machines can become more human, what happens if humans try to become more like machines?
More specifically, can humans attain some form of immortality through AI?
If you step back for a moment, there is a certain symmetry here. For most of human history, humanity has followed religions, belief systems and spiritual traditions that offered some version of an afterlife. Some promise heaven. Others promise reincarnation. Some speak of the soul continuing in ways we cannot fully understand.
For thousands of years, when humans searched for immortality, we looked upward.
Now, just a few short years into the AI era, some people appear to be looking toward technology for the same thing.
Before anyone gets upset, let me be clear about something. I am not criticizing anyone’s faith or suggesting technology is replacing religion. Faith traditions are deeply personal and meaningful to billions of people. What I am pointing out is simply that a new line of thinking is emerging in the tech world. Some people are starting to explore whether technology could offer its own version of a digital afterlife.
And believe it or not, there are already companies trying to build exactly that.
Companies like HereAfter AI allow people to record interviews about their lives while they are still alive. Stories about childhood, relationships, career, and life lessons. After the person dies, family members can ask questions and the AI responds using those recorded memories.
StoryFile takes a slightly different approach. It creates interactive video avatars that respond to questions using pre-recorded answers. The technology was originally used to preserve the testimonies of Holocaust survivors so future generations could interact with their stories.
Then there are more ambitious efforts like Eternime, which attempts to build a digital twin of a person by training AI models on emails, social media posts, voice recordings and personal writings.
Even AI companion platforms such as Replika are sometimes used by people trying to recreate conversations with loved ones who have passed away.
Researchers have started referring to these systems with names like digital immortality, grief tech or even deadbots.
In other words, this is not theoretical anymore. People are actively building products around it.
From what I have seen so far, there are really two different models emerging in this space.
The first is relatively straightforward. These systems extend a person’s digital presence after death.
Your personality, your speech patterns, your memories, your stories. All of that gets captured as data and used to power a chatbot or avatar that people can interact with after you are gone.
Your friends might still see posts from your social media accounts. Your family might ask “you” questions and get answers based on the things you said while you were alive. The AI keeps your digital identity active.
Let me be honest about how I see this.
It is not immortality.
You are still gone. Physically and consciously. What remains is a digital echo. A personality replay trained on your past behavior.
If that gives comfort to people who miss someone they love, I am not going to object. Grief is complicated and people find solace in different ways.
But from a technological standpoint, it feels a bit like a parlor trick.
The second model is where things get far more interesting.
Instead of simulating your personality, the goal here is to somehow transfer your essence into a digital environment.
And that immediately raises a whole series of uncomfortable questions.
What exactly would be transferred?
Your intelligence?
Your memories?
Your consciousness?
Dare I say it, your soul?
Some researchers call this mind uploading or whole brain emulation. The theory is that if we could map the structure of the human brain in sufficient detail, it might be possible to recreate that structure inside a computer.
If that happened, would the digital version actually be you?
Or would it simply be a copy?
Would you experience awareness inside that machine?
Would you know that your biological body had stopped functioning?
At that point, the definition of “living” itself becomes something we would probably argue about for decades.
I know this whole discussion starts to sound a little like the red pill, blue pill moment from The Matrix. And I also recognize that for people of faith, the idea of technology attempting to replicate an afterlife may feel difficult to reconcile with religious beliefs.
That is not my intention.
What fascinates me is the philosophical mirror this creates.
Right now, we are debating whether AI can become intelligent. Whether it might someday become conscious. Whether machines could ever think the way humans do.
Those are big questions.
But if we are willing to explore that direction, we also need to think about the reverse.
Could humans someday exist inside machines?
Could digital systems become our next bodies?
Could technology extend human life in ways that biology never could?
I do not know the answers to any of those questions. I am not even sure humanity has the tools yet to fully define things like intelligence or consciousness.
But the fact that serious people are beginning to explore these ideas says something important about the moment we are living in.
For thousands of years, humans have imagined immortality.
Now, for the first time, some people are trying to engineer it.
Whether it ever works is almost beside the point.
The remarkable thing is that we are alive at a moment when questions like this are no longer confined to religion, philosophy or science fiction.
They are starting to show up in product roadmaps.
