When Andrew Kaplan recalls, his stories leave the impression that he has managed to pack multiple lives into a single existence: A war reporter in his 20s. an army member, a successful businessman and- later. the author of numerous spy novels and Hollywood scripts.
Now the silver haired 78-year old has realized he would like his loved ones to have access to those stories, even when he is no longer alive to share them. Kaplan has agreed to become "AndyBot"— a virtual person who will be: immortalized(T F5)in the cloud for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years
If all goes according to plan future generations will be able to interact with him using voice computing platforms of mobile devices, asking him questions, letting him tell stories and drawing upon a lifetime's worth of advice long after his physical body is gone.
Someday, Kaplan, who playfully refers to himself as a pig, may be remembered as one of the world's first digital humans.
For decades, Silicon Valley futurists have sought to free humanity from the life cycle. Today, a new generation of companies is selling some approximation(近似) of virtual immortality, which gives people the opportunity to preserve one's legacy(遗产) online forever.
Kaplan is eager to become one of the world's first virtual residents, partly because he considers the effort a way to extend closed family bonds over multiple generations.
If technology succeeds in creating emotionally intelligent digital humans, experts say, it may forever change the way living people cooperate with computers and experience loss. "AndyBot" may become one of the world's first: meaningful examples, raising complex philosophical questions about the nature of immortality and the purpose of existence itself.
