Human Immortality in 33 Years Claims Dmitry Itskov’s 2045 Initiative

Twentieth Century Fox/AP Photo

Although James Cameron’s “Avatar” took place more than 140 years into the future, a Russian billionaire has teamed with  dozens of scientists to lay out a plan that would use avatars to transfer human consciousness into an artificial form. The goal:  human immortality by 2045.

The 2045 Initiative, a life-extension project founded by 31-year-old Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov in February 2011, offers a timeline for immortality over the next 33 years. Beginning with remotely controlled robotic avatars and re-creating the human brain through computer models, the end result would be human immortality in the form of holographic avatars.

The 2045 Initiative, which has  had a major social media blitz, brought together 30 top Russian scientists to develop the “imortal” technology, laying out  the plan for human immortality on its website.

“The first phase  is to create a humanoid robot dubbed ‘avatar,’ and a state-of-the-art brain-computer interface system. The next phase consists of creating a life-support system for the human brain and connect it to the ‘avatar.’ The final phase … is to create an artificial brain in which to transfer the original individual consciousness into,” reads the plan.

Got that?

Here’s the 2045 Initiative’s timeline for this feat:  

2015 – 2020: A robotic copy of a human body remotely controlled by a brain-computer interface

2020 – 2025: An avatar is created in which a human brain can be transplanted at the end of  life

2030 – 2035: An avatar that  can now contain an artificial brain in which a human personality can be transferred at the end of  life

 2040 – 2045:  A holographic avatar emerges

In addition to taking the Internet by storm, the 2045 Initiative has  also launched its own political party, called Evolution 2045, pushing a  new strategy for human development. The Russia-based party takes a global approach, encouraging other countries to follow in its footsteps “not in the arms race, but in the race for building a bright future for mankind.”

Last  month Itskov appealed to members of the Forbes World’s Billionaires List, urging  them  to take heed of  the “vital importance of funding scientific development in the field of cybernetic immortality and the artificial body.

“Contributing to cutting-edge innovations in the fields of neuroscience, nanotechnology and android robotics is more than building a brighter future for human civilization. [It's also] a wise and profitable business strategy that will create a new and vibrant industry of immortality — limitless in its importance and scale. This kind of investment will change every aspect of business as we know it,”  read Itskov’s open letter.

Itskov plans to host a Global Future Congress meeting next year in New York. A previous event was held last February in Moscow.

This  massive hypothetical technology would give the “new” mankind amazing survival abilities, according to the Initiative.

“The new human being will receive a huge range of abilities and will be capable of withstanding extreme external conditions easily: high temperatures, pressure, radiation, lack of oxygen,” claims the Initiative on its website.

And according to a slick video produced by the 2045 Initiative, once the hologram-like avatar reinvents mankind’s scientific and social structure, war and violence will go by the wayside as “spiritual self-improvement” becomes mankind’s primary goal.

But what about the average Joe who  just wants to live forever?

The cost of these avatars should be on par with that of an automobile, the Initiative’s website assures, as soon as mass production begins.

So start saving up.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Fox is not trading its film rights back to Marvel Studios

Twentieth Century Fox and Marvel Studios are currently negotiating a deal that could drastically alter the future of comic book movies.

When Marvel Comics opened a film wing (appropriately dubbed “Marvel Studios”) in an effort to grab a slice of the huge profits being made in the then-nascent comic book movie genre it was faced with a few issues. Sure the company has a massive catalogue of characters and stories to draw from to make its films, but the film rights to a number of its most popular heroes had already been sold to other production companies, long before superheroes proved to be box office gold. Twentieth Century Fox in particular had bought up a number of Marvel properties, including the X-Men, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four and a large number of secondary characters important to each franchise.

Now that Marvel Studios has established itself as a major Hollywood player, ready and willing to create huge blockbusters — need we again mention that The Avengers has pulled down almost $1.5 billion at the box office? — it wants those film rights back, if only to have the freedom to use the characters created by Marvel Comics as it sees fit.

This morning word broke that Fox had agreed to give Marvel the rights to Fantastic Four villain Galactus — you’ll remember him as the inexplicable giant purple cloud in Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer, or as an apocalyptic villain who eats planets in every other incarnation — as well as the Silver Surfer (pictured above), as part of a deal that would grant Fox the film rights to the Daredevil character for the foreseeable future. Fox has seemingly been planning to reboot its Daredevil film franchise in the wake of the disappointing (yet excellent in its “Director’s Cut” incarnation) 2003 Ben Affleck-starring Daredevil, but those plans have been put on the back burner ever since director David Slade stepped away from the hypothetical project. Joe Carnahan has since expressed interest in creating a Daredevil reboot at Fox, but Deadline believes that Fox’s confidence in Daredevil isn’t as high as it used to be, and that though the studio might agree to co-finance a Daredevil movie with Marvel Studios, it’s unlikely that Fox would mount the production by itself.

More crucially though, Deadline claims that its sources have strongly denied that Marvel and Fox are even having this discussion. Yes Fox is staring down a short timeline in which it must push a Daredevil film into production or forfeit the rights to the character back to Marvel, but as of yet, Deadline states, the two firms have yet to seriously discuss the possibility of swapping any of their respective film rights.

Unfortunately, the real losers in this situation are the fans. One of the cornerstones of Marvel’s popularity has always been that its characters live in a single, unified reality and that any one of them might bump into any other at any given moment. The Avengers was a great flick, but imagine how cool it would have been to see Spider-Man throwing punches alongside Captain America during the climactic fight. While we can’t really fault Marvel for selling off the film rights to its characters — these deals were all made back in the 1990s when Marvel was in very dire financial straits — it’s sad that the newly-minted Marvel Studios is unable to create a movie universe to truly rival its comic book universe simply because the publishing wing of the company needed cash during the Clinton administration.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com