Permission for mind uploading via online files

Kaj_Sotala

Giulio Prisco made a blog post giving permission to use the data in his Gmail account to reconstruct an uploaded copy of him.

To whom it may concern:

I am writing this in 2010. My Gmail account has more than 5GB of data, which contain some information about me and also some information about the persons I have exchanged email with, including some personal and private information.

I am assuming that in 2060 (50 years from now), my Gmail account will have hundreds or thousands of TB of data, which will contain a lot of information about me and the persons I exchanged email with, including a lot of personal and private information. I am also assuming that, in 2060:

1) The data in the accounts of all Gmail users since 2004 is available.
2) AI-based mindware technology able to reconstruct individual mindfiles by analyzing the information in their aggregate Gmail accounts and other available information, with sufficient accuracy for mind uploading via detailed personality reconstruction, is available.
3) The technology to crack Gmail passwords is available, but illegal without the consent of the account owners (or their heirs).
4) Many of today's Gmail users, including myself, are already dead and cannot give permission to use the data in their accounts.

If all assumptions above are correct, I hereby give permission to Google and/or other parties to read all data in my Gmail account and use them together with other available information to reconstruct my mindfile with sufficient accuracy for mind uploading via detailed personality reconstruction, and express my wish that they do so.

Signed by Giulio Prisco on September 28, 2010, and witnessed by readers.

NOTE: The accuracy of the process outlined above increases with the number of persons who give their permission to do the same. You can give your permission in comments, Twitter or other public spaces.

Ben Goertzel copied the post and gave the same permission on his own blog. I made some substantial changes, such as adding a caveat to exclude the possibility of torture worlds (unlikely I know, but can't hurt), and likewise gave permission in my blog. Anders Sandberg comments on the thing.

Giulio Prisco made a blog post giving permission to use the data in his Gmail account to reconstruct an uploaded copy of him.

To whom it may concern:

I am writing this in 2010. My Gmail account has more than 5GB of data, which contain some information about me and also some information about the persons I have exchanged email with, including some personal and private information.

I am assuming that in 2060 (50 years from now), my Gmail account will have hundreds or thousands of TB of data, which will contain a lot of information about me and the persons I exchanged email with, including a lot of personal and private information. I am also assuming that, in 2060:

1) The data in the accounts of all Gmail users since 2004 is available.
2) AI-based mindware technology able to reconstruct individual mindfiles by analyzing the information in their aggregate Gmail accounts and other available information, with sufficient accuracy for mind uploading via detailed personality reconstruction, is available.
3) The technology to crack Gmail passwords is available, but illegal without the consent of the account owners (or their heirs).
4) Many of today's Gmail users, including myself, are already dead and cannot give permission to use the data in their accounts.

If all assumptions above are correct, I hereby give permission to Google and/or other parties to read all data in my Gmail account and use them together with other available information to reconstruct my mindfile with sufficient accuracy for mind uploading via detailed personality reconstruction, and express my wish that they do so.

Signed by Giulio Prisco on September 28, 2010, and witnessed by readers.

NOTE: The accuracy of the process outlined above increases with the number of persons who give their permission to do the same. You can give your permission in comments, Twitter or other public spaces.

Recreating a person from haphazard data would almost certainly be impossible without a FAI, and with FAI you don't need to make wishes, it knows better whether you should've wished something or not.

This is probably true, though there's still the possibility of e.g. the FAI having low confidence of what I'd have wished, and the values of the population being such that it chooses to err on the side of not making copies when there's uncertainty. Not the scenario I'd assign a terribly high probability on, but then explicitly giving permission also only took some minutes or so.