There is a tremendous amount of good material in here, thanks...

The thing that I would like to see added is a perspective on how changeable, or malleable, WBEs would be, once created.

One of the main reasons I am challenging WBEs is because I think that brain emulations would be very easy to change, alter and improve along the axes of defined performance metrics.

If they will be highly malleable, those who wish to use them to generate productivity would instead use improved (neuromorphic) versions. Additionally, a WBE which had some control of its own make-up would consider improving itself.

I believe that we can show that WBEs would be very readily improvable and changeable. Once they are improved and changed enough, they are no longer WBEs and are instead neuromorphic entities.