Dmitry Itskov, 32, a Russian multimillionaire and former online media magnate, is investing into a  project, called the 2045 Initiative, for the year he hopes it is completed, envisions the mass production of lifelike, low-cost avatars that can be uploaded with the contents of a human brain, complete with all the particulars of consciousness and personality. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/business/dmitry-itskov-and-the-avatar-quest.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world  This would be a digital copy of your mind in a nonbiological carrier, a version of a fully sentient person that could live for hundreds or thousands of years. Or longer.
Roughly 30 speakers from these and other disciplines will appear at the second annual 2045 Global Future Congress on June 15 and 16 at Alice Tully Hall, in Lincoln Center in Manhattan.
Scientists are taking tiny, incremental steps toward melding humans and machine all the time. Ray Kurzweil, the futurist and now Google’s director of engineering, argued in “The Singularity Is Near,” a 2005 book, that technology is advancing exponentially and that “human life will be irreversibly transformed” to the point that there will be no difference between “human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.”
A few weeks ago, Mr. Itskov, wearing a Borelli blazer, traveled to the University of California, Berkeley, where a group of researchers and professors gave him a tour of their labs. The main point of his visit was to discuss a brain-related project that is now under wraps. That happened at a private dinner, and Mr. Itskov politely declined to say anything about it.
But the laws of supply and demand abide in Mr. Itskov’s utopia, and he assumes that once production of avatars is ramped up, costs will plunge. He also assumes that charities now devoted to feeding, clothing and healing the poor will focus on the goal of making and distributing affordable bodies, which in this case means machines.
Among the highlights of the congress at Lincoln Center will be the unveiling of what Mr. Itskov describes as the most sophisticated mechanical head in history. It is a replica of Mr. Itskov from the neck up, and it is now under construction in Plano, Tex., home of Hanson Robotics, a company founded by David Hanson, who has a doctorate in interactive arts and engineering and who has previously fabricated robotic heads for research labs around the world.
“Our leaders are focused on stability. We don’t have something which will unite the whole of humanity. The initiative will inspire people. It’s about changing the whole picture, and it’s not just a science-fiction book. It’s a strategy already being developed by scientists.”

We have seen this movie and, yes, it always leads to evil robots enslaving humanity, the Earth reduced to smoldering ruins.