By Laura Spinney
Publication Date: 2026-05-31 11:00:00
A A few months ago, an AI researcher from Europe attended a dinner party in Silicon Valley. At one of the numerous courses, the host addressed his guests, all of whom work in the field of AI. The researcher paraphrased his message: “Isn’t it amazing that we are the last generation of people who have to think about biological reproduction? We were lucky to be born at a time when we can simply upload our consciousness instead.”
“I didn’t expect that,” the researcher told me. “I just enjoyed my fish.”
But the host was serious. His words seemed to the researcher like a comment that a well-informed person would have made 100 years ago, after the invention of antibiotics: “Aren’t we lucky that we came? after?”
Suddenly all the guests were talking about “mind children” and the researcher turned to his neighbor to ask what that phrase meant. “He said, ‘Oh, that’s the book,’ and, ‘Haven’t you read the book?’ and: “Oh my God, you…
