It may sound like science fiction, but the fact is that there is a project whose ultimate goal is to achieve something like the immortality of the human being. This project is called Initiative 2045, although it is also known as Avatar, and is powered by Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov. The biggest obstacle is the technology to make it happens, because no one has yet developed the ability to transfer the individual consciousness to robots and holograms, which is ultimately what Itskov and his team of scientists are looking for.

The Russian billionaire, only 32 years old —Image Unknown Author

To achieve this goal four phases are planned: 1) Avatar A, which will take place between 2015 and 2020, in which we can control a robot with the mind; 2) Avatar B, between 2020 and 2025, in which be able to transplant the brain of a person —at the end of his life— to a robot, 3) Avatar C, between 2030 and 2035, in which we will create an android with an artificial brain, to be provisioned awareness, memories and knowledge of a person before die; and 4) Avatar D, between 2035 and 2045, the last phase in which our mind may be transferred to a hologram, without the limitations of biology, to which we are now subjected.

Itskov, just 32, is convinced that the cybernetic immortality can be attained, and it is devoting his life. He boasts that this project is supported by the Dalai Lama and, as said in an interview for Muy Interesante magazine, its intention is ‘to build a society where people are able to live in abundance and for a long time, not only in our planet. Although we are already technically capable of sending settlers to the Moon and Mars, with our biological endowment will not survive there for long. Artificial bodies, however, would become futurnauts, early settlers, the conquerors of the Universe. So we no need to eat or drink, we survive extreme heat and cold and we would adapt to the high and low pressures’.

Roy Batty could become reality as an Avatar C instead of a Nexus 6, and even been improved as an Avatar D —’Blade Runner’, Ridley Scott, 1982

The Avatar Project emphasizes that all is part of the evolution: it is the last step to reach the higher stage. It will be born a wiser, peaceful and fairer humanity. The idea, today, seems utopian. ‘Civilization has become unthinkable technologies into reality; it is not a fantasy’, insists Itskov. Will we be able to become beings of light? The answer is coming soon.