Billionaire Sam Altman Pays Startup 'Nectome' USD 10,000 to Kill Him And Preserve His Brain

Billionaire Sam Altman is paying USD 10,000 to get killed so that his brain can be preserved forever. The President of Y Combinator is one among 25 people who are offering a refundable amount to join the waiting list at Nectome. Founded in 2016, by a pair of MIT AI researchers at Nectome hopes to offer a commercial application of a novel process for preserving brains, called "aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation". So in the process, the 32-year-old will have to die in physician-assisted suicide, which is only legal in five states in the United States.

Altman told MIT Technology Review, "I assume my brain will be uploaded to the cloud." The start-up even won two prizes from the Brain Preservation Foundation, for preserving a rabbit's brain in 2016 and a pig's brain in 2018.

Nectome had earlier said that it plans to connect people with a terminal illness who sign up for a heart and lung machine and pump the embalming mixture into the arteries in their necks under general anesthesia while they are alive. The practice would be a physician-assisted suicide. In that case, the individual must have a terminal illness and have been told they will only have for six months or less to live.

The idea of uploading the human brain into computers or storing it on the cloud is gaining popularity among Silicone Valley scientists. However, the downside of Nectome is that it does not have an actual method or reviving of uploading the brain it stores. According to the website, they hope to demonstrate a fully uploaded simulation of "a biological neural network" around 2024.

Here is how the contents of his brain can be digitally uploaded on Cloud and preserved forever:

According to the MIT Technology Review, the process that Altman has signed up involves embalming the brain so it can later be simulated onto a computer. The live person is hooked up to a machine and then injected with Nectome's embalming chemicals. The company said its method is '100 percent fatal.'

For the vitrification process to preserve a brain for accurate upload or revival, it has to be carried out at the moment of death. For which, "the subject/customer/victim has the blood flow to their brain replaced with the embalming chemicals that preserve the neuronal structure, even as they kill the patient".

Nectome's co-founder Robert McIntyre told the Review, "The user experience will be identical to physician-assisted suicide." Ironically, the company Altman founded, Y Combinator funds startups like Nectome.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 15, 2018 04:57 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).