while a huge admirer of mr ball’s work (and robin hanson’s economics/em-ovations), i fear they miss a fundamental point….doppelgangers and simulacra are emphatically NOT the way to digitally go….neither are ‘smarter’ agents….the ‘identical lives’ discussions/scenarios presented above represent the laziest path-of-least-resistance approach to ‘replicable consciousness’ one could take…..my view (links below) is that the ‘real future’ will be virtual/real worlds of ‘multiple selves’ — that is, ‘selves’ that highlight, emphasize, amplify, extend, augment, exaggerate even ‘caricature’ relevant aspects and attribute’s of one’s ‘self’ to become more effective, productive, valuable, etc….
….what would it mean to your quality of life and standard of living if you could dynamically collaborate with your ‘persuasive self’ and/or your ‘grateful self’ and/or your ‘creative self’ and/or ‘collaborative self’ and/or your ‘empathic self’…..? we live in an (increasingly) ‘quantified self’ era rich with data and algorithms….my essential argument/insight — informed by cognitive psychology, social psychology, behavioral economic and neurophysiological insights — is that the appropriate/better ‘unit of analysis’ is not ‘the self’ but ‘selves’…
not ‘self awareness’ but ‘selves awareness’….not ‘self discipline’ but ‘selves discipline’……not ‘self discovery’ but ‘selves discovery’…..wherever and whenever you see the word ‘self,’ substitute ‘selves’ in its stead….
think/imagine in terms of managing a ‘portfolio of selves’ rather than a (falsely and misleadingly) ‘holistic self’…..forget the sterile populations of identical replicants postulated above…..ask instead, how data-driven & algorithmically enriched versions of one’s ‘self’ can transform interaction and experience…..i think it very exciting and it’s the focus of my research
