The Immortality Trap: Are Digital Afterlives & "Living" Forever Worth The Risks?

The Take Film TV Movie

We might one day soon have the option to live forever, but… is that even a good thing? And what would it really look like in practice? Let’s take a look at some examples from on screen,...

Transcript

00:00Humans have always had fantastical ideas about what might happen to us

00:04after we shuffle off this mortal coil. In our modern era, technology seems to be on its way to

00:11giving us the option to bring these wild ideas into reality, from preservation to maybe never

00:18truly dying at all. This is on the one hand exciting to a lot of people. Death is one of

00:25the things we as humans least understand and are least able to control.

00:30This is what happens when you die. That is what happens when he dies.

00:34And that is what happens when they die. It's all very personal.

00:38But on the other hand, it also opens up a whole lot of questions around

00:42technological capabilities and ethics. We might one day soon have the option to live forever,

00:49but is that a good thing? And what would it really look like in practice?

00:54Let's take a look at some of the examples from on screen and in real life,

00:58to get a deeper understanding of the issue.

01:00Uploaded to the cloud sounds like heaven.

01:04I guess.

01:05Death is one of the biggest mysteries of life. We don't know what happens before we get here,

01:10or what happens after. And the question of what might happen, where we might go,

01:16who we might meet, and who we might become, has been of major interest to everyone to some degree

01:22or another across human history. And maybe the whole world will remember you,

01:27or maybe just a couple of people, but you do what you can to make sure you're still around

01:32after you're gone. The not knowing can of course develop into a fear of that unknown,

01:37and to seeing death as an inevitable lurking horror. But, curious and creative creatures that we are,

01:45humans have also come up with lots of other ideas about how things might play out.

01:50Oh, it looks like paradise, but it's actually a filthy dumpster full of our worst anxieties.

01:58Many of the most enduring visions of the afterlife come from various religions,

02:02often seeing the afterlife as either a sort of next step or a reward,

02:07or punishment, for the choices made while earthbound.

02:10We're very unhappy. What did you expect? You're dead.

02:14When this version of the afterlife appears on screen, it's usually when a character is in an

02:18in-between state. They've almost died and are given one more chance at life and to make better

02:24choices. Or other times they're just making their case as to why, even if they weren't perfect,

02:30they still deserve to get into the better place. And sometimes they even end up battling or bargaining

02:35with a god or gods themselves.

02:45On screen, the afterlife and space between life and death is used as a way to unpack

02:51our fears and anxieties around our waking lives.

02:55I need you to tell Molly what I'm saying, but you have to tell her word for word, all right?

03:00Molly, you're in danger.

03:01Now you can't just blurt it out like that.

03:03Ghosts are generally a great metaphor for some of our biggest internal struggles.

03:07They're stuck in this uncomfortable, confusing space until they can figure out what it is

03:12specifically that's holding them back, so that they can finally deal with their unfinished business

03:17and move on.

03:18It's amazing, Molly. The love inside. Take it with you.

03:25The sixth sense, for example, brings this problem to life. Well, kind of. With the many ghosts that

03:30Cole sees.

03:32You see ghosts, Cole?

03:36They want me to do things for them.

03:38Their ability to move on is based on their ability to accept the truth of their situation,

03:43which isn't always easy.

03:45They don't see each other.

03:48They only see what they want to see.

03:52They don't know they're dead.

03:54Malcolm only comes to find that he himself has been on this journey for the entire film

03:59at the very end.

04:00I think I can go now.

04:03I needed to help someone.

04:08I think I did.

04:10Another major theme we see around ghost stories is actually about the still-living

04:14person learning to let go. Of course, so many of our ideas around death and what will happen to us

04:19afterwards were developed when we didn't have any control over either of those two variables.

04:24But now? That might be starting to change.

04:28For much of history, we've tried to use the technology we develop not necessarily to control

04:33what happens after death, but instead to try to not die in the first place.

04:38Billionaire Brian Johnson regularly makes headlines for his weird,

04:42and sometimes creepy, attempts to reduce his age and live forever, for example.

04:47He seems particularly obsessed with getting back to the body and mind space occupied by his young son.

04:53Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?

04:57Younger.

04:58More beautiful.

05:00More perfect.

05:01Cryonics is one of the older, modern forms of attempting to cheat death.

05:05Praising oneself for one's brain in the hopes that one day, technology will advance enough that

05:11someone will be able to bring you back to life.

05:13It's often thought of as a bit of a relic of decades past.

05:16Most people associate it with the urban legend that Walt Disney had himself frozen.

05:20Which isn't true by the way, he was actually cremated.

05:23But it is still happening.

05:25Or at least people are still trying to make it happen.

05:28Failing an avenue to rewind time in their own bodies,

05:31others will take to transferring their consciousness, the part of us that makes us,

05:36us, into a younger body.

05:38On screen, this desire to cheat death by turning back the clock sometimes plays out like Brian's real

05:43life.

05:44With some obscenely rich person who is unable to deal with the fact that they can't control everything,

05:49focusing their entire life around this one goal.

05:51It never works, but that doesn't stop them from trying.

05:54The Substance explores how this desire, this need to escape the ravages of age,

05:59and the endless march towards the end, can literally tear you apart.

06:04Elizabeth, an aging actress and TV presenter who has found herself getting the axe so that the

06:09studio can replace her with someone younger, turns to a drastic measure.

06:13One single injection unlocks your DNA, starting a new cellular division that will release another

06:21version of yourself.

06:23It does create a version of her that is younger, but at a cost that's too high to sustain.

06:30So I'm just looking for the procedure to reverse it.

06:32What has been used on one side is lost on the other side. There's no going back.

06:38While we may not have secret warehouse juice that makes a hot girl rip her way out of our bodies,

06:44our real-world attempts to cheat death are also fraught with their own issues.

06:48In her piece on modern cryonics for the BBC, Charlotte Lytton writes,

06:52While cryonics proponents hope that a cure for the ailment that killed the patient

06:56would have been found by the time they returned to life, there is no guarantee.

07:01Nor that something else wouldn't immediately curtail the time on Earth the second time around.

07:06There's also the matter of the inordinate cost, with many families likely none too pleased about

07:11having their inheritance spent on the ultimate longshot.

07:15Now, as technology advances further and faster, some are looking to forego their human bodies

07:21altogether, and instead totally leave the concerns of our mortal world behind by uploading

07:28their consciousness into the digital world.

07:31But I'm not real, though. Is that right? You are real and I'm not?

07:36Dr. Hamby told us you were in a simulation.

07:39At first, a digital afterlife sounds great. You get to plan it out ahead of time and make

07:45the choice to go yourself. And you get to live knowing exactly what's going to happen to you

07:50after you're not so living anymore.

07:52I guess I'm ready.

07:55For what?

07:57For the rest of it.

07:58San Junipero became a beloved episode of Black Mirror because its twist was one that the show

08:03had never done before. A happy ending. San Junipero is a simulated reality that both the living and

08:10the dead can inhabit. People can choose to be uploaded there permanently after they die, if they wish.

08:17In the end, this provides a way for Kelly and Yorkie to be together in a way they wouldn't have had the

08:22option to in the real world, as Yorkie didn't have much time left in the land of the living.

08:27In San Junipero, they're able to continue their love story for eternity.

08:32But in practice, things aren't likely to be so rosy.

08:36Of course, as with everything digital, all of that data has to be stored somewhere and controlled by

08:43someone. The only people who have the money and resources to even think about building out a

08:48digital otherworld are the same tech oligarchs who are currently destroying our actual world.

08:54So this means that your eternity would be in the hands of some very concerning people,

08:59who would have the ability to change, or even shut off, your afterlife at their own whims.

09:04There's a running theme within mind-uploading media that hits on this very problem.

09:09From the X-Files to Pantheon and beyond.

09:12Once you're uploaded, they're in control of everything you're able to do.

09:24There's also the payment barrier. Servers cost money to run,

09:28so you'll be paying a lot to make sure that you get to keep running forever.

09:32TV show Upload shows how messed up this would be in practice with the so-called 2 gigs.

09:38People who only have 2 gigabytes of data per month because that's all they can afford.

09:42They just have to make the most of the little time they have before they're

09:46frozen until the cap resets the next month.

09:49While our live-to-work society certainly can make it feel like we're owned by corporations,

09:54uploading the literal essence of our conscious selves into their servers,

09:58and essentially being forced to subscribe to our own existence in perpetuity,

10:02would certainly take that to another level.

10:05While we don't yet have the technology to actually upload our consciousness to the cloud,

10:11AI is allowing the living to create a simulacrum of a world where it is possible for the living to

10:18keep versions of us around. There's a growing trend of creating so-called AI copies of loved ones who have

10:25passed on, to allow the living to continue to interact with something that kind of feels like them.

10:32While this may help alleviate the initial grieving process,

10:35there are concerns that it may hinder long-term healing and acceptance of reality.

10:41As research is already finding that AI-altered fake versions of things can replace our real

10:46memories of the same things, it's possible that these fake versions of loved ones could actually come

10:52to totally rewrite and replace one's memories of the deceased. A 2025 study found that,

10:58exposure to AI-altered images substantially increases the likelihood of false memory formation,

11:04with participants exposed to such content exhibiting a markedly higher propensity to report

11:09inaccurate recollections compared to those who viewed unedited control images. This effect was even

11:14more pronounced when participants were presented with AI-generated videos based on AI-edited images,

11:20suggesting that dynamic AI media significantly amplifies memory distortion. Perhaps most

11:27concerning, participants reported high levels of confidence in their false memories, particularly in

11:33the AI-generated video conditions. Instead of creating a digital afterlife for the dead,

11:39it seems that technology is instead creating a new trap for the living.

11:44Professor Mary Frances Conner explained to CNN,

11:47When we bond with a loved one, when we fall in love with someone, the brain encodes that person

11:52as, I will always be there for you and you will always be there for me. When they die,

11:57our brain has to understand that this person isn't coming back. Though the allure of seeing a version

12:04of a past loved one again is hard to turn away from, not everyone is buying in. Asked if he would ever

12:11use AI to try to bring back his fiancé? A software engineer told CNN,

12:16She cannot be replaced. She cannot be recreated. I'm also lucky to have some recordings of her

12:21singing and of her speech. But I absolutely do not want to hear her voice coming out of a robot

12:28pretending to be her. Upload ends with Nora having to make a similar choice. After accepting Nathan's

12:34death and beginning to move on, she gets a notification that a version of him was salvaged,

12:41meaning she has the opportunity to bring that version of his upload back. We don't get to see

12:46what choice she makes, but given all of her growth over the course of the show, we can only hope that

12:53she's decided to live her life in the world of the living while she still can.

12:58Because life isn't perfect, but life is the most magical gift there is.

13:03As much as we might want to hold on forever, death is an important part of our experience of life.

13:10You said that every human is a little bit sad all the time because you know you're gonna die.

13:16But that knowledge is what gives life meaning.

13:20There's even a long-running theme in literature and media to this end,

13:24where immortal beings give up their ability to live forever so that they can fully experience

13:29what it means to be human, the mystery of what comes next. And the not knowing when we're going

13:36to be making that transition is what adds the spark to our lives.

13:41I won't exactly know what's going to happen after I die. Nothing more human than that.

13:47Besides texting people that you're five minutes away when you haven't even left the house.

13:52That's the take. Click here to watch the video we think you'll love.

13:55Or here to check out a whole playlist of awesome content.

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