If reconstructive uploading will eventually be possible, how can one ensure that it happens? There have been billions of humans in the history of the planet. It is not clear that our successors will want to reconstruct every person who ever lived, or even every person of whom there are records. So if one is interested in immortality, how can one maximize the chances of reconstruction? One might try keeping a bank account with compound interest to pay them for doing so, but it is hard to know whether our financial system will be relevant in the future, especially after an intelligence explosion.

My own strategy is to write about a future of artificial intelligence and about uploading. Perhaps this will encourage our successors to reconstruct me, if only to prove me wrong.

David Chalmers, ‘Uploading: A Philosophical Analysis’, in Russell Blackford & Damien Broderick (eds.), Intelligence Unbound: the Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, Chichester, West Sussex, 2014, p. 116