全球首個'數字人'誕生 人類可在雲端永生不朽?

78-year-old Andrew Kaplan would like his loved ones to have access to his stories, even when he's no longer alive to share them: Globe-trotting war correspondent in his 20s, a member of the Israeli army who fought in the Six-Day War, successful entrepreneur and, later, author of numerous spy novels and Hollywood scripts.

78歲的安德魯·卡普蘭希望自己所愛的人能夠知道他的故事，即使那時他已經不在人世：20多歲時他是一名戰地記者，作爲以色列軍人蔘加過六日戰爭，後來成爲一名成功的企業家，再後來，成爲一名多產的間諜小說家以及好萊塢劇作家。

Kaplan has agreed to become "AndyBot," a virtual person who will be immortalized in the cloud for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years.

日前，卡普蘭已同意成爲“AndyBot”，一個將在雲端上永生數百年、甚至數千年的虛擬人。

If all goes according to plan, future generations will be able to "interact" with him using mobile devices or voice computing platforms, such as Amazon's Alexa, asking him questions, eliciting stories and drawing upon a lifetime's worth of advice long after his physical body is gone.

如果一切按照計劃進行，未來幾代人即使在他的肉身去世很久之後，仍能通過移動設備或亞馬遜的Alexa等語音計算平臺與他“互動”，向他提問，聽他講述故事，從他的一生經驗中獲得寶貴建議。

Someday, Kaplan -- who playfully refers to himself as a "guinea pig" -- may be remembered as one of the world's first "digital humans."

對卡普蘭開玩笑地稱自己爲"小白鼠"，有一天，他可能會作爲世界上第一個“數字人類”而被人們記住。

Today, a new generation of companies, like Eternime, Nectome and HereAfter, is hawking some approximation of virtual immortality -- the opportunity to preserve one's legacy online forever.

如今，像Eternime、Nectome和HereAfter這樣的新一代的公司正在兜售某種近似“虛擬不朽”的東西--即在網上永久保存個人遺產的機會。