There have been a number of booths at the CES 2018 and we have seen a number of new releases from different companies but none of them were as bizarre or disturbing and intriguing at the same time as the one by Netflix. People crowded around the Psychasec setup and had mixed reactions. Some were intrigued by the idea of lifeless human forms on display while others found it disturbing.
Exhibitors dressed in white without nametags were selling the idea of immortality via a plan to upload human consciousness to “human sleeves“. These can be of any design that you desire. They concluded with a display of a fresh sleeve named Joel inside a sealed vacuum bag who was breathing and eating through a tube.
Visitors who went through the tour were shown a trailer for a Netflix show called Altered Carbon and were given branded goodie bags that contained cortical stack aftercare gel. Some people even went around plastering posters to boycott Psychasec.
Regarding the human sleeves shown in the cases, a guide said, “These are 100 percent genetically home-grown organic sleeves – the sleeve is your body. These are made of skin, tissue, muscle, bone, nervous system, cells, everything that we have to generate ourselves to make our movements, these are made up of. These are conscious-less sleeves right now. We’ve developed a way to put your consciousness into these sleeves. Now, these sleeves can be genetically designed to be whatever you like. You can have a sleeve of yourself, you can have a sleeve genetically designed to whatever you want: Taller, shorter, musclier, better vision, faster, any race or any gender, with your mind.”
The system works on something that is called the cortical stack. This is a small device that is inserted into the base of the spine of the sleeve. This stack then interacts with the nervous system to “essentially download your memories, or you, onto this device like backup hard drive.” This is the same as the iPhone users do with the cloud said a presenter. “The same thing, this will back up you – everything that makes up your personality. The emotion, every memory, everything that is you is stored onto this cortical stack.”
The information that has been downloaded can be transferred to the human sleeve by a technique called needle casting. The sleeves are made from biological material and are prone to disease and injury much like humans. But, a person could transfer the information to a newer body whenever required, “therefore creating immortality – you let your mind live on.”
The dystopian sci-fi Altered Carbon is set to premiere on Netflix on February 2nd. It may be a controversial topic, but it was an exhibition that all the attendees would never forget and that was what Netflix was hoping to achieve. You can see the video here:
