Brinson+Banks for The Washington Post
Will the rise of virtual beings be the next step in the human quest for immortality?
By Peter Holley | The Washington Post
When Andrew Kaplan reminisces, his engrossing tales leave the impression that he’s managed to pack multiple lives into a single existence: globe-trotting war correspondent in his 20s, a member of the Israeli army who fought in the Six-Day War, successful entrepreneur and, later, the author of numerous spy novels and Hollywood scripts.
Now — as the silver-haired 78-year-old unwinds with his wife of 39 years in a suburban oasis outside Palm Springs — he has realized he would like his loved ones to have access to those stories, even when he’s no longer alive to share them. Kaplan has agreed to become “AndyBot,” a virtual person who will be immortalized in the cloud for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years.
