'Avatar' could keep humans alive forever

London, Mar 1 (ANI): A Russian entrepreneur is looking forward to make human beings live forever by loading human brains into robotic bodies within the next 10 years.

The project has been named 'Avatar' after the James Cameron movie, set far in the future, where human soldiers use mind control to dwell in the bodies of human alien hybrids as they carry out a war against the inhabitants of a distant world.

Itskov, a media entrepreneur who heads the hi-tech research project, has claimed to have hired 100 scientists to reach this goal and is now looking for other scientists to help with the task.

"This project is leading down the road to immortality," the Daily Mail quoted Itskov as saying.

"A person with a perfect Avatar will be able to remain part of society. People don't want to die."

The 31-year-old asserted that his technology will be of interest at first to the 'disabled and close to dying'.

"I understand these are some very big challenges for scientists," Itskov said.

"But I believe in something you call 'The American Dream.' If you put all your energy and time into something, you can make it a reality."

Itskov envisions surgically 'transplanting' a human consciousness into a robot body within 10 years.

He then hopes to 'upload' minds without surgery, leaving human bodies as empty husks as their owners 'live on' inside robots.

"The next effort of science will be to create a new body for the human being," said Itskov.

"It will have a perfect brain-machine interface to allow control and a human brain life support system so the brain can survive outside the body."

"The third phase will be to create an artificial human brain ," he added - a computer environment into which human minds can be uploaded. (ANI)