The Virtual Ghost Trope In Science Fiction, Explained
Uploading the consciousness of a human being to a computer is a tricky proposition. Is it possible to give a machine the free will of a person's consciousness or is it just being programmed to mimic a person perfectly? But, what if all someone wanted was a digital copy that could keep their spirit alive?
A ton of speculative fiction has played with the idea of rendering death an impermanent inconvenience. The fantasy genre has magic spells and spiritual reincarnation, but sci-fi has to make do with highly advanced medicine and uploading brains to computers. Some solutions are less elegant than others.
The Rogue AI Trope in Sci-Fi, Explained
The Virtual Ghost is an artificial intelligence, computer program, or hologram designed to mirror the behavior of someone who has died. Sometimes it's a fully conscious continuation of the dearly departed subjects, other times it's just a standard AI assistant with a personality. If the subject is still alive within the program, they may be less than thrilled about their permanent imprisonment within the machine. This essentially gives the writer the power to bring a character back from the dead in a helpful side role. They can act as a mentor to the other characters, run the machinery while the heroes do their thing, or just hang around as friendly faces in an otherwise cold world. This is similar, though distinctly different to something like an uploaded consciousness iteration of the afterlife. The virtual ghost might live on after death, but they aren't going to any great beyond, they're staying right where they were.
One of the most popular examples of this trope comes in stories about Superman. The original superhero who was sent from his home planet of Krypton and raised on Earth
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