Russian Billionaire Dmitry Itskov Plans on Becoming Immortal by 2045

Itskov modeled as an avatar at Russia 2045's 2012 conference, via its Facebook page.

Dmitry Itskov wants to live forever. The 32-year-old Russian billionaire and media mogul thinks he can do this by building himself (and everyone) an android body by the year 2045.

There are a few flaws to Itskov’s idea, but that hasn’t stopped more than 20,000 people from publicly supporting the site, which outlines his plan of using android bodies for immortality. Dubbed the 2045 Initiative, Itskov is selling his idea as the "next step" in human evolution, or "neohumanity," as he refers to it.

It doesn't stop with android bodies, either. The 2045 folks are also calling for a new religion and set of ethics because they don’t believe any of the current ones can handle the societal implications of living forever—as most of the current ones have you dying first in order to achieve immortality.

Itskov has also gone ahead and registered his own political party in Russia called Evolution 2045.

But let’s back up a second. How exactly does Itskov plan to become immortal?

"The main science megaproject of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of [an] individual’s personality to a more advanced nonbiological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality," reads his site.

Itskov is calling his artificial "advanced nonbiological carrier" body an "avatar," which is controlled by a “brain-computer interface.” It functions more or less like the fake bodies in the 2009 James Cameron movie of the same name. Did Itskov get his idea from watching the movie?

Read the rest over at the new Motherboard.VICE.com.