20 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
selfhoster11Apr 2022Recommends
With current trends of surveillance capitalism and nickle-and-diming for every single useful feature, I can only imagine mind-uploading getting closer to an eternal torture than a pleasant afterlife. Some interesting resources that explore this view, which also happen to fill me with existential horror at the prospect of being uploaded (especially against my will): Tom Scott's video "Welcome to Life: the singularity, ruined by lawyers": ▶ this video qntm's short story "Lena": [link] I can especially recommend "Lena". It's from the 'I have no mouth and I must scream' genre of horror.
in “The idea of uploading consciousness is misdirected narcissism” · View on HN
moffkalastAug 2026Cites it
Tom describes an LLM word for word 4 years before GPT3 "I think it's a long way off" Welp, I hope this one doesn't age similarly: ▶ this video
in “Guiding Ships with Moire Patterns” · View on HN
atleastoptimalApr 2026Cites it
The attitude is derived from a general animus many have towards AI companies. They resent the efficacy of AI because it devalues individual expertise. I can't imagine it really justifiable to say that training off data is the same as "stealing", when that same claim, that learned information that a person could retain and reproduce constitutes copyright infringement is the subject of many dystopian narratives, like this one, where once your brain is uploaded to the cloud you have to pay royalties based on every media product you remember. ▶ this video
in “Who owns the code Claude Code wrote?” · View on HN
jason_pomerleauApr 2025Cites it
> If they could, Disney would scan your brain to charge you a nickel every time you thought of Mickey Mouse. This reminds me of Tom Scott’s “Welcome to Life: The Singularity, Ruined by Lawyers” [1] [1] ▶ this video
in “An image of an archeologist adventurer who wears a hat and uses a bullwhip” · View on HN
jodrellblankMar 2024Cites it
I think this is an odd comment considering not even a week ago you posted " I'm hoping when I hit 80( mid 30s now), I'll be able to have my brain hooked up to the matrix or something. Would be awesome to effectively "live" for 500 years with options to pilot androids every now and then. " You want your brain connected directly to, effectively, the FaceBook MetaVerse/Googleverse but are afraid of Reddit knowing enough about you to show you adverts. See also: Tom Scott, "Life, the singularity ruined by lawyers": ▶ this video (3 minute video).
in “They're Reddit Die-Hards. Do They Want to Be Shareholders, Too?” · View on HN
dasyatidprimeOct 2023Cites it
The results don't exactly match your description, but a cloud-run self in which multiple plans are available and in which the implications of copyright enforcement and advertising-supported options figure prominently was depicted in the short video “Welcome to Life: the singularity, ruined by lawyers” on Tom Scott's channel. ▶ this video
in “RedPajama v2 Open Dataset with 30T Tokens for Training LLMs” · View on HN
Show 14 more comments
concordDanceDec 2022Cites it
> The questions about the copyright of models like DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc. exist solely because it infringes on the rights of thousands of random artists all around the world How does it infringe? Are your memories of a movie copyright infringement? ▶ this video
in “The Gates of Argonath from the LotR in VR @ 50 FPS on Unreal Engine” · View on HN
sinityNov 2022Cites it
> One day a robot is going to be walking around the world. Will it have to pay someone every time it glimpses a video / book / logo / car design / etc? Looking at all of the people happily deciding to interpret copyright as widely as possible is kinda horrifying in this context: ▶ this video > Your stored mind contains sections from 124,564 copyrighted works. In order to continue remembering these copyrighted works, a licensing fee of $18,000 per month is required. > Would you like to continue remembering these works? > [you have insufficient funds to pay this licencing fee] > Thank you. Please stand by. > [Copyrighted works are being deleted] > Welcome to Life. Do you wish to continue?
in “An unwilling illustrator found herself turned into an AI model” · View on HN
natchOct 2022Cites it
So, an AI Karen? >the generative AI system censors any output containing a category of error I can see the ruleset now… "This picture of a woman is revealing hair, so it must be censored because it is objectionable to some people and we must respect all people whose beliefs are guided in a sanctioned way." "This picture shows unadulterated fun, which must be censored because…" etc. ▶ this video
in “AI Data Laundering” · View on HN
NalNezumiAug 2022Cites it
> They will keep changing the narrative ad infinitum until everyone is dependent on them at birth. Welcome to life: ▶ this video
in “A golden age of consumer convenience is passing” · View on HN
jerfMay 2022Cites it
"any more than the life of the reader of a novel becomes a derived work of its story." I fear that is only a limitation of our current tech, rather than a bedrock foundation of our law: ▶ this video (see around 2:00, though the whole video is necessary for context)
in “Linking and Derivative Works (2004)” · View on HN
ducaaleDec 2021Cites it
This reminds me of Tom Scott's "Welcome to Life: the singularity, ruined by lawyers" video [1] [1] ▶ this video
in “Protected Content, Delete by Date, Device Management and more” · View on HN
SahAssarDec 2021Cites it
You are basically describing this old (2012) video, where this concept is applied to a brain-upload afterlife: ▶ this video
in “Protected Content, Delete by Date, Device Management and more” · View on HN
pdkl95Dec 2021Cites it
Tom Scott's speculative fiction about the end game of a DRM-based future: ▶ this video "Welcome to Life"
in “Protected Content, Delete by Date, Device Management and more” · View on HN
etiamSep 2019Cites it
There is certainly the disturbing possibility that "Welcome to Life" [ ▶ this video ] will rapidly be looking less and less like satire.
in “Brains are the last frontier of privacy” · View on HN
kybernetikosOct 2015Cites it
So, my concern about uploading my brain, is whose cloud service do you trust to run your consciousness? Google? Microsoft? Amazon? Facebook? Apple? The level of trust that I'd require is pretty high. You could imagine it once again being relevant to check the pedigree of a company. Ideally there'd be a cloud provider already running now that is known for its trustworthiness. 'established 2013' might actually mean something one day. My main hope is for indistinguishability encryption to reach the level where I wouldn't really have to trust the provider, but as long as you pay a significant performance penalty you're going to end up massively disadvantaged. ▶ this video
in “Will You Ever Be Able to Upload Your Brain?” · View on HN
spiritplumberApr 2015Cites it
A lot of people who post on my facebook wall seem to think that it's the beginning of the Singularity. ▶ this video I hope they're wrong if it looks like this.
in “It's not 1999” · View on HN
andyjohnson0Feb 2014Cites it
Of course, the question then of who to trust to be your cloud provider running your conciousness-as-a-service process becomes a very serious one. The main problem is the lawyers. ▶ this video
in “Ray Kurzweil is wrong: The Singularity is not near” · View on HN
porsupahMar 2013Cites it
Though, we might also wind up in the scenario depicted in the satirical three minute short, "Welcome to Life".. ▶ this video
in “Digital Comic Publisher Quits, Customers Lose All Their "Purchased" Titles” · View on HN
BuildTheRobotsMar 2015Joke
Slightly off topic, but I find it impossible to digest the phrase "Death Redesigned" without thinking of Tom Scott's Singularity: ▶ this video
in “Death Redesigned” · View on HN