From engaging with "Commander Data" as a colleague, to future aggressors being machines like the Terminator, the Borg or Hal, the idea that computers will become more like humans and engage with us more naturally that a keyboard and mouse has generally been the area of science fiction.  But in some respects the reality is closer than we think, from the chatbot you use on a company Facebook page, to the experimentation that is going on to capture, not only what people think, but the way people think is very much on todays agenda.  This interview with David Burden, MD of Daden Ltd (https://www.daden.co.uk/) , and co-author of the book, Virtual Humans highlights the current development, but also a lot of the issues that have come to the surface as a result, including digital immortality and the ethics of using the data that is derived.




The book and more information about the work that David and Maggie Savin-Baden have been doing can be found here: http://virtualhumansbook.blogspot.com/