Ruthanna Emrys' "Ghosts and Simulations": a facility to manage "uploaded consciousness" of clients!

Full text of this story is available for download.

Story summary.

Story describes "Personality Support Center" (PSC), a facility that will manage your uploaded consciousness after your death - for a periodic fee I suppose, though it's not mentioned - so your ghost can live for as long as you are willing to pay for keep! They apparently also have a hospital attached - though I wonder why anyone would bother going to a hospital that probably makes more profit from your death than life! Narrated by Jim, an employee.

They can take your backup, & create a digital simulation ("ghost") from one of the backup copies. You are encouraged to take frequent backups for more faithful restore; it's also profitable for PSC since you have to go there to get backed up.

The computer simulation can live its own life, interact in the society of other simulations, interact with those still in flesh lives via appropriate computer interfaces. It can even earn money in the world of flesh - e.g., by lecturing.

While this is not quite my kind of story, I must say it's one of the more comprehensible ones of the kind. If you have a taste for the thing, you may even like it.

Fact sheet.

"Ghosts and Simulations", short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 12 November 2007.
Rating: C