The dark path to eternal life: Machiavellianism predicts approval of mind upload technology Laakasuo, Michael Rodríguez Hannikainen, Ivar Allan Moral psychology of transhumanism Utilitarianism Machiavellianism Dark triad Mind uploading Sexual disgust Moral cognition ML would like to thank Kaj Sotala for his support for Moralities of Intelligent Machines team and for providing the first version of the Mind Upload vignette. ML would like to thank all of his team members, who make this research possible. Special thanks to Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation (grant number: 170112) and Academy of Finland (grant number: 323207) for funding this research. This article is dedicated to ML’s mother: thank you for everything. May all the beings in all the worlds be happy. Mind upload, making a digital copy of one's brain, is a part of the transhumanistic dream of eternal life and the end of suffering. It is also perceived as a viable route toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). However, AI safety research has alerted to one major risk in creating AGI by mind upload: namely, that mind upload technology could appeal primarily to callous and selfish individuals who then abuse this technology for their personal gain—and, potentially, at a considerable cost to the welfare of humankind. Therefore, it is important to understand whether people's acceptance of mind upload is associated with pathological and/or antisocial traits. To this end, the present research examined whether individual differences in Dark Triad traits predict attitudes toward mind upload in a sample of 1007 English-speaking adults. A pre-registered structural equation model revealed that Machiavellianism (but not psychopathy) was associated with favorable views about mind upload, both directly and indirectly through utilitarian moral attitudes. These results therefore substantiate the concerns voiced by AI safety researchers—namely, that mind upload technology could be adopted disproportionately by individuals with an antisocial personality. 2021-05-05T12:14:26Z 2021-05-05T12:14:26Z 2021-07 journal article M. Laakasuo et al. The dark path to eternal life: Machiavellianism predicts approval of mind upload technology. Personality and Individual Differences 177 (2021) 110731 [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110731] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/68345 10.1016/j.paid.2021.110731 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ open access Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 España Elsevier