# Uploaded Minds Could Become an Explosively Reproducing Population by Nick Bostrom > “One obvious consequence of uploading is that many copies could be created of one uploaded mind. The limiting resource is computing power to store and run the upload minds. If enough computing hardware already exists or could rapidly be built, the upload population could undergo explosive growth: the replication time of an upload need be no longer than the time it takes to make a copy of a big piece of software, perhaps minutes or hours—a vast speed-up compared to biological human replication.” > **— Nick Bostrom**, *“The Future of Humanity,” 2009* ## Sources and Context - **Primary source:** [Nick Bostrom, “The Future of Humanity”](https://nickbostrom.com/papers/the-future-of-humanity/) — verifies the wording, attribution and immediate source setting. - **Interpretive context:** Bostrom treats uploading as a demographic and economic transition, not only an immortality proposal. Once a mind can be instantiated as software, reproduction speed becomes a function of available compute, making population growth and labor supply radically different from biological reproduction. - **Editorial treatment:** The complete three-sentence source unit is reproduced with typographic punctuation normalized. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]] - **Article:** [[articles/Mind Uploading and AI — The Host is Reusable and the Person is the Delta|Mind Uploading and AI — The Host Is Reusable and the Person Is the Delta]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Last Migration Will Not Be Human|The Last Migration Will Not Be Human]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/Digital Minds|Digital Minds]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Nick Bostrom|Nick Bostrom]] - [[wiki/Mind Uploading|Mind Uploading]] - [[wiki/Digital Personhood|Digital Personhood]] - [[wiki/Substrate Independence|Substrate Independence]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “One obvious consequence of uploading is that many copies could be created of one uploaded mind. The limiting resource is computing power to store and run the upload minds. If enough computing hardware already exists or could rapidly be built, the upload population could undergo explosive growth: the replication time of an upload need be no longer than the time it takes to make a copy of a big piece of software, perhaps minutes or hours—a vast speed-up compared to biological human replication.” — Nick Bostrom, “The Future of Humanity,” 2009 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-nick-bostrom-uploaded-minds-reproducing-population ```