Stanley Bing, AKA Gil Schwartz, Talks About His New Book 'Immortal Life' And Digital Immortality

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - Will humans soon be immortal?

Best-selling author Stanley Bing - also known as CBS Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer Gil Schwartz - stopped by to discuss his new book "Immortal Life (A Soon-To-Be True Story)".

The novel takes place in an era when it is possible to download a human's consciousness into a digital form.

"If you think of the human brain as a kind of computer, that's the idea anyway, that they're working on, which is to back up the computer the way you would back up your laptop. And then once you've backed up the brain, the consciousness of people, you're just a few steps away from preserving that in the cloud. And then, as long as you find a good host for it later, you can live forever," Bing said.

Bing said that some of the changes his book forecasts may not be so far away.

"In some cases it could be a long time, but in a lot of cases I think it could be pretty close. I mean, look at the way the world has changed just in the last 20 years. I mean, we used to think the iPod was a terrifically futuristic thing, and now it's an antique, you see it in the Smithsonian."

Check out his complete interview with Mary Calvi in the video above.

The book is being published by Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS.