February 13, 2026
Uploads vs chatbots: ding ding!
MMAcevedo aka Lena by qntm
Sci‑fi brain upload ‘MMAcevedo’ returns: fans cheer, AI crowd scoffs, ethics cops rage
TLDR: qntm’s brain‑upload tale returns in a new collection, reigniting debate over immortality, consent, and whether the premise aged well. Fans gush and buy the book, skeptics say modern AI makes it outdated, and one outraged commenter calls for criminalizing mind‑copying—proof the story still hits cultural nerves.
qntm’s cult classic about the “first immortal” brain upload is back in a fresh collection, and the comments section is a boxing ring. One camp is in pure hype mode, shouting “Buy the book!” and geeking out over the inside joke that the title nods to the famous test image “Lenna” used in compression research link. They’re pointing to the new collection Valuable Humans in Transit, name‑dropping the sequel, and flexing their fandom for qntm’s other hit, the SCP Antimemetics saga.
Then the mood flips: a contrarian swings in to declare the story “obsolete,” arguing that today’s big chatbots (LLMs) make human brain uploads feel like yesterday’s future. That hot take detonates a broader vibe war: Is this about tech predictions, or the messy stuff—consent, identity, and what happens when a person becomes the internet’s “standard brain image”? The ethics crowd goes full siren, with one commenter calling for criminal prosecution of anyone trying to copy a mind. Meanwhile, jokesters dub MMAcevedo “the Lenna of brains,” imagining a world where your memories are just another download. Love it or hate it, the thread proves one thing: this story still knows how to live rent‑free in our heads—no upload required.
Key Points
- •MMAcevedo is the earliest executable image of a human brain, scanned on August 1, 2031, from Miguel Acevedo Álvarez at the Uplift Laboratory, University of New Mexico.
- •The original MMAcevedo file was 974.3 PiB in the MYBB format and has since been losslessly compressed to 6.75 TiB, with smaller lossy versions used in practice.
- •Acevedo and MMAcevedo received significant recognition, including Time’s Persons of the Year in 2031, and the breakthrough drew opposition from human rights groups.
- •Over 80 authorized duplicates were made by 2049, but later U.S. court rulings held Acevedo could not control the image’s use, leading to widespread, unauthorized distribution and analysis.
- •Acevedo died in 2073; emulations of MMAcevedo have accrued over 152 billion subjective years, with illicit copies increasing that total by an order of magnitude.