A digital person is a person running on digital computing hardware.
As Holden Karnofsky uses the term, "digital person" may refer to human whole brain emulations as well as digital "descendants" of humans.[1] According to Karnofsky, digital people would have the same moral standing as humans (cf. moral patient), would accelerate economic growth and scientific progress, and could cause a "lock-in" of values. For this reason, Karnofsky considers the emergence of digital people a transformative development, as well as one that, because of advances in artificial intelligence, could occur this century—making it potentially the most important one in human history.[2]