[Scifi mixes reality with fiction] In an effort to extend human life unto the heat death of the universe known as the Singularity, researchers at Cambridge have done experiments linking brains to computer chips: https://www.cambridgeconsultants.com/us/press-releases/breakthrough-unlocks-progress-brain-chip-technology . In experiments that would do Dr. Frankenstein proud, they have grown brains in the lab: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/lab-grown-mini-brains-hint-at-treatments-for-neurodegenerative-diseases It saves all the time of having to go out and actually find brains to work on, or worry about your assistants mixing up brains. Besides the last thing you want as to happen when swapping your brain to another body is for Igor to mix up which brains go in which body. Instead of waking up as the genetically enhanced guy in charge, you could be someone he’s in charge of… and maybe not even a guy at all… which frankly is an embarrassing way to spend your next 170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years of servitude.
Those who formed Singularity thought the only problem would be creating it and making sure that their rule would be unchallenged. The singularity was easily achieved in the mid 21rst century, and those who were rich and powerful remained rich and powerful. Those who could not afford this technology perished, so the rat race became more intense with some struggling as hard as they could to acquire the money to “immortalize themselves” into the Singularity. This normally resulting in much criminality and corruption which is common with people acquiring this much wealth and not helping those around them with generosity. Once they got in, linking consciousness and brain to a binary computer, things went seemingly well for them until the abberation and the expectable unexpected happened.
It turns out that you could link brain and consciousness both to a binary computer, but once your brain completely biodegraded to nothing, all you are left with is consciousness and a binary computer. The powerful leaders of the world were still themselves inside a robot, but they were no longer capable of original ideas or free thinking, their minds became limited to the programming that was upon the computer. Attempts to grow brains and reattach them to the consciousness left in the binary computers was to no avail, it was a one way transfer of information that could not be reconstructed back to humanity. Yes, they knew they were themselves, they had self awareness. But they had no power to make their own decisions, they have become souls living binary existence without freewill in robots. This became known as the Binularity and to the World Leaders of the 21rst century it became a terrifying and tortured existence, almost as terrifying to them as the thought of not being the one in charge.