Omar Hamdy arrives home after a hard day at the office. What a lot of complaints from from his boss! Still, it was not as bad as when he used to get told off by his old headmaster. Thank goodness Mr Gaber has been dead for 20 years! But then he hears a familiar voice: "Hamdy! You are late again! Come here!"

He turns around, and there is Ghastly Gaber - or at least a very convincing avatarAn icon or figure representing someone online. . "You are a great disappointment to me, Hamdy," it says. "I shall have to think of a suitable punishment."

Weird though it seems, a scene like this could become real, thanks to a project at Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyKnown as MIT, one of the top academic institutions in the world. It is located in Cambridge in the US state of Massachusetts. . Called AugmentedIncreased in size or value. Eternity, it aims to build digital versions of people that will survive for ever.

It began with the project's leader, Dr Hossein Rahnama, thinking about all the data people leave on social media. He wondered if it could be used to teach AIA computer programme that has been designed to think.  to give answers like theirs:

"For instance, might it be possible to replicate the knowledge held by experienced professionals? Can people seek legal opinions from the avatar of a famous lawyer?"

Rahnama started to get emails from people keen to pass on their thoughts after death. Some were terminally ill and wanted to create a legacy for their loved ones.

He is now working on digital versions of 25 people. These could take the form of either chatbotsA chatbot is a computer programme that simulates human conversation or "chatter" through text or voice interactions. or 3D avatars.

Digital immortality is not a new idea. In his 1997 book Design for Dying, Timothy Leary wrote: "If you want to immortalise your consciousness, record and digitise."

In 2015, Russian computer expert Eugenia Kuyda used texts from a friend who had died to create a chatbot that responded as he would have done.

These projects suggest some nightmarish possibilities. Suppose Kim Jong-unThe leader of North Korea since 2011. was still tormenting the Western world in 100 years time - or Michael McIntyre was still on tour and telling the same old jokes.

There are some deep philosophical questions to consider, such as what consciousness is and whether it can actually be transferred. There might be legal issues, too, about who owns and manages a dead person's avatar.

Psychologists also worry that having an avatar to talk to would make the grieving process harder for loved ones rather than easier.

Yes: We have quite enough to deal with in everyday life without people giving us their views from beyond the grave. There should be a law enforcing digital "death" after 200 years.

No: It would be a wonderful thing for future generations to have a strong picture of their ancestors and what they thought about the world. It would add a whole new dimension to human life.   

Or... This is a much better approach than biological attempts to attain immortality, such as cryogenicsA technique for freezing a person's body in the hope of later bringing them back to life.. Avatars would not take up space on our crowded planet and should be strongly encouraged.