Hanson’s If Uploads Come First is from 1994, his economic growth given machine intelligence is from 2001, and uploads were much discussed in transhumanist circles in the 1990s and 2000s, with substantial earlier discussion (e.g. by Moravec in his 1988 book Mind Children). Age of Em added more details and has a number of interesting smaller points, but the biggest ideas (Malthusian population growth by copying and economic impacts of brain emulations) are definitely present in 1994. The general idea of uploads as a technology goes back even further.
Age of Em should be understood like Superintelligence, as a polished presentation and elaboration of a set of ideas already locally known.
Hanson’s If Uploads Come First is from 1994, his economic growth given machine intelligence is from 2001, and uploads were much discussed in transhumanist circles in the 1990s and 2000s, with substantial earlier discussion (e.g. by Moravec in his 1988 book Mind Children). Age of Em added more details and has a number of interesting smaller points, but the biggest ideas (Malthusian population growth by copying and economic impacts of brain emulations) are definitely present in 1994. The general idea of uploads as a technology goes back even further.
Age of Em should be understood like Superintelligence, as a polished presentation and elaboration of a set of ideas already locally known.