The transition is the one in the OP—the digitization process itself, going from meat to, well, not-meat.
You only need to do that once.
The comparison would be by behavior—do they think differently, beyond what you’d expect from differing circumstances? Do they still seem human enough? Unless it is all very sudden, there will be plenty of time to notice inhumanity in the uploads.
Goes doubly if they can be placed in convincing androids, so the circumstances differ as little as possible.
The transition is the one in the OP—the digitization process itself, going from meat to, well, not-meat.
You only need to do that once.
The comparison would be by behavior—do they think differently, beyond what you’d expect from differing circumstances? Do they still seem human enough? Unless it is all very sudden, there will be plenty of time to notice inhumanity in the uploads.
Goes doubly if they can be placed in convincing androids, so the circumstances differ as little as possible.