Kenn Brown art

Technological Revolutions...  Agricultural Revolution 12,000 BCE  Industrial Revolution18 th C  Computer Revolution20 th C ○ Nanotechnology ○ Cybernetics  Transhuman Revolution ????

Transhumanism (H+) is...  an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. (wikipedia)

Transhumanism (H+)...  has been condemned by one critic, Francis Fukuyama, as the world's most dangerous idea, while one proponent, Ronald Bailey, counters that it is the "movement that epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity“. (wikipedia)

A Posthuman is...  a hypothetical future being "whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards."

A Posthuman is...  a hypothetical future being "whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards."

A Posthuman is...  a hypothetical future being "whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards."

Posthuman...

Transhuman?

Who’s afraid of a little chimera?  First Spidey…  Now a little spider-goat…

Aims of Transhumanism….  Increase in human health span (more than merely life span)  Extension of intellectual and physical capacities  Control of our mental states and moods

Singularity: the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence.

 Hal, the thinking, talking computer in Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, shows all the capabilities of a human intelligence – including the ability to feel threatened, to protect territory, to disobey and kill. But to many people what made it most human-like was its reaction to impending "death"

Bioconservatives…  Are opposed to the use of technology to modify human nature  Believe that human enhancement technologies will undermine human dignity (i.e. be dehumanizing)  Argue for public control of such technologies

Two fears…  Posthumans might harm themselves  Posthumans might harm ‘ordinary’ humans

Ray Bradbury  "I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it." -- Ray Bradbury  What does he mean?

Transhumanism: Carpe Diem or Playing God?

 The Epic of Gilgamesh dates from the 3 rd millennium BCE and is one of the finest surviving epic poems in world literature.

Julian Huxley 1957  "I believe in transhumanism:...once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Peking man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny.“

Singularity “Singularity... the point at which technological advancement will become so rapid that the possibilities will become endless...”

Coming to a college near you... Rutger’s University (New Jersey)  The course requires no science or technology background and is recommended for students with an art, humanities or business focus as well as anyone who anticipates working in a high technology or science-based industry or profession.

The ‘singularity’ is coming… Based on 21 st C advances in  genetics  nanotechnology  robotics (including artificial intelligence) 

Transhumanism and civil liberties...  Technological self-determination  Reproduction  Cognition  Gender re-assignment  End of life technology

Transhumanism and civil liberties...  Technological self-determination  Reproduction  Cognition  Gender re-assignment  End of life technology

Transhumanism and civil liberties...  Technological self-determination  Reproduction  Cognition  Gender re-assignment  End of life technology

Transhumanism and civil liberties...  Technological self-determination  Reproduction  Cognition  Gender re-assignment  End of life technology

Transhumanism and civil liberties...  Technological self-determination  Reproduction  Cognition  Gender re-assignment  End of life technology

Transhumanism and civil liberties...  Technological self-determination  Reproduction  Cognition  Gender re-assignment  End of life technology

Chimera  In Mythology

Parahuman... "human-animal hybrids"  The Young Family  Artist: Patricia PiccininiPatricia Piccinini

 At Stanford University in California, experiments aim to create mice with human brains.

Relationship between eugenics and transhumanism... Perfecting the human race  Humanity as a work in progress  Enlightenment thinking  Evolution

The Battleground?

 Clones  Designer babies  Spare parts babies  Deaf babies for deaf parents

Designer Babies....

Anna Salamon: Research fellow at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence  The stakes around artificial intelligence are the entire world and its future. ○

What do you think?  Should we aid in our own evolution?  Should we leave it up to nature?  Who should decide?  Who can decide?

Transhumanists vs. Bioconservatives Carpe Diem or Playing God?

Designer Babies... Gattaca: Trailer  Gattaca: Anton’s birth:  Designer Babies - Comments by Princeton professor Lee Silver  Designer babies CBS  minutes: Gender selection instead of disease eradication?  CSI New York: 