Humanity+

In his talk at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, philosopher and bioethicist Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, examines the nature of human beings as products of evolution, in particular their limited altruism, limited co-operative instincts and limited ability to take account of the future consequences of actions. He argues that humans’ biology and psychology are unfit for the kind of society we live in and we must either alter our political institutions, severely restrain our technology or change our nature. Or face annihilation by our own design. Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House, October 2009.

Genetically enhance humanity or face extinction – PART 1 from Ethics of the New Biosciences on Vimeo.

Q&A

Genetically enhance humanity or face extinction – PART 2 from Ethics of the New Biosciences on Vimeo.

The most radical thought experiments entertained by transhumanists often involve some reference to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and/or Virtual Reality (VR), and can be classed as Extreme Simulation Scenarios (ESS). Such scenarios can be equal parts attractive and disturbing. They describe conditions of radical liberation from traditional human constraints, but also open up entirely new categories of potential risk. Evaluations of ESS frequently conflate assessments of promise, risk, technological credibility, and congruence with extant belief systems.

This presentation will disentangle the various threads within ESS evaluation as follows: (1) explaining key ESS concepts such as uploads, utility fog, and virtual autonomous zones; (2) describing the principal extreme simulation scenarios and their historical roots; (3) evaluating specific criticisms of ESS; and (4) considering the degree to which assessments of ESS are often a matter of opposed assumptions and worldviews rather than the unprejudiced examination of evidence.

This lecture was recorded on 11th of July 2009 at the UKH+ meeting. For information on further meetings please see: http://extrobritannia.blogspot.com/

This is the first part of the lecture. View the rest of the lecture here.

About the speaker: Amon Twyman is a cognitive scientist and artist based in London. His work within cognitive psychology at University College London has investigated the role of conscious awareness in decision making, and he has explored transhumanist themes as a member of electro-industrial band Xykogen.

A musical tribute to two great men of science. Carl Sagan and his cosmologist companion Stephen Hawking present: A Glorious Dawn – Cosmos remixed. Almost all samples and footage taken from Carl Sagan.

Also see Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot:

EARTH: The Pale Blue Dot from Michael Marantz on Vimeo.

Miriam Leis is the chair of the German Transhumanist Association “De:Trans,” although she is originally from Japan and Korea and lives in the Hague. (She is a very modern citizen of the world.) She has made a series of text-based videos to introduce people to transhumanist ideas. This one is from 2007.

This feature length documentary will include interviews with Humanity+’s James Hughes, Jonas Lamis, Ben Goertzel, and Nick Bostrom, as well as dozens of others from both inside and outside the S^ and H+ community. Coming December 2009.

“The Singularity – Will we survive our technology?” is a comprehensive documentary showcasing the promises and perils of future technologies such as nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

Serious thinkers in the science community are wowed by the techno-utopia promises of transcending our biology, merging with our machines, and creating greater than human intelligence.

This film illustrates how these technologies may be achieved within the next two decades then questions what these technologies could mean to humanity. Not only should we be concerned with the unintended consequences of these powerful technologies, we should pause to think about what happens if these technologies actually pan out as anticipated.

Parts 1 and 2 of the IEET’s Natasha Vita-More’s talk at April 11 meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association.

Steve Omohundro, Ph.D. is president of Self-Aware Systems a Silicon Valley think tank aimed at bringing human values to emerging technologies. This talk in March 2008 to the Silicon Valley Transhumanist group examines the origins of human morality and its future development to cope with advances in artificial intelligence. It begins with a discussion of the dangers of philosophies which put ideas ahead of people. It presents Kohlberg’s 6 stages of human moral development, evidence for recent advances in human morality, the theory underlying co-opetition, recent advances in understanding the sexual and social origins of altruism, and the 5 human moral emotions and their relationship to political systems. It then considers the likely behavior of advanced AI systems, showing that they will want to understand and improve themselves, will have drives toward self-preservation and resource acquisition, and will be vigilant in avoiding corruption and addiction. We end with a description of the 3 primary challenges that humanity faces in guiding future technology toward human-positive ends.

Humanity+ Secretary J. Hughes answered some questions about technology and its impact on humanity at Convergence 08, November 15, 2008 in Mountain View California. This video is one of a dozen that were taped at that event, which we will be putting up shortly. If its too slow to stream you can download various versions from Archive.org.

Dr. Susan Schneider, assistant professor of philosophy and an affiliated faculty member with Penns Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, speaks at a UPenn Media Seminar on Neuroscience and Society on philosophical controversies surrounding cognitive enhancement.

(Hat tip to Hereswhy) This talk was given at Philorum at the Gaelic club on 6th May 2009. Download the MP3 here.

Abstract: Transhumanism regards involuntary aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, drudgery and death as unnecessary and undesirable. Transhumanists support the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities, not just to bring the disabled up to average, but to bring anyone above average. This introduction will give an overview of the major themes, the history and politics.

Ian Woolf

About the speaker: Ian Woolf lives in Sydney, has a degree in Applied Science, worked as a solar astronomer, software engineer, systems programmer, webmaster, research assistant, Cisco CCNA tutor, Physics laboratory demonstrator, Computational Theory lecturer, and subject coordinator; while changing his career to freelance writing and broadcasting. Listen to Ian on the Diffusion science show on radio 2SER 107.3FM Monday at 6:30pm in Sydney or streaming audio on www.2ser.com, or listen to the Diffusion sound archives.