Transhumanism spans a huge swath of intellectual territory, straddling bioethics, philosophy, science fiction, engineering, and computer science. Throw in conspiracy theories and cyberpunk nihilism and you have all the ingredients for Deus Ex.
Transhumanists, like Enlightenment partisans in general, believe that human nature can be improved but are conflicted about whether liberal democracy is the best path to betterment. The liberal tradition within the Enlightenment has argued that individuals are best at finding their own interests and should be left to improve themselves in self-determined ways. But many people are mistaken about their own best interests, and more rational elites may have a better understanding of the general good. Enlightenment partisans have often made a case for modernizing monarchs and scientific dictatorships. Transhumanists need to confront this tendency to disparage liberal democracy in favor of the rule by dei ex machina and technocratic elites.
Today I gave a brief invited talk at the National Defense University, in Washington DC, about the ethics of autonomous robot missiles and war vehicles and “battlebots” (my word, not theirs!) in general. The talk came about as a consequence of my role in the IEET, but I wound up bringing in a number of explicitly H+ themes.
Wielded by an expert, the sharp sword of rationality cuts deep, exposing underlying layers of confusion, intellectual laziness, or willful misunderstanding in what might on the surface appear to be logical arguments.
Fear is a great motivator. Throughout history, successful leaders have known how to use fear to unite and to manipulate their followers. Usually this fear is of “the other,” a group that looks different, talks different, or worships a different god.
Here’s a startling vision for the next decade: two familiar online phenomena converge in an emerging technological arena to strike a fatal blow to American civil society.
One day away from the Singularity Summit in NYC! I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be posting reports to this blog from the Summit on behalf of the IEET.
As tempting as it is to rely on well-structured tools to prevent disastrous outcomes, even the best tools are ultimately insufficient. Good interfaces need to be accompanied by strong ethics.
A mistake in a factory can result in scores of injuries or deaths. A mistake at a chemical plant can kill thousands. But a mistake in a biological laboratory could result in a pandemic.
Some IEET readers have been unable to submit comments for the past several days due to a glitch with our ‘captcha’ software. That problem is now fixed. We apologize for the temporary outage in two-way communication.
DI/DO (Drop In, Drop Out) connotes a lifestyle consisting almost entirely of online activity, but in place of a focus on interaction with actual friends and family, the vast majority of time is spent engaging with artificial digital companions.
Bruce Sterling has lately raised this perennial issue, as did Mike Treder in an excellent piece suggesting that our initial attitudes toward such creatures may color the entire outcome of a purported “technological singularity.” Now I’d like to offer this rumination on giving rights to artificial intelligences.
It’s long been assumed in transhumanist circles that eventually a computer program, a robot, a cyborg, or a genetically engineered human will achieve a far greater level of intelligence than the smartest human.
IEET readers appear to be mostly optimistic about our civilization’s chances for survival by the end of the 21st century. In a recent poll, every multiple choice response that was either positive or neutral was selected more often than any of those that were negative.
An article I posted here two days ago apparently gave an impression different from what I intended to convey. To begin with, the title (“Drawing Lines”) was poorly chosen, since it implies that I’m in favor of making sharp distinctions between what technoprogressives should and should not believe. The title was only meant to indicate the subject matter—i.e., whether such lines should be drawn—and not to suggest that they definitely ought to be.
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