Earthquakes, global warming, patent lawsuits… it’s all a bit much, sometimes. Even a sober-minded “moral guide to the future” needs a break. So today, we talk about fashion.
There is no reason at all why groups with differing values cannot co-exist in the same society. All that is required is that neither attempt to coerce the other to live in a certain way.
Scientist, best-selling author, and pundit David Brin has accepted an appointment as Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies for 2010.
According to the results of a recently concluded poll, IEET readers are decidedly down on the “social and political developments” of the past ten years.
In a recently concluded poll, IEET readers showed a mix of attitudes toward the “scientific discoveries and technological accomplishments” of the last ten years. Now we want to know what you think about the social and political developments of that same period.
At a time when the Australian government has announced its decision to introduce a new regime to censor the Internet, it’s worth thinking again about the argument that exposure to certain kinds of speech and expression might be harmful to children. The problem is that it is difficult to find evidence as to what kinds of material are actually likely to produce that kind of harm.
An upgraded version of You might incorporate—literally incorporate—access to augmented reality overlays, a direct brain to Internet connection, and LED (light-emitting diode) tattoos.
Thierry Henry’s handball during the now infamous France-Ireland World Cup qualifying match, clearly caught on camera and later acknowledged by the player himself, has reignited in some quarters an often discussed call for the use of technology to aid referee decisions during soccer matches. But the real problem isn’t technology, and rather than being behind the times, soccer has actually been ahead of much of society.
It’s been over three months since I mentioned there would be a Part Two of Jon and Kate Plus Plastic Surgery. Since then I have learned never again to make a promise to a sequel article. The sequel has haunted me and set expectations of what to write I didn’t want to live up to. So here it is. I hope the stream of consciousness works for you the way it works in my head.
Many people, including me, are now used to being always online. With my smartphone powered by Google’s Android operating system, I am used to sending and receiving email and IMs anytime, from anywhere. It is easy to see how this trend will evolve: most routine computing applications will migrate to smartphones, the coverage and bandwidth of wireless networks will go up, and their price will go down. In only a few years, we will be used to being permanently plugged in the global Internet, and of course the user interfaces will improve. For example, as described by the visionary science fiction author Charlie Stross in his novel Halting State, augmented reality technology based on smart glasses will soon permit overcoming the limitations due to the small size of phones. A first generation of suitable smart glasses is already available, but there is something much better on the horizon: instant telepathic communication.
As our various electronic devices gain more and more sensory awareness, we open up the potential for entirely new forms of interaction. Not just new interfaces—tapping and shaking and whatnot—but a shift in presence. With few exceptions, we use these new technologies in rather familiar ways. We might speak instead of type, or tap instead of click, or wave a control wand instead of mash a control pad, but these are essentially the same kinds of direct input processes we’ve done for years, just dressed up in a new look.
If mating is partly about choosing half the genome of your children, do your potential partners in parenting have an obligation to disclose that they have had so much “work” done on their face and body that they now look nothing like their original phenotype? Will cosmetics and plastic surgery blunt the selection of more beautiful women via sexual selection?
[Contains spoilers] True Blood is a fascinating HBO series about vampires living with humans, now in its second season. It follows Sookie Stackhouse, a human that has fallen in love with the vampire Bill Compton. While the vampires’ fight for marriage rights and the intense religious opposition reflects the gay rights struggle, True Blood’s depiction of an ageless species with several enhanced powers also provides an exploration of how society might deal with transhumans, and perhaps more importantly how society views such possibilities.
The same technologies that have allowed for a potential democratic revolution in Iran could emerge just as readily in support of something far more sinister.
Although the fruits of genomics have yet to materialize for curing diseases, the science community does have a better understanding of how complex diseases and evolution work. In addition, genomics has a useful by-product, a tool used by forensic detectives. Using PCR, a fast and inexpensive technology for making copies of DNA, extremely small samples from blood stains, semen, hair follicles, saliva, and skin are used for DNA evidence.
Despite the recent outcome on Proposition 8 in California, I believe that the American conscience has awakened concerning the right of gay people to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in this country. Yes, there remain groups of people who would deny gays their human rights out of fear, blind adherence to religious dogma, or a simple hatred of what they don’t understand, but those groups are shrinking.
I have my doubts about Google’s new plan to better target advertising to meet our transient interests. As yet another manifestation of the idea of only showing us the ads we want to see, when we want to see them, it will inevitably stumble over the reality that we often don’t use the Internet in ways that fit advertisers’ assumptions. Machines get shared, people use multiple browsers, and, increasingly, web users are savvy about being able to block ads, regardless of how targeted they may claim to be.
Imagine living in a world where what you see, what you hear, and what you experience will be recorded wherever you go. Your day to day life is archived and saved, in perpetuity.
I did some sustainability consulting recently for a major computer company. We focused for the day on building a better understanding of their energy and material footprint and strategies; during the latter part of the afternoon, we zeroed in on testing the sustainability of their current business strategies. It turned out that, like many big computer industry players, this company is making its play in the “cloud computing” field.
Would-be censors often justify themselves by claiming that certain kinds of material are harmful to children, and so must be kept out of public sight. It’s worth thinking about this before we simply accept it at face value.
The IEET and the editors of the Journal of Evolution and Technology (JET) are pleased to announce the publication of two special issues of JET, one brought together by Sky Marsen with the intention of publishing a book on transhumanism, and the other a collection of papers from the IEET’s May 2006 Human Enhancement Technology and Human Rights conference at Stanford University. Together they represent the wide array of issues at play in the debate over human enhancement and our transhuman future, from the daily lived experience of pushing to maximize one’s potential, to the legal, political and philosophical arguments we will need to secure universal access to safe enhancement technologies. Enjoy!
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Reclaiming the Enlightenment pt. 1 
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