Transvision & Bostrom covered in Nature

The modern make-over

Scientists and philosophers gathered in Helsinki last week for
TransVision, a conference about ‘enhancing’ humans. Kerri Smith talks to
Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the
University of Oxford, UK, about what’s on the table.

Kerri Smith

Link

What kinds of human enhancement are we capable of now?

There’s the obvious example of performance-enhancing drugs for sport,
such as anabolic steroids and erythropoietin. We have alertness and
wakefulness enhancers - modafinil, caffeine - that can at least
temporarily reduce the need for sleep, although you might be wary of
permanently reducing the amount of sleep you get. If it were such a good
thing, why wouldn’t evolution already have built us to need less sleep?

Memory-enhancing drugs are currently under development. They seem to be
effective not only in people they are designed for - people with
dementia - but also for healthy subjects.