Richard Branson
World-renowned entrepreneur; founder and chairman of the Virgin Group.

Jamais Cascio
Environmental futurist, science-fiction game designer, and co-founder of WorldChanging.com.

James Daly
Editorial Director, Edutopia (The George Lucas Educational Foundation).

John Deutch
Institute professor at MIT; former director of the CIA; former deputy secretary of the Department of Defense, and former undersecretary of the Department of Energy.

Esther Dyson
Internet guru and noted analyst in emerging technologies and emerging markets; author of “Release 2.0”.

Jeffrey Hoffman
Former NASA astronaut on five Space Shuttle missions; now professor of astronautics at MIT.

Dave Howe
President, SCI FI Channel.

Shaun Jones
Internationally recognized expert and published author in advanced technology development; naval surgeon, bio-terrorism expert.

Michio Kaku
Renowned theoretical physicist; author of “Physics of the Impossible”; co-founder of string field theory.

Dean Kamen
Inventor, entrepreneur, and science advocate; invented the Segway® human transporter.

Neal Lane
Malcolm Gillis University Professor at Rice University; served White House science advisor under President Clinton.

John Podesta
President and CEO of the Center for American Progress; served as chief of staff to President Clinton

Brian Sager
Entrepreneur, inventor, composer, and writer.

Lee Schipper
Co-director of EMBARQ, the Center for Sustainable Transportation and the World Resources Institute, Washington DC.

Peter Schwartz
Internationally renowned futurist; co-founder and chairman of Global Business Network.

Rusty Schweickart
Space and satellite consultant, former NASA astronaut

Steven Weber
Professor of political science and director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Edie Weiner
Leading futurist; practitioner of social, technological, political, and economic intelligence-gathering .

Anton Yelchin
Award-winning teen actor; film credits include “Star Trek” (2009), “Terminator IV”, “Charlie Bartlett”. TV credits include “Huff”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and Steven Spielberg’s “Taken” for SCI FI.

________________________________

A NOTE FROM DR. J.

Have you seen the spiffy new website design and art that Edwin Rosero and Pedro Carabeo-Nieva cooked up for us? Little by little, the IEET is looking professional. Thank you gentlemen! Make sure also to check out Edwin’s award-winning and inspiring video from the “What I Would Do If I Could Live To Be 150 Years Old” contest [http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rosero20080620/] The new design is inspiring me to finally get the Biopolitics of Popular Culture and Cyborg Buddha parts of the website done. (I know, promises, promises).

This month Mike Treder and I spoke at Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic’s Global Catastrophic Risks book-launch-cum-conference at Oxford. A glorious time considering the end of civilization was had by all, and I put some pictures up here [http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/catrisk08pics/]. We are organizing a follow-up seminar on Friday November 14th with the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View California. We will encourage folks to buy the book ahead of time so the seminar can fly at a high level, with Jamais Cascio, Nick Bostrom, Mike Treder, and some other folks who were in the book there as faculty. Stay tuned for details: [http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/eventinfo/ieet20081114/].  We’re also planning a Cyborg Buddha meeting someplace out West (maybe Boulder Colorado) in 2009 and an IEET co-sponsored Biopolitics of Popular Culture meeting in Glasgow Scotland for 2009. Stay tuned for those as well.

Kristi Scott presented at a different Oxford conference - “Visions of the Human in Cyberculture, Cyberspace and SF” - last month, Doug Rushkoff gave a very popular talk on digital politics at PDF 2008, Ben Goertzel and Mike Treder both spoke at the World Future Society meeting, Giulio spoke at Martine Rothblatt’s Terasem conference on “geoethical nanotechnology” in Second Life, and Aubrey had an enormous meeting on biomedical treatments for aging at UCLA in June. Andy Miah has been all around the world speaking on the athletics enhancement issue. (Frankly this is just the tip of the iceberg; I need to GPS chip the IEETers to keep track of all they do.) More info about these events can be found at the IEET site.

This month we welcome two new IEET Fellows, Milan Cirkovic and Susan Schneider. Susan is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy at UPenn, and a part of the exciting neuroethics group there.  Susan focuses on the philosophy of cognitive science and her book Science Fiction and Philosophy is due out shortly.

Milan is Senior Research Associate at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, a physics professor at the University of Novi Sad, and a prolific writer on the topics of astrophysics, astrobiology, SETI studies, philosophy of science, future studies and science fiction criticism. Check out Milan’s excellent review of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl in the latest JET [http://jetpress.org/v17/cirkovic.htm].

JET editor Russell Blackford not only oversaw the putting up of the lastest issue, but also took up the task critiquing each of the anti-transhumanist essays that were published the June issue of the Templeton Foundation’s Global Spiral magazine.

Although the Longevity Dividend distance learning course turned out to be a little too ambitious for most of the folks who had signed up for it (including, sadly, me) two of the participants, Morris Johnson and Silke Fauve, cranked out their weekly assignments like troopers. I’m happy to announce that Silke will be joining us as a health care correspondent, and we will be putting her essays up on the IEET website. This Fall I’m teaching a new course on Happiness at Trinity, so I’ll make another stab at distance learning next year with that curriculum. Hopefully with more planning we can keep everybody engaged (maybe holding it in a hot tub in Second Life or something?)

As to my new green thumb, my second bumper crop came in this month: zucchini. So far I’ve made zucchini bread, muffins, casseroles, and stuffed and stewed and marinated zucchini. Then we took the rest of the 100 pounds of gynormous green baseball bats to the local soup kitchen. I suspect that when the 500 green tomatoes on the vine all ripen in the next couple of days I’ll be making another trip. I need GM crops that space themselves out a little more, a just-in-time agriculture.

Hope your summers are going well, and that you are surviving the interregnum until the exciting concluding episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Lock and load your plasma rifles and I’ll see you in the trenches.

Dr. J.

________________________________

IEET NEWS

Report on Terasem’s Geoethical Nano Conf in SL http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/slgent08/
Giulio Prisco reports on the 4th Annual Workshop on Geoethical Nanotechnology, organized by the Terasem Movement, in Second Life.

Some Pictures from the Catastrophic Risk Conference at Oxford http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/catrisk08pics/
I’m just recovering from the great time we had in Oxford last week talking about the different ways that human civilization might get wiped out, and what to do to prevent that.

Treder reports from World Future Society http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20080729/
In 2005, for my first appearance at the annual conference of the World Future Society, I was given a small room with only 25 chairs, and I was scheduled for a 9:30 PM presentation. My topic was ”Do Sweat the Small Stuff: Why Everyone Should Care about Nanotechnology.”

Latest issue of JET
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/jet1701/
JET editor Russell Blackford writes: We have now completed the current issue of the Journal of Evolution and Technology - Volume 17 Issue 1. Rounding it out is an in-depth review by new IEET Fellow Milan Cirkovic of Ian McDonald’s novel Brasyl. Other books reviewed include the new autobiography by Craig Venter. We have articles covering a wide range of issues related to technological change, society, and the future of humanity.

Update from Doug Rushkoff
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rushkoff20080722/
I just finished the first draft of my next book, now tentatively called “Life Incorporated” (and before that called “Corporatized.”)

Bostrom and H+ profiled in CNN
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cnn200807/
CNN’s piece on the upcoming conference on global catastrophic risks at Oxford, organized by IEET Chair Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic, was extraordinarily warm.

Aubrey’s anti-aging work profiled in Wired http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/aubreywired2008/
In a remarkably upbeat article, Wired magazine profiles IEET Fellow Aubrey de Grey and his pro-healthy longevity organization, the Methuselah Foundation.

Ben Goertzel reports from Xiamen China
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/goertzel20080620/
Ben reports on his recent trip to visit with Hugo de Garis’ AI lab in China.

________________________________

ARTICLES

Riccardo Campa: Italian Transhumanist Manifesto (Jul 29, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/campa20080722/
IEET Fellow Riccardo Campa, helped by IEET Board member Giulio Prisco and others, has crafted this very interesting statement of a transhumanist vision and strategic point of view, which has been endorsed and adopted by the Italian Transhumanist Association (AIT). The English translation was done by Stefano Vaj of the AIT, with advice from the IEET’s J. Hughes (who is not a member of the AIT). As with all translation the meanings have probably shifted somewhat, so please note that the original is online here.

Akansha Bhargava: A Moral Defense of the Right to Die (Jul 28, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bhargava20080728/
In the realm of moral and legal debates, the right to life holds a highly esteemed position.  However, the overwhelming support for an individual’s right to live appears to be one sided. The antithesis: the right to die is often neglected.  In both the medical and scholarly communities alike the idea of a right to death is often scorned or brushed aside.  There seems to be an underlying assumption in favor of life and an implicit belief that those that wish to end their lives are misinformed or mentally incompetent.  This paper will defend the position that there are legitimate reasons and justifications for a person to request the right to die and that under certain circumstances it is morally obligatory that these rights be upheld.

Russell Blackford: Transhumanist theology (Jul 24, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/blackford20080720/
Lutheran theologian Ted Peters is the author of the sixth and last of the generally hostile articles on transhumanism in the June 2008 issue of The Global Spiral.

Jamais Cascio: Wakefulness, Storms and Urban Agriculture (Jul 24, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20080722/
Vertical farms finally make the move from cybergreen fantasy to the pages of the New York Times. The logic is seductive: urban towers, filled not with more offices and apartments, but with food crops.

Milan Ćirković: Against the Empire (Jul 24, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cirkovic20080724/
It is argued that the “generic” evolutionary pathway of advanced technological civilizations is more likely to be optimization-driven than expansion-driven, in contrast to the prevailing opinions and attitudes in both future studies on one side and astrobiology/SETI studies on the other. Two toy-models of postbiological evolution of advanced technological civilizations are considered and several arguments supporting the optimization-driven, spatially compact model are briefly discussed. In addition, it is pointed out that there is a subtle contradiction in most of the tech-optimist and transhumanist accounts of future human/alien civilizations’ motivations in its postbiological stages. This may have important ramifications for both practical SETI projects and the future (of humanity) studies.

Russell Blackford: Pickering on transhumanism (Jul 15, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/blackford20080713/
I’m nearing the end of my current blog project of commenting on each of the six articles in June’s edition of The Global Spiral , which is devoted to a critique of transhumanism. This time, I will discuss Andrew Pickering’s, “Brains, Selves and Spirituality in the History of Cybernetics”, in some ways the strangest of the five articles that I have read so far. We’ll come to why, but let me step back for a moment to survey the overall terrain.

Jamais Cascio: The Big Picture: Collapse, Transcendence, or Muddling Through (Jul 15, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20080714/
I’ll start this essay by leading with my conclusion: do we make it through this century? Yeah, but not all of us, and it’s neither as spectacular nor as horrific as many people imagine.

Nathan Cravens: Mutually Assured Production for Universal Well Being: A Brief Introductory Discussion (Jul 14, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/map2/
Just as technology has the capacity to create, it can also destroy. It is crucial lived concepts like scarcity is identified so a life of abundance can fill destructive voids left behind. With enough collaborative expertise drawn to conclude that “giving gives more giving” and that “taking takes more taking,” the capacity to harmonize between these spheres can ensure that all of us have greater potential to live more preferred lives while limiting the causes of harm to oneself and others.

Russell Blackford: Hayles shadowboxes with transhumanism (Jul 5, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/blackford20080705/
The fourth of the six articles in the special anti-transhumanism issue of The Global Spiral (June 2008) is “Wrestling with Transhumanism” by well-known critic Katherine Hayles, Distinguished Professor of English and media studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Jamais Cascio: Singular Sensations (Jul 5, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20080705/
The Singularity concept remains inescapable these days, although rarely well-understood.  Both are unfortunate developments, for essentially the same reason: the popularity of the term “Singularity” has undermined its narrative value. Its use in a discussion is almost guaranteed to become the focus of a debate, one that rarely changes minds. This is especially unfortunate because the underlying idea is, in my view, a useful tool for thinking about how we’ll face the challenges of the 21st century.

Russell Blackford: Dupuy’s “anti-humanism” (Jun 30, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/blackford20080630/
The third article in the June 2008 special anti-transhumanist issue of The Global Spiral is “Cybernetics Is An Antihumanism: Advanced Technologies and the Rebellion Against the Human Condition”, by Jean-Pierre Dupuy, director of the Centre de Recherche en Épistémologie Appliquée at the École Polytechnique, Paris.

Jamais Cascio: Singularities Enough, and Time (Jun 30, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20080630/
A few people have asked me what I thought of Karl Schroeder’s recent article at Worldchanging, “No Time for the Singularity.”

Russell Blackford: Are transhumanists idol worshippers? (Jun 29, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/blackford20080629/
In my continuing program of reading, and commenting on, the six articles about transhumanism in June’s edition of The Global Spiral, I now come to “Of Which Human Are We Post?” by Don Idhe, who approaches the issues from a perspective in philosophy of technology.

Jamais Cascio: The Griefer Future (Jun 27, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20080628/
Nice little future you got there. Hate to see something bad happen to it.

Russell Blackford: On the Templeton Foundation’s “Engaging Transhumanism” (Jun 27, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/blackford20080628/
I am examining the articles on transhumanism in the current issue of The Global Spiral , an online magazine published by the Metanexus Institute. The articles in the issue were presented at a research conference on transhumanism in April 2008, at Arizona State University (ASU), funded by the Templeton Foundation. The Templeton Foundation also supports Metanexus Institute.

Kristi Scott: Wall-E takes over my Two-Year Old and what it can do for the environment (Jun 21, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/scott20080620/
So, there’s a new robot movie coming out for kids, and humorous enough for adults: Wall-E. Looks like R.O.B from Nintendo and Number 5 from Short Circut? Cute? Inescapably addictive to young children? That’s the one!

Mike Treder: Will $45 trillion save us? (Jun 20, 2008) http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20080620/
Investing one percent of the world’s wealth in carbon-neutral energy over the coming decades could avert disaster.

________________________________

THE LATEST FROM THE JOURNAL OF EVOLUTION AND TECHNOLOGY

Sky Marsen: “The Role of Meaning in Human Thinking”
http://jetpress.org/v17/marsen.htm

Tim Clark: “Carter’s Cartesian Paraphrase and ‘Operational Autonomy’: The Carter-Bostrom Anthropic Principle, the Principle of Mediocrity, and ‘Being No One...’”
http://jetpress.org/v17/clark.htm

Randy Mayes: A review of J. Craig Venter’s A Life Decoded
http://jetpress.org/v17/mayes.htm

Anoop Gupta: Anthropocentrism revisited. A Review of Marc D. Hauser’s Wild Minds
http://jetpress.org/v17/gupta.htm

Riccardo Campa: Making Science by Serendipity. A review of Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber’s The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity
http://jetpress.org/v17/campa.htm

Milan M. Cirkovic: A review of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl
http://jetpress.org/v17/cirkovic.htm

________________________________

MULTIMEDIA

Bostrom on X-Risks and Posthumanity (07/27)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bostromes20080729/
Earth and Sky Radio broadcast two interviews with IEET Chair Nick Bostrom.

Existential Threats and Risks: We Can’t Escape Impermanence! (07/14)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bg20080714/
“At any moment the Yellowstone caldera could blow up, wipe out 99% of the life on the surface of the planet, and probably all humans, and in our last minutes the degree of equanimity with which we face that prospect is the test of our dharmic fortitude and wisdom.” - James Hughes

News of the Future: X-Risks (07/13)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/csr20080726/
Why we avoid thinking about catastrophic risks, asteroid impacts, and tech politics in the Presidential race.

News of the Future: Brain Science (07/13)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/csr20080712/
The roots of empathy and political participation in the brain, the benefits of psilocybin, gene therapy for mental illness, and brain machines.

Cyborg Buddhas & Techno-Utopian Pure Lands (07/07)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/bg20080707/
Dr. J. chats with Vince Horn of Buddhist Geeks. With radical advances in science in technology would it be possible for us to turn our world into a so-called, “Buddha Realm” or would it be more likely that we create some sort of God Realm, where awakening is discouraged because the conditions are so radically pleasant? And how specifically could these advances help us develop spiritually, on the path toward Buddhahood? Part 2 of 3.

The New Renaissance (07/06)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rushkoff20080624/
In this keynote “invocation,” which opened the second day of Personal Democracy Forum on June 24, 2008, Doug argues that there is no such thing as “personal democracy” and genuine democratic discourse can only be participatory and collective. The power to write and publish, he notes, may finally be in the hands of everyone (after centuries of domination by religious and political elites), but real democracy isn’t just blogging and commenting, it’s treating the entire world as “open source” and remarkable by direct participation.

The Chemistry of Love (07/01)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/csr20080628/
Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher writes widely on the biological basis of love, sex and relationships. She is a consultant for the computer dating firm Chemistry.com. We talk about the potential therapeutic uses of the neurochemistry of love.

Human-racism and biopolitics in SF (07/01)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/sawyer2008/
On October 2, 2007, Robert Sawyer gave a talk at the University of Waterloo entitled “A Galaxy Far, Far Away” My Ass!, about science fiction’s relevance for the here and now.  TVOntario’s lecture series Big Ideas produced an MP3 of the talk.

Buddhism, H+ and the Myth of the Authentic Self (06/30)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/budgeeks20080630/
“The longer our lives, the more we’ll have a chance to see that there’s no self living them.” - James Hughes. What is Transhumanism and how is it related to Buddhist practice? Will technology enable us to radically extend our lifespans, help us control our thoughts and emotions, and bring about the potential to upload our consciousness into virtual reality spaces? And if so, what are the deeper implications for our contemplative traditions. Will these advances actually support the deepening of wisdom? According to professor James Hughes, a Buddhist practitioner and leading voice in the Transhumanist movement, these advances will enable us to deconstruct the notion and experience we have of an “authentic self” and will support the development of happiness, and the cessation of suffering. 

The Future of Education (06/21)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/cascio20080620/
Jamais says: Here’s the talk I gave at Moodle Moot San Francisco last week.

What I Would Do If I Could Live To Be 150 Years Old (06/20)
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rosero20080620/
Edwin Rosero’s video won the Aging 2008 award.
________________________________

ETHICS & TECH IN THE NEWS

FROM EXISTENTIAL RISKS LIST

The spread of survivalism in the USA
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7609736.html

SF on the Fermi paradox
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7568656.html

Another Global Cat Risks conf report
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7568287.html

Ron Bailey’s reports from Global Cat Risk conf
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7549709.html

Shermer: What it takes to be Type 1 civilization: global integration
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7545136.html

Hyogo Framework for global disaster risk reduction efforts
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7504092.html

Weitzman on the “bad fat tail” of climate change risks
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7502872.html

Play Superstruct Invent the Future!
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7434890.html

Pandemic Game
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7411783.html

Collaborative civilizational resilience activism
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7351113.html

U.S. not prepared for possible asteroid strike, group says
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7239610.html

NYT: Disasters and preparedness
http://www.mailbucket.org/existential-7220624.html

FROM TRANS-SPIRIT LIST

Iain Banks on paradise engineering
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1360

Oxytocin inhibits social phobia (shyness)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1359

Sandy Shaw: The Libertarian Brain (& Nutraceuticals)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1358

Serotonin also implicated in openness to spirituality
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1357

Hot To Help: When can empathy move us to action?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1356

Stress hormone cortisol shortens telomeres
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1355

IT and personal identity diffusion
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1354

Humans are ‘hard-wired’ to be moral and empathic
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1353

CFP: H+, Cog Enh & AI Issue of Minds & Machines - Deadline Jan 2009
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1352

Hedonic Man: The new economics and the pursuit of happiness
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1351

Meditation changes gene expression in the brain
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1350

Spiritual effects of hallucinogens persist
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Trans-Spirit/message/1348

________________________________

IEET SPEAKER EVENTS

Treder @ Basque Country Program on Globalization
San Sebastian, Spain
2008 Sep 3-5
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20080903/

Hughes on “Gene Therapy and Neurotechnologies to Enhance Human Virtues”
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ USA
2008 Oct 10-10
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20081010/

Hughes @ Science, Christianity & the New Frontiers of Human Life
Blackstone, Virginia USA
2008 Oct 20-21
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20081020/

IEET SEMINAR: Preventing Extinction
Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
2008 Nov 14-14
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/ieet20081114/

Hughes on Using Neurotech to Become Better People
Houston, TX
2008 Dec 2-2
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20081202/

ALL EVENTS

International Philosophical Congress
Seoul, South Korea
2008 Jul 30-5
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/ipcxii/

Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Montreal, Canada
2008 Aug 2-7
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/augaltcom2008/

Governing Emerging Technologies
Big Sky, MT
2008 Aug 17-22
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/20080817gordon/

Building Resilience
Oxford University, Oxford, UK
2008 Sep 1-3
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/building_resilience/

Treder @ Basque Country Program on Globalization
San Sebastian, Spain
2008 Sep 3-5
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/treder20080903/

9th World Congress of Bioethics
Rijeka and Opatija, Croatia
2008 Sep 3-8
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/9wcbioethics/

Science in the 21st Century
Waterloo, Ontario Canada
2008 Sep 8-12
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/sci21c08/

Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil
Oxford, UK
2008 Sep 22-25
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/mmmmee/

International Congress of AI & Nano
Bogotá, Colombia
2008 Sep 25-26
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/incainano08/

Psychiatry and Freedom
Dallas, Texas USA
2008 Oct 6-8
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/psychfree08/

World Academy of Art And Science
Hyderbad, India
2008 Oct 16-20
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/waas2008/

Singularity Summit 2008
San Jose, CA
2008 Oct 17-18
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/singsum2008/

Bioethics Futurism - Am Soc for Bioethics and Humanities
Cleveland, OH, USA
2008 Oct 23-26
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/asbh2008/

Singularity Summit 2008
San Jose, CA, USA
2008 Oct 25-25
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/singsum08/

Society for Utopian Studies
Portland, Maine
2008 Oct 29-2
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/sus08/

H+ & Religion session at American Academy of Religion
Chicago, IL USA
2008 Nov 1-3
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/aarh08/

Happiness and The Meaning of Life
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2008 Nov 5-5
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hmol08/

Philosophy and Engineering
London, England.
2008 Nov 10-12
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/philosophy_and_engineering/

11th Annual Accessing Higher Ground: Accessible Media, Web and Technology Conference for Education,
Boulder, Colorado, USA
2008 Nov 11-14
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/200811ahg/

Neuroethics Society meeting
Washington, DC
2008 Nov 13-14
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/ns2008/

Disorders and Coherence of the Embodied Self
Heidelberg, Germany
2008 Nov 13-15
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dces08/

IEET SEMINAR: Preventing Extinction
Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
2008 Nov 14-14
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/ieet20081114/

Our Brains, Our Selves - Aarhus Mirror Workshop
Aarhus, Denmark
2008 Nov 30-1
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/obosamw08/

Hughes on Using Neurotech to Become Better People
Houston, TX
2008 Dec 2-2
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes20081202/

World Healthcare Innovation and Technology Congress
Washington, DC
2008 Dec 8-10
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/whitc2008/

International Conference on Human Rights and Biomedicine
Rotterdam, Netherlands
2008 Dec 10-12
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/ichrb08/

Human Rights & Biomedicine
Rotterdam, the Netherlands
2008 Dec 10-12
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hrb2008/

Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness
Portland, Oregon
2009 Apr 1-5
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/anthcon09/

Somatechnics: The Technologisation of Bodies and Selves
New South Wales, Australia
2009 Apr 16-18
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/stbs09/

First World Congress on Positive Psychology
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
2009 Jun 18-21
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/pospsycon2009/

Metaphysics of Science
Melbourne, Australia
2009 Jul 3-5
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/mos09/

Politics of the Life Sciences in an ‘Age of Biological Control’
London, UK
2009 Sep 16-18
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/lse2009/

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The book

Nick opens the conference

I (J. Hughes) spoke at the conference on the topic of my book chapter “Avodiing Millennialist Cognitive Biases.” (PDF and Powerpoint presentation.)

Nick introduces me

My talk

IEET Fellow Mike Treder spoke with his CRN partner Chris Phoenix on the promises and perils of molecular manufacturing.

Mike Treder

Mike’s talk

Although we happily discussed mega-risk for the four days, the riskiest thing we conferees did was probably “punting” on the little Oxford river, which is being pushed in a long canoe by someone standing in the back with a pole. As it happened this brought out a fierce competitiveness in our intrepid organizer, nearly dumping us in the drink.

Nick punting

More relaxingly, many of us were staying next door to the Eagle and Child pub in which J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and their fellow “Inklings” regularly gathered. So many of us downed many an ale (and red wine) there during our stay. As the photos below demonstrate, the result was especially salubrious for our normally pensive astrophysicist Milan Cirkovic.

Nick punting

Milan before ale

Milan after ale

We will soon be announcing an IEET follow-on event, co-sponsored with the center for Responsible Nanotechnology, at the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, California on November 14, 2008. Stay tuned.

Speakers at the four-day event at Oxford University in Britain will talk about topics including nuclear terrorism and what to do if a large asteroid were to be on a collision course with our planet.

On the final day of the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference experts will focus on what could be the unintended consequences of new technologies, such as superintelligent machines that, if ill-conceived, might cause the demise of Homo sapiens.

“Any entity which is radically smarter than human beings would also be very powerful,” said Dr. Nick Bostrom, director of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, host of the symposium. “If we get something wrong, you could imagine the consequences would involve the extinction of the human species.”

Bostrom is a philosopher and a leading thinker of transhumanism—a movement that advocates not only the study of the potential threats and promises that future technologies could pose to human life but also the ways in which emergent technologies could be used to make the very act of living better.

“We want to preserve the best of what it is to be human and maybe even amplify that,” Bostrom told CNN.

Transhumanists, according to Bostrom, anticipate a coming era where biotechnology, molecular nanotechnologies, artificial intelligence and other new types of cognitive tools to amplify our intellectual capacity, improve our physical capabilities and even enhance our emotional well-being.

The end result would be a new form of “posthuman” life with beings that possess qualities and skills so exceedingly advanced they no longer can be classified simply as humans.

“We will begin to use science and technology not just to manage the world around us but to manage our own human biology as well,” Bostrom told CNN. “The changes will be faster and more profound than the very, very slow changes that would occur over tens of thousands of years as a result of natural selection and biological evolution.”

Bostrom declined to try to predict an exact time frame when this revolutionary biotechnological metamorphosis might occur. “Maybe it will take eight years or 200 years,” he said. “It is very hard to predict.”