tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/transhumanism-7700/articles
Transhumanism – The Conversation
2024-01-16T17:47:54Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220549
2024-01-16T17:47:54Z
2024-01-16T17:47:54Z
Transhumanism: billionaires want to use tech to enhance our abilities – the outcomes could change what it means to be human
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567869/original/file-20240104-17-c0mfsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C6102%2C3830&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cyborg-woman-machine-part-her-face-1489006997">Kotin / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many prominent people in the tech industry have talked about the increasing
convergence between humans and machines in coming decades. For example, Elon Musk
has reportedly said he wants humans <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/17/20697812/elon-musk-neuralink-ai-brain-implant-thread-robot">to merge with AI</a> “to
achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence”. </p>
<p><a href="https://neuralink.com/">His company Neuralink</a> aims to facilitate this convergence so that humans won’t be “left behind” as technology advances in the future. While people with disabilities would be near-term recipients of these innovations, some believe technologies like this could be used to enhance abilities in everyone.</p>
<p>These aims are inspired by an idea called transhumanism, the belief that we should use science and technology to radically enhance human capabilities and seek to direct our own evolutionary path. Disease, aging and death are all realities transhumanists wish to end, alongside dramatically increasing our cognitive, emotional and physical capacities. </p>
<p><a href="https://azofthefuture.podbean.com/e/episode-4-transhumanism-part-1/">Transhumanists</a> often advocate for the three “supers” of superintelligence, superlongevity and superhappiness, the last referring to ways of achieving lasting happiness. There are many different views among the transhumanist community of what our ongoing evolution should look like. </p>
<p>For example, some advocate <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-uploading-our-minds-to-a-computer-might-%20become-possible-206804">uploading the mind into digital form</a> and <a href="https://nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste">settling the cosmos</a>. Others think we should remain organic beings but rewire or upgrade our biology through genetic engineering and other methods. A future of designer babies, artificial wombs and anti-aging therapies appeal to these thinkers.</p>
<p>This may all sound futuristic and fantastical, but rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology have led some to argue we are on the cusp of creating such possibilities.</p>
<h2>God-like role</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/silicon-valley-billionaire-pays-%20company-thousands-to-kill-him-and-preserve-his-brain-forever-%20a3790871.html">Tech billionaires</a> are among the <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-acronym-behind-our-wildest-ai-dreams-and-nightmares/">biggest promoters of transhumanist thinking</a>. It is not hard to understand why: they could be the central protagonists in the most important moment in history. </p>
<p>Creating so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/artificial-general-intelligence-3286">artificial general intelligence</a> (AGI) – that is, an AI system that can do all the cognitive tasks a human can do and more – is a current focus within Silicon Valley. AGI is seen as vital to enabling us to take on the God-like role of designing our own evolutionary futures. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Anti-aging therapy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569361/original/file-20240115-21-jr87bd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569361/original/file-20240115-21-jr87bd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569361/original/file-20240115-21-jr87bd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569361/original/file-20240115-21-jr87bd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569361/original/file-20240115-21-jr87bd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569361/original/file-20240115-21-jr87bd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569361/original/file-20240115-21-jr87bd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Advanced anti-aging therapies are one area that could deepen inequality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hyaluronic-acid-injection-facial-rejuvenation-procedure-562280392">Africa Studio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That is why companies like OpenAI, DeepMind and Anthropic are racing towards the development of AGI, despite some experts warning that it could <a href="https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/">lead to human extinction</a>. </p>
<p>In the short term, the promises and the perils are probably overstated. After all, these companies have a lot to gain by making us think they are on the verge of engineering a divine power that can create utopia or destroy the world. Meanwhile, AI has played a role in fuelling our polarised political landscape, with disinformation and more complex forms of manipulation made more effective by generative AI.</p>
<p>Indeed, AI systems are already causing <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/akex34/chatgpt-is-a-bullshit-generator-%20waging-%20class-war">many other forms of social and environmental harm</a>. AI companies rarely wish to address these harms though. If they can make governments focus on long-term potential “safety” issues relating to possible existential risks instead of actual social and environmental injustices, they stand to benefit from the resulting regulatory framework. </p>
<p>But if we lack the capacity and determination to address these real world harms, it’s hard to believe that we will be able to mitigate <a href="https://time.com/6327635/ai-needs-to-be-%20regulated-like-nuclear-weapons/">larger-scale risks that AI may hypothetically enable</a>. If there really is a threat that AGI could pose an existential risk, for example, everyone would shoulder that cost, but the profits would be very much private. </p>
<h2>A familiar story</h2>
<p>This issue within AI development can be seen as a microcosm of why the wider
transhumanist imagination may appeal to billionaire elites <a href="https://theconversation.com/polycrisis-may-be-a-buzzword-but-it-could-help-us-tackle-%20the-worlds-woes-195280">in an age of multiple crises</a>. It speaks to the refusal to engage in grounded ethics, injustices and challenges and offers a grandiose narrative of a resplendent future to distract from the current moment.</p>
<p>Our misuse of the planet’s resources has set in train a sixth mass extinction of species and a climate crisis. In addition, ongoing wars with increasingly potent weapons remain a part of our technological evolution.</p>
<p>There’s also the pressing question of <a href="https://theconversation.com/super-intelligence-and-eternal-life-transhumanisms-faithful-follow-it-blindly-into-a-future-for-the-elite-78538">whose future will be transhuman</a>. We currently live in a very unequal world. Transhumanism, if developed in
anything like our existing context, is likely to greatly increase inequality, and
may have catastrophic consequences for the majority of humans.</p>
<p>Perhaps transhumanism itself is a symptom of the kind of thinking that has created our parlous social reality. It is a narrative that encourages us to hit the gas, expropriate nature even more, keep growing and not look back at the devastation in the rear-view mirror.</p>
<p>If we’re really on the verge of creating an enhanced version of humanity, we should start to ask some big questions about what being human should mean, and therefore what an enhancement of humanity should entail.</p>
<p>If the human is an aspiring God, then it lays claim to dominion over nature and the body, making all amenable to its desires. But if the human is an animal embedded in complex relations with other species and nature at large, then “enhancement” is contingent on the health and sustainability of its relations. </p>
<p>If the human is conceived of as an environmental threat, then enhancement is surely that which redirects its exploitative lifeways. Perhaps becoming more-than-human should constitute a much more responsible humanity.</p>
<p>One that shows compassion to and awareness of other forms of life in this rich and
wondrous planet. That would be preferable to colonising and extending ourselves,
with great hubris, at the expense of everything, and everyone, else.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220549/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The tech elite’s obssession with upgrading humanity offers a grandiose narrative to distract from today’s more pressing challenges and injustices.
Alexander Thomas, Programme Leader, Media, Fashion & Communications, University of East London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211263
2023-09-06T21:21:02Z
2023-09-06T21:21:02Z
Your iPhone will soon be able to track your mental health with iOS 17, but what are the implications for your well-being?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546529/original/file-20230905-19-uo066u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=157%2C44%2C4730%2C3263&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new mood tracker will ask users to rate how they feel both daily and in random moments.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/your-iphone-will-soon-be-able-to-track-your-mental-health-with-ios-17-but-what-are-the-implications-for-your-well-being" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>When Apple’s <a href="https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2023/06/apple-previews-new-features-coming-to-apple-services-this-fall/">latest software updates</a> drop this month, users will have access to mental <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/06/apple-provides-powerful-insights-into-new-areas-of-health/">health and wellness</a> features unlike anything currently available in a smartphone. With the Apple Watch and iOS health app, Apple has long striven to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-outlines-health-technology-strategy-new-report-2022-07-20/">cement itself in the health-care tech space</a>. But the new features go beyond the standard heart rate, sleep, calorie and fitness trackers that have become universal in smart tech. </p>
<p>A new mood tracker (dubbed “State of Mind”) will ask users to rate how they feel both in random moments (from unpleasant to pleasant) and daily. Mental health questionnaires will provide users with a preliminary screening for depression (using the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3928/0048-5713-20020901-06">PHQ-9 screening tool</a>) and anxiety (using the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092">GAD-7 screening tool</a>) that can alert them to their risk levels and connect them to licensed professionals in their area.</p>
<p>Finally, Apple is introducing a journaling app that can collect user data from photos, texts, music/gaming/TV history, location, fitness etc. to give users a holistic picture of each day. </p>
<p>Those who use Apple’s <a href="https://research-methodology.net/apple-ecosystem-closed-effective/">ecosystem</a> know that it’s <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/apple-wwdc-ios15-new-features-walled-garden.html">extensive and powerful</a>, and true Apple devotees will use an Apple product for nearly every digital experience they have.</p>
<p>This means Apple is in the position to arrive at unique insights about a user’s life. What they’re proposing in iOS 17 is to essentially hold a mirror up to their users, allowing them to see their lives through their interactions with technology. </p>
<h2>Tracking mental state</h2>
<p>As a philosopher of psychology who studies how technology is changing the way people relate to their mental health, and as an avid Apple fan, I wanted to try out these new features as soon as possible. I downloaded the public beta software in July and want to share my insights about how we might approach this new technology.</p>
<p>The State of Mind tool is simple to use. When opening the Health App after updating to iOS 17, I was prompted to start tracking my mental state. I can choose to log a state at a specific time (for example, how did I feel at 2:30 p.m. today?), or to log my mental state for the day. </p>
<p>The sliding scale of mental states is visually appealing. The screen turns blue when I slide to the “unpleasant” options and orange when I slide to the “pleasant” options. </p>
<p>After settling on a mental state, users are prompted to give some context. </p>
<p>First, there’s a predetermined list of emotions that might describe the user’s mental state (for example, “anxious,” “content,” “happy,” “excited”), and then a list of factors that might be contributing to that mental state (such as “work,” “friends,” “current events”). Here users can write in something specific that will be included in the log. </p>
<p>If they use it daily, users can access a calendar of daily mental states and a graph that visualizes the cycle of states over a given week, month or year. Clicking on any data point will pull up the details of that day, any momentary moods the user logged and the context the user provided. </p>
<p>The user interface functions similarly to the other health metrics Apple already logs. It is a minimalist design that offers easily digestible data. Users can access mental state metrics on the home screen of the app with their other health data. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A screenshot of the State of Mind graph presented with the author's exercise data over the past month." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542365/original/file-20230811-25-7c96ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542365/original/file-20230811-25-7c96ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1299&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542365/original/file-20230811-25-7c96ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542365/original/file-20230811-25-7c96ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1299&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542365/original/file-20230811-25-7c96ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1633&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542365/original/file-20230811-25-7c96ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1633&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542365/original/file-20230811-25-7c96ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1633&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mood data can be presented alongside exercise minutes, inviting users to draw conclusions about them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Owen Chevalier)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When using the mental well-being features, I can’t help but think the introduction of them is a step closer to <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enhancement">transhumanism</a>, which is the amalgamation of humans and technology, and eventual replacement of the human body with technology. </p>
<p>Instead of just measuring physical fitness (tracking workouts, counting calories), the iPhone and Apple Watch can be holistic measures of me as a person. They can define not only my active life but also my mental life. I can scroll through an Apple-branded definition of who I am. Eventually, I can become the Apple ideal version of myself. </p>
<p>On the surface, it is helpful to see that I often rate days more highly when I’m active and sleep enough (although it doesn’t take AI to know that). However, as a researcher I know that there’s a limit to what data can tell us, based on the measurements we use and our <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-knowledge-social/#SciSoc">biases as interpreters</a>.</p>
<p>I wonder how the average Apple user will interpret this data, and whether they will start shaping their lives to arrive at graphs that look desirable. </p>
<p>The late philosopher Ian Hacking describes a <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/2043/pba151p285.pdf">looping effect</a> between people and the labels they’re given. Looping effects are prominent in the algorithm-driven software we use. Researchers have found people’s TikTok feeds become <a href="https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2020i0.11172">reflections of their self-concept</a> as they begin to trust the insights AI draws from the feedback they’ve given. </p>
<p>However, TikTok algorithms are not blank slates for self-concept creation. They’re designed to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/05/business/media/tiktok-algorithm.html">put people into marketing categories to sell them to advertisers</a>.</p>
<p>Apple isn’t trying to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/apple-privacy-data-collection">sell your data</a>; its <a href="https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/pdfs/apple-privacy-policy-en-ww.pdf">privacy policy</a> states, “Apple does not share personal data with third parties for their own marketing purposes.” But its health app reflects its corporate mandates and the world it wants to create. </p>
<p>In an <a href="https://time.com/5472329/apple-watch-ecg/">interview with <em>Time</em></a>, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “Apple’s largest contribution to mankind will be in improving people’s health and well-being.” </p>
<p>Apple is a company of ideals. Compared to traditional computer marketing, which highlights performance specs, Apple pioneered selling computers by advertising who a user can be with a Mac. This was the purpose behind their <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/441206/today-in-apple-history-its-time-to-think-different/">“Think Different”</a> campaign. Even when Apple does discuss technical details of computer performance, their use of flashy visuals and vague language makes it <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6g6rDDt9x8">difficult to accurately assess</a> their products against competitors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Chart comparing the CPU Performance of Apple's M1 chip against other laptops." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545391/original/file-20230829-16-4esk5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545391/original/file-20230829-16-4esk5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545391/original/file-20230829-16-4esk5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545391/original/file-20230829-16-4esk5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545391/original/file-20230829-16-4esk5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545391/original/file-20230829-16-4esk5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545391/original/file-20230829-16-4esk5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While Apple provides graphs like these, they do not provide enough information to be valuable as a comparison tool. Instead, they reflect Apple’s branding and are marketed to users who may not be concerned with the details of computer performance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2020/11/apple-unleashes-m1/">(Apple)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The messaging is clear: An Apple user is not just someone who owns a piece of tech, but someone who is cool, creative, colourful and individualistic. Now they can be healthy and well-adjusted, too. </p>
<p>But corporate mandates can be hollow because at their core they exist to increase profits. Apple’s success as a company comes from its ability to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accfor.2013.06.003">own the consumer</a>. </p>
<p>With an airtight ecosystem, users become dependent on Apple for all their digital needs. By integrating health into that ecosystem, those users may be dependent on Apple for their well-being too. I’m not sure what happens when people incorporate their Apple self into their self-concept, but it might make them better consumers and more productive employees. Ultimately, this is the goal of <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ca/Documents/about-deloitte/ca-en-about-blueprint-for-workplace-mental-health-final-aoda.pdf">corporate mental health</a>. </p>
<p>Just as spa days and five-minute yoga breaks can only go so far in improving mental health, it’s not clear that iOS 17 is the medical revolution Apple hopes it will be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Owen Chevalier does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New features on Apple iOS 17 aim to give users insights into their mental health, but they may also shape how people see themselves.
Owen Chevalier, PhD Student, Philosophy Department, Western University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195051
2022-11-29T17:33:23Z
2022-11-29T17:33:23Z
Cyborgs v ‘holdout humans’: what the world might be like if our species survives for a million years
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497596/original/file-20221128-20-r42rpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C52%2C3834%2C2741&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Homo Sapiens may survive.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/three-skulls-raw-showing-humans-evolution-133811405">JuliusKielaitis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most species are transitory. They go extinct, branch into new species or change over time due to random mutations and environmental shifts. A typical mammalian species can be expected to exist for <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/extinction-rates-9780198548294?cc=gb&lang=en&">a million years</a>. Modern humans, <em>Homo sapiens</em>, have been around for roughly 300,000 years. So what will happen if we make it to a million years?</p>
<p>Science fiction author H.G. Wells was the first to realise that humans could evolve into something very alien. In his 1883 essay, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3044429">Man in the year million</a>, he envisioned what’s now become a cliche: big-brained, tiny-bodied creatures. Later, he speculated that humans could also split into two or more new species.</p>
<p>While Wells’s evolutionary models have not stood the test of time, the three basic options he considered still hold true. We could go extinct, turn into several species or change.</p>
<p>An added ingredient is that we have biotechnology that could greatly increase the probability of each of them. Foreseeable future technologies such as human enhancement (making ourselves smarter, stronger or in other ways better using drugs, microchips, genetics or other technology), brain emulation (uploading our brains to computers) or artificial intelligence (AI) may produce technological forms of new species not seen in biology.</p>
<h2>Software intelligence and AI</h2>
<p>It is impossible to predict the future perfectly. It depends on fundamentally random factors: ideas and actions as well as currently unknown technological and biological limits. But it is my job to explore the possibilities, and I think the most likely case is vast “speciation” – when a species splits into several others. </p>
<p>There are many among us who want to improve the human condition – slowing and abolishing ageing, enhancing intelligence and mood, and changing bodies – potentially leading to new species. </p>
<p>These visions, however, leave many cold. It is plausible that even if these technologies become as cheap and ubiquitous as mobile phones, some people will refuse them on principle and build their self-image of being “normal” humans. In the long run, we should expect the most enhanced people, generation by generation (or upgrade after upgrade), to become one or more fundamentally different <a href="https://nickbostrom.com/posthuman.pdf">“posthuman” species</a> – and a species of holdouts declaring themselves the “real humans”.</p>
<p>Through <a href="https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf">brain emulation</a>, a speculative technology where one scans a brain at a cellular level and then reconstructs an equivalent neural network in a computer to create a “software intelligence”, we could go even further. This is no mere speciation, it is leaving the animal kingdom for the mineral, or rather, software kingdom. </p>
<p>There are many reasons some might want to do this, such as boosting chances of immortality (by creating copies and backups) or easy travel by internet or radio in space.</p>
<p>Software intelligence has other advantages, too. It can be very <a href="http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/03/a_really_green_and_sustainable_humanity.html">resource efficient</a> – a virtual being only needs energy from sunlight and some rock material to make microchips. It can also think and change on the timescales set by computation, probably millions of times faster than biological minds. It can evolve in new ways – it just needs a software update.</p>
<p>Yet humanity is perhaps unlikely to remain the sole intelligent species on the planet. Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly right now. While there are profound uncertainties and disagreements about when or if it becomes conscious, artificial general intelligence (meaning it can understand or learn any intellectual problems like a human, rather than specialising on niche tasks) will arrive, a sizeable fraction of experts <a href="https://aiimpacts.org/category/ai-timelines/predictions-of-human-level-ai-timelines/ai-timeline-surveys/">think it is possible within this century</a> or sooner.</p>
<p>If it can happen, it probably will. At some point, we are likely to have a planet where humans have largely been replaced by software intelligence or AI – or some combination of the two.</p>
<h2>Utopia or dystopia?</h2>
<p>Eventually, it seems plausible that most minds will become software. Research suggests that computers will soon become much more energy efficient than they are now. Software minds also won’t need to eat or drink, which are inefficient ways of obtaining energy, and they can save power by running slower parts of the day. This means we should be able to get <a href="http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/03/a_really_green_and_sustainable_humanity.html">many more artificial minds per kilogram of matter</a> and watts of solar power than human minds in the far future. And since they can evolve fast, we should expect them to change tremendously over time from our current style of mind. </p>
<p>Physical beings have a distinct disadvantage compared with software beings, moving in the sluggish, quaint world of matter. Still, they are self-contained, unlike the flitting software that will evaporate if their data centre is ever disrupted. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Amish farm in New York." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497595/original/file-20221128-4841-504fa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497595/original/file-20221128-4841-504fa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497595/original/file-20221128-4841-504fa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497595/original/file-20221128-4841-504fa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497595/original/file-20221128-4841-504fa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497595/original/file-20221128-4841-504fa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497595/original/file-20221128-4841-504fa2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amish farm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Natural” humans may remain in traditional societies very unlike those of software people. This is not unlike the Amish people today, whose humble lifestyle is still made possible (and protected) by the surrounding United States. It is not given that surrounding societies have to squash small and primitive societies: we have established human rights and legal protections and something similar could continue for normal humans.</p>
<p>Is this a good future? Much depends on your values. A good life may involve having meaningful relations with other people and living in a peaceful and prosperous environment sustainably. From that perspective, weird posthumans are not needed; we just need to ensure that the quiet little village can function (perhaps protected by unseen automation). </p>
<p>Some may value “the human project”, an unbroken chain from our palaeolithic ancestors to our future selves, but be open to progress. They would probably regard software people and AI as going too far, but be fine with humans evolving into strange new forms.</p>
<p>Others would argue what matters is freedom of self-expression and following your life goals. They may think we should explore the posthuman world widely and see what it has to offer. </p>
<p>Others may value happiness, thinking or other qualities that different entities hold and want futures that maximise these. Some may be uncertain, arguing we should hedge our bets by going down all paths to some extent.</p>
<h2>Dyson sphere?</h2>
<p>Here’s a prediction for the year one million. Some humans look more or less like us – but they are less numerous than they are now. Much of the surface is wilderness, having turned into a rewilding zone since there is far less need for agriculture and cities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of a jungle in southeast Asia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497459/original/file-20221127-7250-eqiupm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497459/original/file-20221127-7250-eqiupm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497459/original/file-20221127-7250-eqiupm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497459/original/file-20221127-7250-eqiupm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=245&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497459/original/file-20221127-7250-eqiupm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497459/original/file-20221127-7250-eqiupm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497459/original/file-20221127-7250-eqiupm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The future may be wild.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Teo Tarras/Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Here and there, cultural sites with vastly different ecosystems pop up, carefully preserved by robots for historical or aesthetic reasons. </p>
<p>Under silicon canopies in the Sahara, trillions of artificial minds teem. The vast and hot data centres which power these minds once threatened to overheat the planet. Now, most orbit the Sun, forming a growing structure – a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-odds-of-an-alien-megastructure-blocking-light-from-a-distant-star-49311">Dyson sphere</a> – where each watt of energy powers thought, consciousness, complexity and other strange things we do not have words for yet.</p>
<p>If biological humans go extinct, the most likely reason (apart from the obvious and immediate threats right now) is a lack of respect, tolerance and binding contracts with other post-human species. Maybe a reason for us to start treating our own minorities betters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195051/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anders Sandberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
There may be humans who look more or less like us in the year million, but they won’t be alone.
Anders Sandberg, James Martin Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute & Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154082
2021-05-17T05:22:55Z
2021-05-17T05:22:55Z
Downloading our thoughts to the mainframe may be the stuff of science fiction — but humans have been imagining it for centuries
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398569/original/file-20210504-18-maei50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4096%2C2029&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Altered Carbon, bodies just become 'sleeves' for downloaded human brains to occupy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Modern <a href="https://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-declaration/">transhumanism</a> is the belief that, in the future, science and technology will enable us to transcend our bodily confines. Scientific advances will transform humans and, in the process, eliminate ageing, disease, unnecessary suffering, and our earthbound status. </p>
<p>Artistic representations of humans uploading their minds to cybernetic devices or existing independently of their bodies abound. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261227/">Altered Carbon</a> (2018-2020) we are introduced to a future where human consciousness can be downloaded onto devices called “cortical stacks”. This technology reduces physical bodies to temporary vehicles or “sleeves” for these storage devices which are implanted and swapped between various bodies. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M8PsZki6NGU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/">The Matrix</a> (1999, 2003) depicts humans living in a digital simulation while their bodies remain inactive in liquid-filled pods. The artist <a href="https://www.agsa.sa.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/2020-adelaide-biennial-australian-art-monster-theatres/stelarc/">Stelarc</a> explores our transhuman future in “monstrous” creations examining the boundaries between human and machine. </p>
<p>But these speculations are not limited to art and science fiction. </p>
<p>The public intellectual Sam Harris and world-renowned physicist David Deutsch imagine a future where we are able to <a href="https://samharris.org/podcasts/finding-our-way-in-the-cosmos/">download conscious states</a> and live in matrix-like virtual simulations. The historian <a href="https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/a-big-history-of-the-future/">Yuval Noah Harari</a> suggests, in the not too distant future, these technological advancements will transform us into new godlike immortal species. </p>
<p>Some thinkers, like the philosopher <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3542867?refreqid=excelsior%3A5222f242f58f682b666eff74abe59aaa&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Nick Bostrom</a>, believe we might already be living in a computer simulation. Elon Musk is developing brain-machine interfaces to <a href="https://theconversation.com/neuralinks-monkey-can-play-pong-with-its-mind-imagine-what-humans-could-do-with-the-same-technology-158787">connect humans to computers</a>.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-could-our-entire-reality-be-part-of-a-simulation-created-by-some-other-beings-146840">Curious Kids: could our entire reality be part of a simulation created by some other beings?</a>
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<p>These imaginings of our transhumanist future take many divergent forms, but they share the idea science will enable us to free our minds from bodily constraints. </p>
<p>But these ideas aren’t modern. In fact, the desire to transcend our nature is a continuation of the Enlightenment ideal of human perfectibility: today’s ideas of transhumanism can be directly traced back to two 18th century thinkers. </p>
<h2>Marquis de Condorcet: life will have ‘no assignable limit’</h2>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Condorcet">Marquis de Condorcet</a> (1743-1794) was a French revolutionary who believed science would bring about unprecedented progress. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398567/original/file-20210504-22-2ca3tv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Oil painting of an old man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398567/original/file-20210504-22-2ca3tv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398567/original/file-20210504-22-2ca3tv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398567/original/file-20210504-22-2ca3tv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398567/original/file-20210504-22-2ca3tv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398567/original/file-20210504-22-2ca3tv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398567/original/file-20210504-22-2ca3tv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398567/original/file-20210504-22-2ca3tv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=932&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marquis de Condorcet, painted between 1789-1794.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Condorcet was a mathematician who aimed to apply a scientific model to the social and political dimensions of society. He thought improvement in education would produce more knowledge, which in turn would further improve education — creating an ever upward spiral of progress. </p>
<p>His reception speech to the French Academy in 1782 captured the optimistic spirit of the age. He declared: “the human mind will seem to grow and its limits to recede” with the advancement of science. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketch_for_a_Historical_Picture_of_the_Progress_of_the_Human_Mind">Outlines of an Historical View</a> (1795) he wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Would it even be absurd to suppose […] a period must one day arrive when death will be nothing more than the effect either of extraordinary accidents, or of the flow and gradual decay of the vital powers; and that the duration of the middle space, of the interval between the birth of man and this decay, will itself have no assignable limit?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Condorcet imagined science would lead to humans transcending their bodies and, in the process, attaining immortality. </p>
<h2>William Godwin: the extinction of anguish, and passion</h2>
<p>Enlightenment thinker <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Godwin">William Godwin</a> (1756-1836) was convinced science would lead to human perfectibility. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381257/original/file-20210129-21-a03fn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Oil painting. A younger man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381257/original/file-20210129-21-a03fn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381257/original/file-20210129-21-a03fn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381257/original/file-20210129-21-a03fn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381257/original/file-20210129-21-a03fn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381257/original/file-20210129-21-a03fn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381257/original/file-20210129-21-a03fn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381257/original/file-20210129-21-a03fn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Godwin painted by James Northcote in 1802.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Godwin was a political radical whose sympathies lay with contemporary French revolutionaries like Condorcet. He believed an expansion in knowledge would lead to improvements in our understanding, and thereby increase our control over matter. </p>
<p>Godwin outlined this vision in his book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enquiry_Concerning_Political_Justice">Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness</a> (1793). </p>
<p>He wrote that human passions and desires would become extinct along with disease, anguish, melancholy and resentment. This was a future in which people no longer had sex nor reproduced. The Earth instead would be populated by disembodied humans who have achieved immortality. </p>
<p>“There will be no war”, wrote Godwin, “no crimes, no administration of justice as it is called, and no government”. Scientific progress for Godwin not only meant we would be rid of ailments plaguing the physical body, but also those affecting society. </p>
<p>For Godwin, like Condorcet, human perfectibility was unlimited and, more importantly, achievable.</p>
<p>Godwin’s daughter, Mary Shelley, went on to write one of the earliest literary works to depict transhumanism, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45035018-frankenstien">Frankenstein</a> (1818). Her vision of a scientific future was much less rosy.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/frankenstein-at-200-and-why-mary-shelley-was-far-more-than-the-sum-of-her-monsters-parts-90206">Frankenstein at 200 and why Mary Shelley was far more than the sum of her monster's parts</a>
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<h2>Science fact or science fiction?</h2>
<p>Godwin and Condorcet imagined humans progressing towards perfect harmony, transcending bodily existence and achieving immortality without desires nor suffering.</p>
<p>Like their modern transhumanist descendants, they believed these radical transitions would occur in their own lifetime. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00033790.2020.1823479">Critics</a> thought their work to be fantastical; more fiction than fact.</p>
<p>As we now know, the critics were right: neither Godwin’s nor Condorcet’s extraordinary visions came to fruition. It has been more than 200 years, and we are still waiting for science to deliver us from our bodies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/neuralinks-monkey-can-play-pong-with-its-mind-imagine-what-humans-could-do-with-the-same-technology-158787">Neuralink's monkey can play Pong with its mind. Imagine what humans could do with the same technology</a>
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<p>This does not seem to deter transhumanist punters. Will we become the immortal human-machine gods, as Yuval Noah Harari predicts? Or will we still be waiting to transcend our fleshy bodies in the 23rd century? </p>
<p>Only time will tell. But, for those of us who prefer to hold on to our bodies for a little while longer, the fate of Godwin and Condorcet’s visions should be good news.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154082/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry-James Meiring does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Leaving our earthly bodies and living forever as a machine isn’t just a thing of modern science fiction. These transhumanist ideas date back to the 18th century.
Henry-James Meiring, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/122735
2019-08-30T16:07:53Z
2019-08-30T16:07:53Z
Eric Cantona’s ‘science will make us eternal’ speech was funny – but he has a point
<p>It was quite unlike any other acceptance speech of the UEFA President’s award. In a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/30/eric-cantona-eternal-war-crime-king-lear">rather philosophical address</a> before the Champion’s League draw in Monaco, former football player and actor Eric Cantona claimed: “Soon the science will not only be able to slow down the ageing of the cells, soon the science will fix the cells to the state, and so we become eternal.”</p>
<p>But what was he actually talking about and does it hold up? In the context, the statement seemed out of place, perhaps even slightly mad. There’s pathos in seeing aged sportsmen too – once sublime athletes now reduced to a snail’s pace and going grey. And this gets to the heart of the human condition – it is defined by limitations, most notably ageing and death. Cantona though, wears his age gracefully if unconventionally, much like he played the game.</p>
<p>But there was more than madness in Cantona’s words. The point he is making is important. As a species, we are on the cusp of creating technologies that may fundamentally alter our capacities, promising radical potentialities and perhaps even immortality. </p>
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<p>The emerging technologies that make this thinkable include nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (NBIC). Transhumanism is the faith in these converging technologies to give rise to human enhancement.</p>
<p>There is indeed work going on <a href="https://www.calicolabs.com/">to reverse ageing</a> with some believing we may be able to halt it altogether. And increasingly potent artificial intelligence (AI) may aid this process. In <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/superintelligence-9780199678112?cc=us&lang=en&">his book Superintelligence</a>, <a href="http://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/find-an-expert/professor-nick-bostrom">philosopher Nick Bostrom</a> suggests AI may soon exceed human-level intelligence resulting in an intelligence explosion. Such a scenario makes anything thinkable, and he believes it could happen in a few decades. </p>
<h2>Morality vs reason</h2>
<p>We have seen great strides in science and technology over the past century, some of which have resulted in <a href="https://theconversation.com/rising-life-expectancy-and-why-we-need-to-rethink-the-meaning-of-old-age-64990">increased global average life expectancies</a>. At the same time, there are increasing numbers of existential threats, such as nuclear weapons and climate change. This points to a limitation of human reason that does not elude Cantona: “Only accidents, crimes, wars, will still kill us. But unfortunately, crimes, wars, will multiply”. </p>
<p>The problem is a duality to human reason. We can interrogate the world with the scientific method that enables us to create technologies which empower us – “instrumental reason”. How to use these advances remains a problem, a question of “moral reason”.</p>
<p>Indeed Cantona’s suggestion that wars and crimes will multiply emphasises that instrumental reason can progress while moral reason regresses. Technical progress does not ensure moral progress, as was powerfully demonstrated by the two world wars of the 20th century and the many ensuing conflicts since. The climate crisis and our current political malaise also illustrate this. </p>
<p>Cantona’s speech opened with a quote from Shakespeare’s King Lear: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,/ They kill us for their sport”. The quote is also prescient. Much transhumanist literature is dedicated to the idea of humans becoming gods. But what kind of gods?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290343/original/file-20190830-165993-v8l0fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290343/original/file-20190830-165993-v8l0fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290343/original/file-20190830-165993-v8l0fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290343/original/file-20190830-165993-v8l0fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290343/original/file-20190830-165993-v8l0fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290343/original/file-20190830-165993-v8l0fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290343/original/file-20190830-165993-v8l0fa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">AI may progress faster than we think.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-machine-concept-background-1269853381?src=-1-1">rimom/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The current gods of transhumanist progress are defence agencies and tech giants. As AI guru <a href="https://www.crypto-world.gr/en/news/singularitynet-ceo-ben-goertzel-interviews/">Ben Goertzel points out</a>: “AI is currently used for selling, spying, killing and gambling.” We may therefore be set to become inhuman, not posthuman gods. </p>
<h2>What do we value?</h2>
<p>A telling part of Cantona’s speech is the reaction to it. The word most commonly used to describe it <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/eric-cantona-baffles-bizarre-speech_uk_5d68c2b4e4b0488c0d1249da?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJEuuv_UWkaE0B4D3di10mjDhId37FT0jwW-oigWtfhD-rNFY6l4Nxl90LQtS0cU33dxSsKarquEEy6h7XqCu2mIG98nHEtRZFlScOsLI3c07zZ4QlWxJjnrxQlx7zH8S9ZHDDDgGYASuozNP0SchSDZe6Jwm2xc0ABxLVIuZYps">is “bizarre”</a>. What makes it bizarre is not the content, as much as the context. In such a scenario ex-players are expected to offer up platitudes rather than philosophies of human existence.</p>
<p>So, as we are developing such powerful technologies, what is the context? It is advanced capitalism, and it does involve selling, spying, killing and gambling. Such is the all-encompassing nature of this system that we barely recognise it as a context at all – it is a given.</p>
<p>Capitalism also embraces instrumental rationality – it fulfils its demand for palpable progress and growth. It does not have much time for questions of morality. Markets bypass moral questions by asking is there a buyer, is there a seller and what is the price. </p>
<p>Mathematics and science are the formalised methodologies of instrumental rationality. It is no surprise then that humans themselves are increasingly subject to this process of quantification. Surveillance provides data, the “new oil” that boosts information capitalism. Humans are now the mines. This is the bizarre world of transhumanist development in the context of advanced capitalism.</p>
<p>In its most hubristic and unquestioning form, bolstered by unapologetic and brash advanced capitalist logics, transhumanism poses myriad <a href="https://theconversation.com/super-intelligence-and-eternal-life-transhumanisms-faithful-follow-it-blindly-into-a-future-for-the-elite-78538">threats</a>: from automation unemployment to the <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_it_s_not_about_privacy_it_s_about_power">end of democracy</a>, to the risk that humans will branch into different species, making questions of inequality infinitely more urgent. Even if immortality arrives it will be accompanied by crimes, wars and accidents – as Cantona states.</p>
<p>But there are alternative ways to think about the future. <em>Posthumanism</em> also deals with our uncertain future, but <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/philosophical-posthumanism-9781350059498/">focuses especially on moral questions</a>. It aims to think ethically beyond the human, emphasising a responsibility towards the wider nature of which we are a part. <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/posthuman-glossary-9781350030251/">Posthumanists</a> “are bonded by the compassionate acknowledgement of their interdependence with multiple, human and non-human others”.</p>
<p>It is time we asked ourselves what aspects of being human we most value. For me, compassion, kindness, appreciation of nature, art and humour are paramount – those aspects most strongly connected with the moral aspect of human reason. Instrumental reason will continue at pace, and perhaps to the cost of these human idiosyncrasies – imperfect, inexact, unquantifiable.</p>
<p>As a Liverpool fan (sorry Eric), I was happy with the Champion’s League draw and Van Dijk’s award, but in the grand scheme of things Cantona’s speech was the most important moment of the event. It reminds us that a radically different future looks to be on the way, and our current social systems and cultural beliefs mean that we are in no position to take advantage of it.</p>
<p>Cantona finished with simply “Thank you. I love football”. To that, I can only say, thank you, Eric. I love football too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Cantona was right to raise concerns about the future, says an expert on transhumanism.
Alexander Thomas, PhD Candidate, University of East London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/121378
2019-08-19T11:09:30Z
2019-08-19T11:09:30Z
Transgender, transhuman: technological advances offer increased choices but also create new prejudices
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287372/original/file-20190808-144838-1wlqs9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/many-same-peoples-heads-boxes-uniformity-269636627?src=JWJfv7oBT10BKvcmjJLtnw-1-31">Supertrooper/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the 2019 TV series <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOcktbXSfxU">Years and Years</a>, a young girl dissatisfied with her life reveals to her parents she is “trans”. Her parents readily express their acceptance and support for their daughter’s supposed desire to have a sex change. But then she tells them she is not “transgender” but “transhuman”, and wishes to leave her physical body behind to become data. Her parents are shocked – and then furious.</p>
<p>As this scene shows, although technological advances may offer new ways for people to lead their lives, they can also create new prejudices. A growing awareness of trans issues – both transgender and transhuman – is stimulating general debate. But we should not assume that discussion of bodily changes necessarily means progression towards a more equal society.</p>
<p>The human body comes in a huge variety of shapes, sizes and colours, yet people outside the perceived norm have often been seen as threatening, ridiculous or hateful. For example, <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/asia/india/articles/a-brief-history-of-hijra-indias-third-gender/">the Hijra</a>, an Indian transgender community dating back 4,000 years, may have achieved <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/16/india-third-gender-claims-place-in-law">legal recognition in 2014</a> but faces <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-46031653/transgender-women-in-india-this-is-how-we-survive">renewed discrimination today</a>. </p>
<p>The possibilities for physical change have never been greater. From tattoos to cosmetic surgery, gender reassignment procedures to bionic implants, people have an increasing number of ways to alter their appearance and the way they live.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287350/original/file-20190808-144862-vo6swd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287350/original/file-20190808-144862-vo6swd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287350/original/file-20190808-144862-vo6swd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287350/original/file-20190808-144862-vo6swd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287350/original/file-20190808-144862-vo6swd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287350/original/file-20190808-144862-vo6swd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287350/original/file-20190808-144862-vo6swd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Transhuman wannabe Bethany from Years and Years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Red Productions/Guy Farrow</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Transhuman</h2>
<p>As Years and Years hints at, technological progress doesn’t only affect gender identity. While prosthetics and implants for <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/carrying-on-with-bionic-arms/">medical purposes</a> have been around for years, a whole new range of elective body augmentations are becoming possible. The term “transhumanism” describes the evolution of the human race beyond its current state, particularly through the implantation of technology in the body. </p>
<p>This “bio-hacking” blurs the line between human and non-human. For example, Professor <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kevin-warwick-273400">Kevin Warwick</a>, often referred to as “Captain Cyborg”, had a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/professor-has-worlds-first-silicon-chip-implant-1174101.html">microchip implanted</a> that enabled him to control the lights and doors in his lab. He then had further surgery to connect an electrode array with his nervous system, which allowed him to <a href="https://singularityhub.com/2010/03/09/kevin-warwick-once-a-cyborg-now-a-prophet-of-the-man-machine-future-video/">control a robotic arm with his mind</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-lqNO3hij_E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>While transgender people have been around for thousands of years, they are offered new possibilities through technology. In contrast, transhumanism is only possible because of technology. In either case, the increase in body modification and gender reassignment procedures suggests now is a good time to reconsider our notions of gender and identity more generally, especially as we live in such an interconnected world. The ability to decide how our body appears and performs in society is transferring more power to the individual, and diverse lifestyle choices are proliferating. </p>
<p>But the increase in alternative ways of living also gives rise to more and different types of discrimination. There has been a sharp rise in transgender <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48756370">hate crimes</a> in the UK, and even an alleged assault in France linked to <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2012/7/19/3169889/steve-mann-cyborg-assault-mcdonalds-eyetap-paris">transhuman discrimination</a>. In this case, staff members in a fast-food restaurant tried to forcibly remove a man’s augmented reality headset, as they thought he was filming them, but it was attached to his skull.</p>
<h2>Transfiction</h2>
<p>Fiction, in literature, film and TV, plays an important role in showing alternative ways of living. Such stories reflect and foster an awareness and experience of current issues in society. So it is not surprising that a variety of fictional <a href="https://www.inverse.com/article/23175-ghost-in-the-shell-movie-biohacking-transhumanism">transhuman</a> and <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/jared-leto-talks-about-his-latest-transformation-in-dallas-buyers-club">transgender</a> protagonists have emerged over recent years. They also can help us to anticipate possible avenues of discrimination.</p>
<p>Two very recent examples of transgender and transhuman matters in British fiction are Jeanette Winterson’s latest book, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/24/frankissstein-jeanette-winterson-review">Frankissstein</a>, and the previously mentioned series <a href="https://www.hbo.com/years-and-years">Years and Years</a>, created by Russell T Davies. Both of these works depict alternative modes of gender and identity in an increasingly tech-dominated world, showing how technological advances can offer increased choices for people but also create new prejudices.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287369/original/file-20190808-144862-1m5o9yb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287369/original/file-20190808-144862-1m5o9yb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287369/original/file-20190808-144862-1m5o9yb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287369/original/file-20190808-144862-1m5o9yb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287369/original/file-20190808-144862-1m5o9yb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287369/original/file-20190808-144862-1m5o9yb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287369/original/file-20190808-144862-1m5o9yb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1158&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Franskissstein, the human body is subjected to radical changes in a contemporary world of cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence (AI). The characters, including a transgender doctor, a Welsh sex-bot entrepreneur and an AI professor, collectively push at the boundaries of what it means to be human. Gender reassignment, sexual relations with robots, and the transfer of the mind to digital form are all depicted. Each of these new ways of living are met with resistance and intolerance by others in the book.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Years and Years, the character Daniel’s status as a gay man is unquestioningly accepted by his family and friends. By contrast, the desire of his niece, Bethany, to become transhuman through tech implants and bio-hacking is met with anger, fear, and revulsion. 30 years on from the groundbreaking, and at the time shocking to many, presentation of a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/eastenders-30-years-ago-first-gay-character_uk_57a47478e4b03393f7f5bb4e?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAH2l9aYTye3ZxcTqzbhjeT0SvIfq9vhRxsxBaYARlPVOXoDfhzKePB36LebFffJj9w3TGXcEoW_xVEoXsd74dwm0C2hevLK1_fNMWPrdCdgSlryf8UL4wifHJL-xBErNsvv2U2aHTCA2DNLQG9fzy4Od9wu8_HbIhg3B_yIfG6Ba&guccounter=1">gay relationship on Eastenders</a>, the portrayal of Daniel shows how far the acceptance of same-sex relationships on TV has come. This also suggests that the desire to become transhuman may take many years to become more widely tolerated. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qOcktbXSfxU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In real life, as in fiction, the expanding range of lifestyle choices available now and in the future will not simply lead to increased tolerance of difference. Although transgender and transhuman issues are becoming increasingly visible, new forms of discrimination will arise as people move further away from “traditional” modes of living. </p>
<p>But if the end-goal of transhumanism is to leave our biological origins entirely behind us, then a posthuman world would also be a postgender world. In which case, so much of the discrimination that focuses on the body would become extinct.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121378/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shareena Z Hamzah-Osbourne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
We shouldn’t assume that discussion of bodily changes necessarily means progression towards a more equal society.
Shareena Z Hamzah-Osbourne, Honorary Research Associate, Swansea University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101405
2018-12-10T15:14:13Z
2018-12-10T15:14:13Z
Silicon Valley’s quest for immortality – and its worrying sacrifices
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248765/original/file-20181204-34154-1gr0mx5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/laboratory-man-wearing-brainwave-scanning-headset-1036799923">Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Somewhere in Silicon Valley, a man wakes early with the sunrise. Venturing into the kitchen, he pacifies his rumbling belly with a cup of coffee infused with a large knob of grass-fed butter. He’s in the <a href="https://www.selfhacked.com/blog/lifestyle-diet-increase-longevity/">middle of a fast</a>, after all. </p>
<p>After a two-hour meditation session, he’s off to spend thousands of dollars on his latest indulgence – stem cell injections. The clinic’s practitioner assures him that removing stem cells from his bone marrow and injecting them into other tissues will rejuvenate them from <a href="https://balance.media/biohacking/">their fatigued state</a>. He trusts their word, just as he trusts that spraying nicotine into his mouth will <a href="https://balance.media/biohacking/">give him the benefits</a> of a cigarette without the negative side effects. </p>
<p>When he retires for the night, equipped with melatonin tablets and blue light-blocking glasses to ensure his <a href="https://www.selfhacked.com/blog/methods-to-fall-asleep-insomniac/">sleep cycle isn’t disturbed</a>, he’s satisfied with the day’s achievements. He’s taken another small step towards his goal. He may be a product of the 21st century, but he’s also part of the growing contingent who are doing everything in their power to make it alive into the 23rd. </p>
<p>Humans have long harboured an obsession with living forever. But all those who shared the quest for immortality have something in common – they failed. And yet the dream of eternity hasn’t wavered. So much so, that many alive today cannot help but wonder if the key to their immortality is already lurking in the ever expanding pool of human knowledge.</p>
<p>Modern science has opened an assortment of new ways to improve survival, and now members of the technology-driven ultra-rich are adopting these new approaches in an attempt to extend their own lives. But what is often left unsaid is that modern science has also revealed the darker side of longevity extension: the inevitable physiological trade offs that seem destined to hold us back. Nature seems set to deny our human forms from having it all. So what will it be: humanity, or something else entirely?</p>
<h2>A utopian fantasy</h2>
<p>Francis Bacon’s symbolic narrative <a href="http://www.fcsh.unl.pt/docentes/rmonteiro/pdf/The_New_Atlantis.pdf">New Atlantis</a> was published in 1627. The unfinished novel portrays a society where humankind has used science to wrestle control of its world from nature. To some, this world represents a foreshadowing of the scientific utopia that we are barrelling towards today. But our world, unlike Bacon’s, is one full of self-interest and greed, and it is to these traits that the quest to defy ageing belongs.</p>
<p>Failed quests for immortality have a long record. In the <a href="http://www.ancient-literature.com/other_gilgamesh.html">Epic of Gilgamesh</a>, one of humanity’s oldest tales dating back to the 22nd century BC, the title character embarks on an epic quest to attain everlasting life. After many trials and tribulations, he eventually hears of a flower on the ocean floor that will restore his youth. And despite a warning from the only people ever granted immortality by the gods - that his quest will ruin the joys of life - Gilgamesh plucks the flower from the watery depths.</p>
<p>His success doesn’t last. Gilgamesh inevitably loses the flower; and eventually, like all mortals before and after him, he dies. His is a story of defiance against our mortal forms, our endeavour to go to great lengths to overcome them, and the ultimate futility of the idea. It encompasses a theme that still holds significant relevance in the field of anti-ageing research.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248738/original/file-20181204-34145-psb3r2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248738/original/file-20181204-34145-psb3r2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248738/original/file-20181204-34145-psb3r2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248738/original/file-20181204-34145-psb3r2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248738/original/file-20181204-34145-psb3r2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248738/original/file-20181204-34145-psb3r2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248738/original/file-20181204-34145-psb3r2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Qin Shi Huang dispatched expeditions to find the ‘Elixir of Life’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xu_Fu_expedition%27s_for_the_elixir_of_life.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nearly 2,000 years later, the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, also found himself enamoured with the idea of ruling forever. He tasked his subjects with finding him the “Elixir of Life”, but as he aged with no answer in sight he began to grow desperate. There is evidence that he began ingesting potions containing the highly toxic compound <a href="https://www.livescience.com/61286-first-chinese-emperor-sought-immortality.html">mercury sulphide</a>. So in an ironic twist of fate, his quest for eternal life may have led him to a premature grave. </p>
<p>Fast forward to the 19th century and Elixirs of Life had made their way into the mainstream, with many bars and apothecaries selling their own concoctions. <a href="https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20140616/lower-east-side/archaeologists-recreate-elixir-of-long-life-after-unearthing-1800s-bottle">Consisting of</a> water, herbs and a considerable dose of alcohol, these potions, once touted to extend life, have slowly morphed into today’s herbal remedies. But it would take another 100 years before society could fathom replacing these elixirs with something based on actual evidence.</p>
<p>By the 1930s, scientists had used experiments on rats to reveal that restricting calories could lead to a significant increase in lifespan, a finding that still <a href="https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/19351403082">holds a lot of weight</a> with today’s immortality seekers. Despite this success, research into the processes of ageing remained small scale at best. But a revolution was on the horizon.</p>
<p>The year 1945 saw the birth of the <a href="https://www.geron.org/about-us/history">Gerontological Society</a>, which established a journal and cultivated research interest in the fledgling field. Its work would prove worthwhile, as by the early 1980s humanity’s understanding of and appetite for ageing research had increased considerably.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248756/original/file-20181204-34145-1eg4nd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248756/original/file-20181204-34145-1eg4nd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248756/original/file-20181204-34145-1eg4nd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248756/original/file-20181204-34145-1eg4nd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248756/original/file-20181204-34145-1eg4nd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248756/original/file-20181204-34145-1eg4nd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248756/original/file-20181204-34145-1eg4nd7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Calorie restriction remains a crucial tool for longevity seekers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-businessman-having-lunch-cafe-drinking-1067746376?src=e-Th9lWmhQCkBdI4ZjKrlw-1-1">AT Production/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Restricting calories was no longer the sole item on the list of age-halting strategies. New insights into how cells communicate via signalling and the impact of this process on cell behaviour had swiftly come to the fore. Most notably were those based around the hormone insulin, which was <a href="https://acmedsci.ac.uk/file-download/35180-ageingwe.pdf">found to regulate</a> many aspects of ageing.</p>
<p>Then, in 1990, Daniel Rudman transformed the field with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2355952">his study</a> of the human growth hormone. He had noticed that the amount of lean body mass (everything in the body except fat) decreased as the amount of growth hormone produced by the body’s cells waned. Curious to see if he could reverse this trend, his team injected older males with synthetic growth hormones, reinvigorating their bodies with a more youthful form by restoring their ability to break down fat cells and grow new bone and muscle cells.</p>
<p>At this, entrepreneurs sat up and took notice. Many leapt on the idea for monetary gain, determined to sell the hormone as an <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2695179">anti-ageing therapy</a>. Journalists were swept along in the wave of excitement, writing of the “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,970642,00.html">shot of youth</a>” and asking if we could now stop ageing entirely.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248734/original/file-20181204-34122-26pwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248734/original/file-20181204-34122-26pwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248734/original/file-20181204-34122-26pwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248734/original/file-20181204-34122-26pwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248734/original/file-20181204-34122-26pwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248734/original/file-20181204-34122-26pwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248734/original/file-20181204-34122-26pwad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Long life in a pill (or ten).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/biohack-your-brain-smart-skillful-thoughtful-1040780251">Yakobchuk Viacheslav/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The metamorphosis of the anti-ageing industry had begun. And although no one quite knew what world would emerge when their longevity mission was done, they were determined that it would be something beautiful.</p>
<p>The human growth hormone craze has since fallen away, but a heap of alternative <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-ageing-drugs-are-coming-an-expert-explains-102792">supplementary therapies</a> have readily taken its place. 2003 also saw the completion of the Human Genome Project, which was thought to hold answers for solving many <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001305/">age-related diseases</a> by identifying the key <a href="https://www.genome.gov/11006962/2003-release-gene-for-premature-aging-disorder/">genes that caused them</a>. Yet the answer to avoiding the deterioration that comes with age has <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2582021/">remained elusive</a>.</p>
<p>In the years since, many research fields have been scoured in search of answers: health, sport science, psychology, medicine, computer science. Interest has only intensified and wealthy benefactors have shown unrelenting perseverance, with <a href="https://www.calicolabs.com/">entire companies</a> springing into existence in an effort to unlock eternity. Such confidence raises an inevitable question for the rest of us: can it really be done?</p>
<h2>Biohacking the body</h2>
<p>There are many, many coffee shops in California. But there are a few, in downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica for example, that offer a unique experience. Inside, you’ll find lighting that changes throughout the day, electromagnetic chairs designed to increase customers’ blood flow, and coffee that’s infused with oil and served with butter. These are the entrepreneur Dave Asprey’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/nov/25/bulletproof-coffee-is-adding-butter-to-your-morning-coffee-a-step-too-far">Bulletproof coffee</a> houses, located at the very heart of the so-called biohacking movement.</p>
<p>Asprey is a well-known, controversial figure who often <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/08/05/dave-asprey-biohacking-180-years-bulletproof-coffee/87916348">publicly claims</a> that he’ll live to 180 years old by augmenting his daily habits to alter his physiology. Asprey’s <a href="https://blog.bulletproof.com/">Bulletproof blog</a> is littered with articles and podcasts detailing the health benefits one can supposedly achieve by employing such “hacks”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248740/original/file-20181204-34122-1j8ngv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248740/original/file-20181204-34122-1j8ngv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248740/original/file-20181204-34122-1j8ngv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248740/original/file-20181204-34122-1j8ngv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248740/original/file-20181204-34122-1j8ngv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248740/original/file-20181204-34122-1j8ngv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248740/original/file-20181204-34122-1j8ngv9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dave Asprey, complete with blue light filtering glasses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/collisionconf/26966143517/in/photostream/">Collision Conf/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These include dietary supplements – which the cynical will note are available as Bulletproof products – and activities that subject the body to stress. We see some of these debatable principles materialising in the <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/08/05/dave-asprey-biohacking-180-years-bulletproof-coffee/87916348/">Bulletproof coffee shops</a>, with Bulletproof coffee playing the star role but magnetic furniture, grounded floor panels and elevated yoga spots providing a diverse supporting ensemble.</p>
<p>Far from being an exact science, <a href="https://blog.bulletproof.com/beginners-guide-to-biohacking-101/">biohacking</a> is an umbrella term that encompasses a bunch of self-help material, a dollop of scientific reasoning, and a sprinkle of philosophy for good measure. (<a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-biohackers-letting-technology-get-under-their-skin-60756">People who employ technology</a> to augment their bodies have also been referred to as biohackers, but they’re more commonly referred to as <a href="https://theconversation.com/super-intelligence-and-eternal-life-transhumanisms-faithful-follow-it-blindly-into-a-future-for-the-elite-78538">transhumanists</a>, which we’ll come to later).</p>
<p>Some of the more eccentric biohackers even encourage regular use of prescription and illegal drugs, such as the <a href="https://hackernoon.com/biohack-your-intelligence-now-or-become-obsolete-97cdd15e395f">psychoactive narcotic MDMA</a> to improve charisma and the <a href="https://blog.bulletproof.com/why-you-are-suffering-from-a-modafinil-deficiency/">narcolepsy nootropic modafinil</a> to enhance cognitive function. And unlike many of Silicon Valley’s anti-ageing companies, which pay considerable credence towards genetic variation playing a key role in ageing, biohacking adopts a purely epigenetic approach. It preaches that we can achieve longevity simply by changing our habits and lifestyle.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248742/original/file-20181204-34154-1hhx3km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248742/original/file-20181204-34154-1hhx3km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248742/original/file-20181204-34154-1hhx3km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248742/original/file-20181204-34154-1hhx3km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248742/original/file-20181204-34154-1hhx3km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248742/original/file-20181204-34154-1hhx3km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248742/original/file-20181204-34154-1hhx3km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cryo-sauna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-happy-young-woman-whole-body-452485297">Jacob Lund/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So what sort of physical stressors do biohackers recommend we subject ourselves to? There are many, but an excellent example is the common biohack of taking cold showers. Allegedly, soaking your body in ice cold water provides a <a href="https://impossiblehq.com/cold-shower-health-benefits">boon to the immune system</a>. The <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/out-in-the-cold">scientific evidence</a> supporting this is <a href="http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/isbn9789514296673.pdf">tentative at best</a>, and highlights the tendency of biohackers to readily extrapolate on scientific findings that reinforce their world view. But you only need to scratch beneath the surface to uncover the murky water beneath.</p>
<p>The cold may well train your blood vessels to be responsive, activate calorie-burning brown fat and decrease inflammation, but it is a double-edged sword. Low temperatures can also constrict your blood vessels - increasing blood pressure - and increase your susceptibility to infection. This acts as a counter to the <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/out-in-the-cold">supposed (and unconfirmed)</a> health boon.</p>
<p>With this in mind, cold showers and other extreme practices - which Dave Asprey thinks will help him live to 180 years old - are a young person’s game, and might fly in the face of prolonged life. A biohacking practice may yield a net gain in health when you’re young, but as you age there’s a good chance the balance will shift towards a loss.</p>
<h2>Inevitability of trade-offs</h2>
<p>The biohacking field rarely considers the dark side of longevity extension, that every gain comes with a trade off. Research has shown that we can extend life, but at a cost in ability to fight infection. For example, we can extend the life of the fruit fly, <em>Drosophila melanogaster</em>, by forcing them to eat high sugar, low protein diets. This comes at a cost in the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acel.12333">form of fewer offspring per parent</a> and a reduced ability to fight infection, a process that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/evo.12453">requires protein</a>. </p>
<p>We can also increase longevity by knocking down immune genes or by exposing flies to a dead infection. But, likewise, both of these treatments lead to a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/evo.12453">substantially reduced</a> ability to fight live infections.</p>
<p>Zooming in on cellular components reveals the molecular details underlying many such trade offs. The Cinderella story of the anti-ageing field is mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), a molecule that performs a diverse range of roles sending signals around the body. Controlling mTOR in effect allows us to control much of the cell system, including how it ages and divides. And there are now a raft of anti-ageing drugs that modulate the activity of mTOR. </p>
<p>Biohackers, for their part, have cracked a way to naturally manipulate mTOR into a similar state by <a href="https://idmprogram.com/fasting-and-autophagy-mtor-autophagy-1/">restricting their calorie intake</a>, sometimes through <a href="https://blog.bulletproof.com/bulletproof-fasting/">intermittent fasting</a>. The logic behind this being that mTOR only signals the cell to build and grow when there are enough nutrients around for it to be worthwhile. So consuming less food means less mTOR activity, reducing cell growth and, in turn, the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2806018/">rate of cell death</a>. But <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3616892/">evidence shows</a> that inhibiting this important molecule’s function not only slows ageing but also suppresses the immune system.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248771/original/file-20181204-34138-15mzu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248771/original/file-20181204-34138-15mzu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248771/original/file-20181204-34138-15mzu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248771/original/file-20181204-34138-15mzu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248771/original/file-20181204-34138-15mzu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248771/original/file-20181204-34138-15mzu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248771/original/file-20181204-34138-15mzu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Suppressing the immune system protects our mitochondria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/digital-illustration-mitochondria-colour-background-255109180?src=O-u9LHsAO6haC07Few8OpA-1-7">Raj Creationzs/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our immune system is costly because it uses our precious mitochondria (the batteries that power our cells) to produce toxic compounds and cause inflammation <a href="https://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/pdf/S1097-2765(16)00081-2.pdf">when fighting germs</a>, which damages the mitochondria. So by suppressing the immune system - as shown in both in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/evo.12453">our own work</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5806056/">elsewhere</a> - we can avoid this sort of damage and make it possible to increase longevity. </p>
<p>Of course, this approach comes with considerable risk. These experimental studies have all taken place in controlled environments with minimal exposure to germs. In a natural environment, deliberately impairing an immune system, whether through drug supplementing or caloric restriction, can <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160314101759.htm">cost us dearly</a>, especially in a world where bacteria are persistently evolving <a href="http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/antibiotic-resistance">more resistance to antibiotics</a>.</p>
<p>The trade off between immunity and longevity is a fine example of nature’s way of balancing the scales. Preventing mitochondrial damage and suspending cell death may seem like excellent life-extending practices on their face, but foregoing a fully functional immune response to get there is a heavy, and potentially fatal, price to pay. </p>
<p>It’s also worth noting that natural selection has conserved the mTOR-equivalent mechanism throughout the evolution of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19100909">all animal, fungal and plant life</a>, which highlights just how useful it must be. Perhaps we shouldn’t be so ready to tamper with such an integral element to the fitness of our cells.</p>
<h2>Immortality or humanity?</h2>
<p>There will always be a myriad of ways our mortal forms can go wrong. And we’ve seen that physiological constraints seem set to always hold us back from drastically extending our lifespans and remedying the root cause of ageing – if there even is one.</p>
<p>But on the border between science fiction and pioneering science rest exciting technological ideas that could perhaps unlock a different kind of immortality. Technology can already help us catch age-related defects early, but it holds the potential to become even better: what if we were able to circumvent biological trade offs entirely?</p>
<p>Billionaire Elon Musk’s company <a href="https://theconversation.com/neuralink-wants-to-wire-your-brain-to-the-internet-what-could-possibly-go-wrong-76180">Neuralink</a> is already on the march to set us down this transhumanist path. It envisages a future where humans are far more intimately connected with their electronic devices than we are today. It invites us to work towards a brain-machine interface that would fundamentally integrate us with our technology, achieving a truly symbiotic relationship.</p>
<p>The research is still in its early stages, but brain-machine interfaces are already in use in the form of ear and eye implants that can <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262686051_From_cochlear_implants_to_brain-computer_interfaces">restore our senses</a>, and brain implants that allow disabled people to remotely control <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20805058">computers</a> and <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7560425">robots</a>. Neuralink aims to take this a step further by seamlessly connecting us to electronic devices, the internet and even other humans. Essentially, we’d all have encyclopaedic information on hand and be able to communicate with one another telepathically. </p>
<p>To make this remarkable enhancement possible, a brain-machine interface would be injected into our bloodstream and travel to the brain. There it would self-assemble into a mesh-like structure on the outside of the cerebral cortex, entwining technology to the core of our <a href="https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html#part3">intelligence and sentience</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the invasiveness of Neuralink’s implants, there are already a host of healthy individuals who are eager for such artificial enhancement. Some have even gone so far as to perform surgery on themselves just to install a gadget of <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-the-biohackers-letting-technology-get-under-their-skin-60756">meagre real-world value</a>. But this may be just the start.</p>
<p>Neuralink and the technology it inspires could become a gateway to a post-human future. Through research in this area, we may decipher the means to accurately translate our organic, chemical neuronal pathways into electronic data that could encapsulate them. And so we may, eventually, be able to capture our beings within a computer, living forever as digital memory accessed by a piece of software.</p>
<p>This might be an extreme solution to the question of how to live forever, but there are wealthy individuals, such as entrepreneur <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dmitry-itskov-2045-initiative-immortality-brain-uploading-a6930416.html">Dmitry Itskov</a>, devoted to the idea of merging with a computer. Itskov’s <a href="http://2045.com/">2045 Initiative</a> views brain-machine interfaces as just the first step in a four-part journey that culminates in an artificial brain housing a human personality that controls a hologram-like avatar.</p>
<p>Itskov and other futurists are promising immortality, but to attain it we’ll have to make possibly the biggest trade off of them all, giving away one of our most precious and defining gifts: our human form. The organic brain has forever been the vessel of our soul. An artificial copy may go as far as capturing your entire network of <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/100-trillion-connections/">100 trillion connections</a>, but would it truly be you?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248733/original/file-20181204-34148-kgv4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248733/original/file-20181204-34148-kgv4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248733/original/file-20181204-34148-kgv4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248733/original/file-20181204-34148-kgv4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248733/original/file-20181204-34148-kgv4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248733/original/file-20181204-34148-kgv4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248733/original/file-20181204-34148-kgv4wo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What will we leave behind if upload our brains?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/artificial-intelligence-concept-man-1232939095?src=mewpebfy-R935QGHdqy6FQ-1-15">Elnur/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>It’s a deep question, but our transcendence (or just divergence) away from organic matter means that we may well cease to be human as we know it. Concerns that humans have been warring over for millennia – resources, wealth, mates – could cease to be important. Physical pleasures that have been fundamental to our experience – intimacy, excitement, music, food – might be replaced by virtual signals and synthetic stimulants.</p>
<p>Or at least for some. The rest of us who can’t afford to become immortal avatars will be left to battle over these now trivial concerns, while the wealthy post-humans drift above for eternity. </p>
<p>Musk has shown that entrepreneurship can contribute to science through his forays into the space industry and his company’s <a href="http://www.spacex.com/falcon9">revolutionary rocket design</a>. But the quest for longevity has been embraced so tightly by Silicon Valley and others in the business world, that some scientific researchers have actively distanced themselves from <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2695179/">tackling the issue</a>. In a biological research field that’s so reliant on a worldwide network of experts, more noble goals need to take the prominent position. </p>
<p>A fundamental difficulty of all of these endeavours is that they are an example of science, presumably driven not so much by a desire for greater understanding of the universe or the betterment of humanity, as by personal profit and individual gain.</p>
<p>Whether we will ever find a way to overcome the physiological trade offs that hold back immortality, or whether we will really be able to replicate human consciousness in a computer are questions too difficult for us yet to answer. But are those leading the charge against death at least inspiring us to lead healthy lives, or are they simply rallying against an inevitable fate? </p>
<p>If you were to ask the wealthy patrons of Silicon Valley, the answer would be the former. They’d direct you to the lifespan statistics, which have shown that we survive well over a decade longer on average today than we did <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy">just 50 years ago </a>. They’d also emphasise <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6396/1459.full">the growing evidence</a> that defies the idea of an “upper limit” on how long an individual can survive.</p>
<p>Ongoing research, they’d argue, is already yielding fruit, and it’ll only be exponential progress from here. But, perhaps unfortunately, our <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/evo.12453">research</a> has shed light on the considerable drawbacks in health that may well come as a consequence of our meddling with anti-ageing therapies. Man’s reach, it appears, continues to exceed his grasp.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Priest has received external funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Natural Environment Research Council, the Scottish Government and the
Wellcome Trust. This funding has supported basic research on disease modelling and life-history trade-offs, which has informed this article. There are no conflicts of interest in the publication of this article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James S. Horton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Long read: How nature is fighting our attempts to use biohacking to live forever.
James S. Horton, PhD Candidate, University of Bath
Nicholas K. Priest, Lecturer, University of Bath
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/107221
2018-11-22T11:20:42Z
2018-11-22T11:20:42Z
Microchip implants are threatening workers’ rights
<p>It’s not often trades unions and employers are equally worried about an issue threatening workers’ rights. But recently, the UK’s Trades Union Congress and the main body that represents British businesses, the CBI, have both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/11/alarm-over-talks-to-implant-uk-employees-with-microchips">voiced concerns</a> about the budding practice of implanting employees with microchips.</p>
<p>Initially, the chips are being used in place of ID cards as a way of opening secure doors. But there’s good reason to think the use of implants could expand to more sinister purposes, giving employers much greater control over their workers and raising serious concerns over issues related to human dignity, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-006-9124-0">ethics</a> and health.</p>
<p>Businesses often do need some way to monitor employees to be sure they are completing their work and how much they should be paid. But in recent years, we’ve seen some more extreme monitoring methods that push at the boundaries of personal privacy. These include <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/02/18/firms-step-monitoring-employee-activities-work/2l5hoCjsEZWA0bp10BzPrN/story.html">surveillance of employee emails</a>, wearable technology that can <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/tesco-accused-of-using-electronic-armbands-to-monitor-its-staff-8493952.html">track employee movements</a>, and <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/working-papers/every-stitch-you-make-divergent-effects-monitoring-technology">radio tags</a> on factory products that allow bosses to monitor how fast workers on an assembly line are operating. But implanting microchips in employees creates a new level of monitoring and control simply because workers can’t easily remove them or turn them off. </p>
<p>Microchip implants are typically the size of a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/07/25/technology-company-microchips-staff-can-clock-without-ids/">grain of rice</a> inserted under the skin between the thumb and the forefinger. They can allow people to enter buildings or use vending machines with just the swipe of their hand. Proponents say this makes life <a href="https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-swedes-are-inserting-microchips-into-themselves-heres-why-97741">more convenient</a> as employees don’t have to carry ID badges or key fobs. Organisations that deal with sensitive information also say that such chips allow them to <a href="https://medium.com/cxo-magazine/microchipping-workers-is-a-thing-should-it-be-e74ea1de7cb9">set restrictions</a> on who can access this information.</p>
<h2>Not so innocuous</h2>
<p>Most companies using these chips present them in this fairly innocuous way and think the fear surrounding their use arises from <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/09/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-microchip/570946/">misplaced suspicions</a>. But too much monitoring can make employees feel spied on, damaging their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00236561003654776">productivity, creativity and motivation</a> as well as their personal well-being.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-technology-assessment-in-health-care/article/implanting-inequality-empirical-evidence-of-social-and-ethical-risks-of-implantable-radiofrequency-identification-rfid-devices/49E51218E1788D79B5F209C045FE56CB">research also suggests</a> that implanted chips are susceptible to security risks and increase the potential for identity theft given that it is relatively easy to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/microchips-privacy-implants-biohacking/">hack a microchip implant</a>. So employees could be subjected to something that actually threatens their personal security.</p>
<p>What’s more, employers’ motivations for introducing chip implants are unlikely to be entirely altruistic. There is nothing to stop them from using the technology to track employees’ whereabouts or activities outside work. The chips can be reprogrammed <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/614209/IPOL_STU(2018)614209_EN.pdf">while inside the body</a>, modifying their use and purpose from what might have initially been agreed between the employer and the employee. And this ability to track an employee’s location without their knowledge raises serious ethical concerns regarding their right to privacy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246831/original/file-20181122-182071-hcoxgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246831/original/file-20181122-182071-hcoxgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246831/original/file-20181122-182071-hcoxgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246831/original/file-20181122-182071-hcoxgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246831/original/file-20181122-182071-hcoxgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246831/original/file-20181122-182071-hcoxgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246831/original/file-20181122-182071-hcoxgo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers are increasingly monitored, tracked and surveilled.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cctv-surveillance-operating-office-building-214426324?src=PnL3Uzb7Ys4R7Wbu5t6N1w-1-1">Vasin Lee/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We’ve already seen how employers can use data ostensibly gathered for benign purposes to discriminate against workers. For example, personality tests designed to assess what job someone is most suited to have come under scrutiny for discriminating against people with <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-workplace-personality-tests-fair-1412044257">mental health issues</a>. Microchip implant data recording where employees go outside of work could be used to discriminate in similar ways.</p>
<p>Even if implants are technically voluntary, it’s not hard to imagine situations where employees might feel pressured to accept the chips by their managers or warned of unfavourable consequences if they don’t agree. Other increasingly intrusive forms of monitoring are already seen as an inescapable reality within many workplaces. For example, remote access to emails means some workers are expected to be on call at any time. This increases pressure on employees to work longer hours at the expense of their private lives, as well as creating another way for employers to track their activities.</p>
<p>Employees who choose to opt-out of company monitoring programs can also suffer real financial costs. In 2013, a pharmacy company launched a controversial health-screening program that <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/cvs-workers-insurance_n_2915006">allegedly required employees</a> to disclose personal information to their insurance provider and threatened to charge them US$600 a year if they refused. This kind of pressure can mentally condition workers to think that constant monitoring is the way forward.</p>
<h2>Health risks</h2>
<p>There is also limited information about the safety and health risks associated with the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18802863">use of chip implants</a>. As well as potential physical health risks, it is equally important for employers to understand the risks that microchip implants might pose to mental health. Employees receiving an implant might feel coerced to modify their usual behaviours because they know they are always being monitored and so experience high levels of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/000368709290005G">stress and anxiety</a>. Plus we don’t know very much about what kind of surgical intervention might be required to safely remove a chip, especially if it moves away from its initial implant site. </p>
<p>The good news is that in many developed countries, companies are expected to afford employees some level of privacy. In the EU, <a href="https://theconversation.com/gdpr-ground-zero-for-a-more-trusted-secure-internet-95951">new data protection legislation (GDPR)</a> means employers are expected to conduct privacy impact assessments when they engage in processes that represent a high risk to the rights of data subjects. Covert monitoring should only be carried out in exceptional cases when there is no other reasonable way to monitor employees. </p>
<p>This means that due to the concerns about the risks to privacy as well as health and security posed by chip implants any attempt to introduce them on a larger scale would likely face strong legal challenges. But that probably won’t stop some employers seeing what they can get away with at a time when it’s increasingly common to let private companies know almost everything about us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107221/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shainaz Firfiray does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Seemingly innocuous security chips could enable companies to monitor employees in more sinister ways.
Shainaz Firfiray, Associate Professor of Organisation and Human Resource Management, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97741
2018-06-20T11:24:23Z
2018-06-20T11:24:23Z
Thousands of Swedes are inserting microchips into themselves – here’s why
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223799/original/file-20180619-126534-13us1v5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chips with everything.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/electronic-circuit-boardmotherboard-digital-chip-1115373287?src=zLh03nI7clFy_pGluGPKwg-1-96">www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thousands of people in Sweden <a href="https://futurism.com/sweden-microchip-trend/">have inserted microchips</a>, which can function as contactless credit cards, key cards and even <a href="https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/har-skjuts-tagbiljetten-in-under-huden">rail cards</a>, into their bodies. Once the chip is underneath your skin, there is no longer any need to worry about misplacing a card or carrying a heavy wallet. But for many people, the idea of carrying a microchip in their body feels more dystopian than practical. </p>
<p>Some have suggested that Sweden’s strong welfare state may be the cause of this recent trend. But actually, the factors behind why roughly 3,500 Swedes have had microchips implanted in them are more complex than you might expect. This phenomenon reflects Sweden’s unique biohacking scene. If you look underneath the surface, Sweden’s love affair with all things digital goes much deeper than these microchips. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">New ways to pay.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The term biohackers refers to those amateur biologists who conduct experiments in biomedicine, but do so outside of traditional institutions – such as universities, medical companies and other scientifically controlled environments. Just as computer hackers hack computers, biohackers hack anything biological. </p>
<p>Biohacking is also a culture and a diverse one, with many different subgroups – all with different types of interests, goals and ideologies. But within this diversity there are two main groups: “wetware hackers” and transhumanists.</p>
<p>Wetware hackers are citizen science hobby biologists who build laboratory equipment from household utensils. They conduct so called “frugal science”, where they find inexpensive solutions that will <a href="https://18.re-publica.com/en/session/hacking-ivory-tower-towards-lab-equipment-common-good">improve the living standards</a> for people in developing countries. But they also do more playful experiments where plants are genetically modified to <a href="https://makezine.com/2013/05/16/diy-synthetic-biology-making-your-own-glowing-plants">become fluorescent</a>, or algae is used to <a href="https://biologigaragen.org/portfolio/algae-bar/">make new types of beer</a>.</p>
<p>The other group are the transhumanists, who focus on enhancing and improving the human body – with the aim, in the long run, of improving the human race. Only through bettering ourselves – and escaping biological boundaries – will humans be able to compete with AI in the future. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/super-intelligence-and-eternal-life-transhumanisms-faithful-follow-it-blindly-into-a-future-for-the-elite-78538">Super-intelligence and eternal life: transhumanism's faithful follow it blindly into a future for the elite</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Often, different biohacking scenes reflect the different societies and cultures in which they develop. So, for example, European biohackers generally <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4884673/">differ from their North American counterparts</a>. North American groups are concerned with developing alternatives to the established healthcare practices. European groups, meanwhile, are more focused on finding ways of helping people in developing countries or engaging in <a href="https://www.hackteria.org/workshops/hackteria-moscow/">artistic bio-projects</a>. </p>
<p>But Swedish biohacking culture actually differs from the rest of Europe. Swedish biohackers are generally part of the transhumanist movement. And it is the transhumanists – or more specifically the subgroup “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2012/aug/19/grinders-cult-of-man-machin">grinders</a>” – who have been inserting <a href="http://biohacking.se/allt-om-rfid-implantat/">NFC chips</a> somewhere between the thumb and the index finger of thousands of Swedes. These are the same microchips that have been used for decades to track animals and packages. </p>
<h2>What is it about Sweden?</h2>
<p>So why are Swedes so happy to put microchips into their body? <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5726197/Would-microchip-SKIN-3-000-Swedes-electronic-tag-embedded-hands.html">One theory put forward</a> is that Swedes are more prone to sharing their personal details because of the way the Swedish social security system is structured. </p>
<p>This myth of the “naive Swede”, who innocently trusts the government and Sweden’s national institutions, is an exaggeration – which has even been noted by <a href="https://www.regeringen.se/contentassets/36ac21ea67094813b336115917e1bec5/images-of-sweden-abroad">the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs</a>. If it is part of the explanation, it is certainly not the whole truth. More convincing is the fact that in Sweden, people have a strong faith in all things digital. Swedish people have a deep belief in the positive potential of technology.</p>
<p>Over the past two decades, the Swedish government has invested heavily in technology infrastructure – and it shows. The Swedish economy is now largely based on digital export, digital services and digital tech innovations. And Sweden has become one of <a href="https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/the-reasons-why-sweden-is-a-hotbed-for-digital-innovation-1292681">the most successful countries</a> in the world at creating and exporting digital products. Notable companies, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/26/sweden-is-a-tech-superstar-from-the-north/">such as Skype and Spotify</a>, were founded in Sweden.</p>
<p>A belief in digital technology and a trust in its potential has strongly affected Swedish culture. And the transhumanist movement has built upon this. In fact, Sweden played an important part in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn1q_BWJ3Lk">formation of the transhumanist ideology</a>. The global transhumanist foundation <a href="https://humanityplus.org/about/">Humanity+</a> was co-founded by the Swede <a href="https://nickbostrom.com/papers/history.pdf">Nick Bostrom in 1998</a>. Since then, many Swedes have become convinced that they should be trying enhance and improve their biological bodies. </p>
<p>So as the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5726197/Would-microchip-SKIN-3-000-Swedes-electronic-tag-embedded-hands.html">world expresses shock</a> at the number of people being microchipped in Sweden, we should use this opportunity to delve deeper into Sweden’s remarkable relationship with all thing digital. After all, this latest phenomenon is just one manifestation of an underlying faith in technology that makes Sweden quite unique.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Moa Petersén does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sweden’s deep relationship with digital technology helps explain why its biohacking scene is so unique.
Moa Petersén, Lecturer in Digital Culture, Lund University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/96248
2018-05-31T20:20:03Z
2018-05-31T20:20:03Z
Cryopreservation: the field of possibilities
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217966/original/file-20180507-46364-qq7nqz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C926%2C533&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/zzOPJR7tlK0">Adam Jang/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cryonics have long been a staple of fiction, including everything from Philip K. Dick’s classic 1969 sci-fi novel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubik"><em>Ubik</em></a> to the cheesy 1992 Mel Gibson film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWPsNthP_1w"><em>Forever Young</em></a>. More recent examples include French author Marc Levy’s <a href="https://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/l-horizon-a-l-envers-de-marc-levy-passe-le-test-de-la-page-99_1762713.html"><em>L'Horizon à l'envers</em></a> (<em>The Upside-down Horizon</em>) and Don DeLillo’s 1996 <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/don-delillo-new-book-zero-k-review-cryogenics-immortality-and-the-fragility-of-life-a7022351.html"><em>Zero K</em></a>. The idea is certainly attractive, and simple: pop yourself or a loved one into a freezer, wait a century, rethaw, and you’re good to go.</p>
<p>From time to time, some stories draw attention to the real world of cryonics. For example, in 2016 a British judge authorised the cryopreservation of a fatally ill <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/18/teenage-girls-wish-for-preservation-after-death-agreed-to-by-court">14-year-old girl</a>, and the following year, a <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/woman-cryogenically-frozen-after-dying-10985205">49-year-old woman</a> became the first person to be cryopreserved in China.</p>
<p>In reality, at a time when several hundred people around the world have already been cryogenised, such cases are no longer so rare. The three best-known companies in this field – <a href="http://alcor.org/">Alcor Life Extension Foundation</a>, Cryonics Institute and <a href="http://kriorus.ru/">KrioRus</a> – offer various cryopreservation packages ranging from $28,000 to $200,000 that can be funded through a life-insurance policy with the selected company as the designated beneficiary. Far from being a mere fantasy, cryopreservation penetrates contemporary culture and is becoming a real business.</p>
<h2>Towards a “postmortal society”</h2>
<p>As early as the 1960s, a milestone was reached in the quest for immortality thanks to the development of body cryopreservation techniques making it possible to stop the decomposition process and envisage subsequent resuscitation. Robert Ettinger, the founder of the Cryonics Institute and considered the father of cryonics, popularised these methods in his 1962 book <a href="https://www.cryonics.org/images/uploads/misc/Prospect_Book.pdf"><em>The Prospect of Immortality</em></a>.</p>
<p>According to its defenders, cryonics would be the way in which the present mortal community would become the future “postmortal society” described by Céline Lafontaine and predicted by transhumanists. The claims for cryonics renew the quest for immortality and undoubtedly participate in the phenomenon of relegation of death that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Ari%C3%A8s">Philippe Ariès</a> was able to describe by noting that “society has expelled death”. In this context, it is not surprising that some individuals, are beginning to claim a right to cryopreservation, as a precursor of a right to immortality.</p>
<h2>Immortality in court</h2>
<p>In the United States, cryonics does not seem to pose any legal difficulties, but in Europe, especially in France, the situation is different.</p>
<p>In this country, the law is not clear on cryopreservation, neither authorising nor prohibiting it. Therefore, can a French citizen be cryogenised despite this legislative uncertainty? That is the question put to the government by the French senator Jean-Louis Masson in 2006. The answer was unambiguous: only burial and cremation are legal, so cryopreservation is prohibited. Therefore, despite the recognition of the freedom of funerals by an 1887 French law and the obligation to respect the deceased’s choices regarding his funeral provided by Article <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070719&idArticle=LEGIARTI000006418594">433-21-1 of the French Penal Code</a>, cryopreservation seems impossible to implement in France in the current state of the law.</p>
<p>The French supreme court for administrative justice is also against cryopreservation. One of its decisions concerned the preservation by a brother and sister, Michel and Joëlle Leroy, of their dead mother’s body. On <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichJuriAdmin.do?idTexte=CETATEXT000008094821">July 29, 2002</a>, the State Council rejected their request for permission to keep their mother’s remains in a freezer located in the basement of their property in Saint-Denis de La Réunion. A second case concerned the maintenance of the remains of Dr. Raymont Martinot and his wife in a machine that their son, Rémy Martinot, was handling. On <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichJuriAdmin.do?idTexte=CETATEXT000008260055">January 6, 2006</a>, the State Council reiterated that burial and cremation are the only legal burial methods.</p>
<p>Faced with the same issues, the British justice system has been more favourable. This may be due to the particularly tragic case of the terminally ill 14-year-old girl who wanted to be cryopreserved after her death but whose divorced parents disagreed. Her mother was in favour of the procedure but the father was not. However, in November 2016, the judge hearing the case indirectly accepted the cryopreservation of the girl by ordering that her remains be entrusted to her mother. While resolving the particular case before him, the judge refused to reason on the legitimacy of cryonics.</p>
<h2>A little “judicial science fiction”</h2>
<p>In a play by the French writer Jean Giraudoux, one of the characters says that “law is the strongest school of imagination”. Let us take the writer at his word and perform some “legal science fiction”, according to the expression of the French jurist Jean Carbonnier: let’s imagine the legal regime of cryopreservation if it were authorised in France.</p>
<p>Dead without being definitively dead, the cryogenised person could possibly be resurrected; it would thus be necessary to create a system making it possible to protect the body and its inheritance during the cryonic suspension.</p>
<p>As regards cryogenised bodies, <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070721&idArticle=LEGIARTI000019983158">paragraph 1 of Article 16-1-1 of the French Civil Code</a> could be amended and include a reference to cryogenisation by formulating it as follows: “The respect owed to the human body does not end with death nor with cryogenisation”. Once this principle has been established, things should be considered more precisely by regulating the activity of cryopreservation societies, creating specific rules and drafting security contracts whose purpose would be to ensure the proper preservation of bodies.</p>
<p>Various solutions can be envisaged for the assets of cryopreserved persons. The most logical would certainly be to open the succession because the resurrection is, at the moment, a simple hope. It would then be sufficient to amend the current article 720 of the French Civil Code so that it specifies that “successions are opened by death and by cryopreservation, at the last domicile of the deceased”. But this solution is severe for the cryogenised person, so we could appoint an administrator to manage his or her assets. But for how long? And for what fee? Finally, it would be possible to ensure a certain legal and patrimonial security to the cryogenised person by offering her the possibility to subscribe, with the cryogenisation contract, <a href="http://durfeelawgroup.com/cryonic-suspension-trust/">a cryonic trust</a>, a new form of trust that already exists in the United States and is proposed by some American companies. However, this solution seems difficult to implement in France where trusts do not exist. The problem is thus far from being solved and cryonics raises questions still without answers.</p>
<p>This being the case, the best short-term solution seems to be to fire up a copy of the classic 1969 Louis de Funès comedy, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernatus"><em>Hibernatus</em></a>, which poses a whole series of knotty – and amusing – questions of its own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96248/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne-Blandine Caire ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
Cryonics is no longer synonymous with science fiction. What are we technically capable of doing and what do we have the right to do?
Anne-Blandine Caire, Professeur de droit privé et de sciences criminelles - École de Droit - Université d'Auvergne, Université Clermont Auvergne (UCA)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95891
2018-05-02T10:22:52Z
2018-05-02T10:22:52Z
How transhumanism’s faithful follow it blindly into a future for the elite – podcast
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217058/original/file-20180501-135830-10d2w1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/abstract-health-medical-science-consist-human-1045585816?src=qI1Eo58F1uSLVWFmKdFG4Q-1-27"> shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Transhumanism is the idea that humans should transcend their current natural state and limitations through the use of technology – that we should embrace self-directed human evolution. In the same way that technological progress has allowed humans to tame nature, we can bring an end to the human realities of disease, ageing and even death. </p>
<p>But there is a darker side to the naive faith that proponents of transhumanism have – one that is decidedly dystopian. </p>
<p>This is the audio version of an in depth article from The Conversation, which situates transhumanism within the broader social, cultural, political, and economic contexts within which it is emerging – all of which is vital to understanding how ethical it is.</p>
<iframe src="https://player.acast.com/5e29c8205aa745a456af58c8/episodes/5e29c8365aa745a456af58cd?theme=default&cover=1&latest=1" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="110px" allow="autoplay"></iframe>
<p>You can read the text version of the article <a href="https://theconversation.com/super-intelligence-and-eternal-life-transhumanisms-faithful-follow-it-blindly-into-a-future-for-the-elite-78538">here</a>. It is read by Jo Adetunji.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The music in this podcast is <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/Music_for_Podcasts_4/Lee_Rosevere_-_Music_for_Podcasts_4_-_06_Night_Caves">Night Caves</a>, by Lee Rosevere from the Free Music Archive. A big thanks to City University London’s Department of Journalism for letting us use their studios to record.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This is the audio version of an in depth article from The Conversation, which explores the ethics of transhumanism.
Alexander Thomas, PhD Candidate, University of East London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/92694
2018-03-28T12:36:01Z
2018-03-28T12:36:01Z
Transhumanism: advances in technology could already put evolution into hyperdrive – but should they?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212239/original/file-20180327-109172-x7fob1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/3d-illustrated-wirefframe-human-head-virtual-33641269?src=VroN7hkLkqn-rCN9orN4XQ-2-99">Tonis Pan/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Biological evolution takes place over generations. But imagine if it could be expedited beyond the incremental change envisaged by Darwin to a matter of individual experience. Such things are dreamt of by so-called “transhumanists”. Transhumanism has come to connote different things to different people, from a belief system to a cultural movement, a field of study to a technological fantasy. You can’t get a degree in transhumanism, but you can subscribe to it, invest in it, research its actors, and act on its tenets.</p>
<p>So what is it? The term “transhumanism” gained widespread currency in 1990, following its formal inauguration by Max More, the CEO of <a href="http://alcor.org">Alcor Life Extension Foundation</a>. It refers to an optimistic belief in the enhancement of the human condition through technology in all its forms. Its advocates believe in fundamentally enhancing the human condition through applied reason and a corporeal embrace of new technologies.</p>
<p>It is rooted in the belief that humans can and will be enhanced by the genetic engineering and information technology of today, as well as anticipated advances, such as bioengineering, artificial intelligence, and molecular nanotechnology. The result is an iteration of <em>Homo sapiens</em> enhanced or augmented, but still fundamentally human.</p>
<h2>Evolution in hyperdrive</h2>
<p>The central premise of transhumanism, then, is that biological evolution will eventually be overtaken by advances in genetic, wearable and implantable technologies that artificially expedite the evolutionary process. This was the kernel of More’s <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118555927.ch1/summary">founding definition</a> in 1990. Article two of the periodically updated, multi-authored “<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118555927.ch4/summary">transhumanist declaration</a>” continues to assert the point: “We favor morphological freedom – the right to modify and enhance one’s body, cognition and emotions.”</p>
<p>To date, areas to improve on include natural ageing (including, for die-hards, the cessation of “involuntary death”) as well as physical, intellectual and psychological capacities. Some distinguished scientists, such as Hans Moravec and Raymond Kurzweil, even <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0d8oDwAAQBAJ">advocate</a> a posthuman condition: the end of humanity’s reliance on our congenital bodies by transforming “our frail version 1.0 human bodies into their far more durable and capable version 2.0 counterparts”.</p>
<p>The push back against such unchecked optimism is emphatic. <a href="http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/221758/17685958/1334527559997/Sobchack2006_ALegToStandOn.pdf?token=I74HOq784qx0HxNvnJcKBnvXjzI%3D">Some find</a> the rhetoric distasteful in its assumptions about the desire for a prosthetic future. </p>
<p>And potential ethical problems, in particular, are raised. Tattoos, piercings and cosmetic surgery remain a matter of individual choice, and amputations a matter of medical necessity. But if augmented sensory capacity, for instance, were to become normative in a particular field, it might coerce others to make similar changes to their bodies in order to compete. As Isaiah Berlin once <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=e3efQgAACAAJ">put it</a>: “Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.”</p>
<h2>Augmented human hearing</h2>
<p>In order to really get to grips with the meaning of all this, though, an example is needed. Take the hypothetical augmentation of human hearing, something I am researching within a broader project on <a href="https://sound-matter.com">sound and materialism</a>. Within discussions of transhumanism, ears are not typically among the sense organs figured for enhancement.</p>
<p>But human hearing is already being augmented. Algorithms for transposing auditory frequencies already exist (common to most speech processors in cochlear implants and hearing aids). <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3163053/">Research</a> into the regeneration of cilia hairs in the cochlear duct is also <a href="http://www.hearingreview.com/2017/02/study-shows-hair-cell-regrowth-new-drug/">ongoing</a>. Following this logic, augmenting unimpaired hearing need be no different, in principle, to correcting impaired hearing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212240/original/file-20180327-109172-qxpj7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212240/original/file-20180327-109172-qxpj7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212240/original/file-20180327-109172-qxpj7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212240/original/file-20180327-109172-qxpj7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212240/original/file-20180327-109172-qxpj7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212240/original/file-20180327-109172-qxpj7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212240/original/file-20180327-109172-qxpj7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Artist’s impression of a robotic ear.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/futuristic-robot-hearing-organ-robotic-ear-471684869?src=VroN7hkLkqn-rCN9orN4XQ-1-21">Ociacia/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What next? Acoustic sound vibrations sit alongside the vast, inaudible electromagnetic spectrum, and various animals access different portions of this acoustic space, portions to which we — as humans — have no access. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mq/advance-article/doi/10.1093/musqtl/gdy001/4951391">Could this change</a>?</p>
<p>If it does, this may well alter the identity of sound itself. <a href="http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10074768_00005.html">Speculations</a> as to whether what is visible as light might under other circumstances be perceivable as sound have arisen at various points over the past two centuries. This raises heady questions about the very definition of sound. Must it be perceived by a human ear to constitute sound? By a sentient animal? Can a machine hear sufficiently to define sound beyond the human auditory range? What about aesthetics? Aesthetics itself — as the (human) study of the beautiful — may no longer even be applicable. </p>
<h2>All hypothetical?</h2>
<p>The technologies for broaching such questions are arguably already at hand. Examples of auditory sense augmentation (broadly conceived) include Norbert Wiener’s so-called “<a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/differences/article/22/2-3/74/60653/On-Disability-and-Cybernetics-Helen-Keller-Norbert">hearing glove</a>”, which stimulated the finger of a deaf person with <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/differences/article-abstract/22/2-3/74/60653/On-Disability-and-Cybernetics-Helen-Keller-Norbert?redirectedFrom=fulltext">electromagnetic vibrations</a>; an implanted colour sensor that — for its colour-blind recipient, <a href="https://www.ted.com/speakers/neil_harbisson">Neil Harbisson</a> — converts the colour spectrum into sounds, including ultraviolet and infrared signals; and a cochlear <a href="http://www.cochlear.com/wps/wcm/connect/us/about/featured-news/nucleus7-launch">implant</a> that streams sounds wirelessly from Apple’s mass market devices directly to the auditory nerve of its recipients.</p>
<p>The discussion is not entirely hypothetical, in other words. So what does all this mean? </p>
<p>There is a famous scene in the film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/">The Matrix</a> in which Morpheus asks Neo whether he wants to take the blue pill or the red pill. One returns him unawares to his life of total physical and mental enslavement within the simulation programme of the Matrix, the other gives him access to the real world with all its brutal challenges. But after experiencing this, he can never go back to life within the Matrix, and must survive outside it.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zE7PKRjrid4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Advocates of transhumanism face a similar choice today. One option is to take advantage of the advances in nanotechnologies, genetic engineering and other medical sciences to enhance the biological and mental functioning of human beings (never to go back). The other is to legislate to prevent these artificial changes from becoming an entrenched part of humanity, with all the implied coercive bio-medicine that would entail for the species. </p>
<p>Of course, the reality of this debate is more complex. Holding our scepticism in abeyance, it still supersedes individual choice. Hence the question of agency remains: who should have the right to decide?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s note: this article was updated on March 29 to clarify that acoustic sound is not part of the electromagnetic spectrum.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Trippett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
We can either take advantage of advances in technology to enhance human beings (never to go back), or we can legislate to prevent this from happening.
David Trippett, Senior University Lecturer, University of Cambridge
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88358
2018-02-20T10:30:40Z
2018-02-20T10:30:40Z
Why Altered Carbon is not about the future – nor is any other science fiction
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206964/original/file-20180219-75984-1o58w8g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=564%2C85%2C2697%2C1876&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The hopes and dreams of the technological movement known as “transhumanism” have been brought into the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/altered-carbon-transhumanism-tv/">media spotlight</a> thanks to Netflix’s new science fiction series, <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80097140">Altered Carbon</a> (based on Richard Morgan’s 2001 novel). </p>
<p><a href="http://humanityplus.org/">Transhumanists</a> believe that our species will soon undergo a technological evolution into a new and superior form. While there is no single template for transhumanism’s imagined future, there are a number of recurring motifs, such as enhanced cognition, improved bodies and extended lifespans. Sometimes the emphasis is on enhanced biology; sometimes on the supplementation or replacement of the body by technology.</p>
<p>Altered Carbon plays with the ingredients of one transhumanist vision in particular. This is personal immortality through the transferal of the individual human mind into a computer program, which may then be indefinitely preserved and duplicated through a succession of different bodies. And so one could easily think of Altered Carbon as simply an elaboration of the transhumanist worldview – a prophecy of the near future presented in popular entertainment for a mass audience. This assumption is certainly encouraged by <a href="http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/altered-carbon-cast-predicts-the-future-and-says-we-could-live-in-a-simulation">promotional coverage</a>, which invites cast members to predict technological developments of the next 200 years.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dhFM8akm9a4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But is Altered Carbon, or any other work of science fiction, really an attempt to foresee the future? In fact, science fiction has a more important job to do: not to show us the future, but to show us our present-day reality afresh. The real aim of science fiction is to make the everyday world become strange and unfamiliar.</p>
<h2>SF futurology</h2>
<p>Admittedly, the futures imagined in science fiction sometimes come true (although often they don’t). Science fiction writers told stories about going to the moon before anyone actually went there. They told stories about artificially intelligent machines <a href="https://chatbotsmagazine.com/artificial-intelligence-is-science-fiction-coming-to-life-2251cfa845ee">before these were invented</a>. <a href="https://mashable.com/2010/09/25/11-astounding-predictions/">And so on</a>. This means readers may try to rummage through science fiction for prophetic images, especially of future technologies. Such supposed prophecies needn’t be endorsements, of course. The dystopian vision of Altered Carbon might, for instance, be construed <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/altered-carbon-transhumanism-tv/">as a warning</a> that we need “to be thinking about the cost of pursuing technological immortality”.</p>
<p>Such a predictive model of science fiction has been popular with military technologists, who have thought of the genre as a crystal ball showing the future of warfare. The cultural historian (and latterly science fiction writer) Charles E Gannon <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10402650902915177">has shown</a>, for instance, how Robert Heinlein’s <a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/5439145/starship-troopers-is-perfect--and-therein-lies-the-problem">Starship Troopers</a> (1959) informed the thinking of US military planners, who were inspired not only by its technology, but also by its new model of the infantry as highly-trained elite troops. This way of reading science fiction is also encouraged by science fiction authors like H G Wells and Arthur C Clarke, because they also wrote non-fiction – what we might now call “futurology” – in which they tried to forecast the future. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zPYuV_jGk7M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>But while science fiction sometimes turns out to be accurate futurology, this doesn’t mean prediction is essential to the genre. Although some science fiction technologies – such as rocketry or computing – have been carefully grounded in scientific possibility, many have not been. There is only the barest scientific explanation (if any) for many science fiction devices. Think of faster-than-light travel (warp drives), teleportation, telepathy, time travel, and connected parallel universes. </p>
<p>The body-swapping gadgetry of Altered Carbon is no different. The premise of AI, mixed with the new experience of consumer computing (copying and backing up files), and finished off with a veneer of technological jargon (“cortical stack”), gives an illusion of technological depth and solidity to its daydream of disembodied consciousness. Such far-out, make-believe technologies seem believable because science fiction writers cleverly imitate the language and style of scientific and technological writing.</p>
<h2>Distortion of the present</h2>
<p>So if science fiction doesn’t try to predict the future, what is the point of its various make believe images of the future? </p>
<p>Above all, science fiction uses make believe futures to show our own world in a cleverly distorted way. This allows us to see it afresh – as if our own culture were that of a foreign land – forcing us to ask uncomfortable questions about what we take as natural, right, inevitable.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207071/original/file-20180220-116358-ldalol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207071/original/file-20180220-116358-ldalol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207071/original/file-20180220-116358-ldalol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207071/original/file-20180220-116358-ldalol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207071/original/file-20180220-116358-ldalol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207071/original/file-20180220-116358-ldalol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207071/original/file-20180220-116358-ldalol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207071/original/file-20180220-116358-ldalol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">War of the Worlds 1927 cover.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although this view <a href="http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/estrangement-and-cognition/">dates from around the 1970s</a>, it reflects a much longer tradition of science fiction. Wells’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/19/war-worlds-hg-wells-review">The War of the Worlds</a> (1898) shows Victorian London – the heart of a world empire – being ruthlessly conquered and exploited by a technologically superior civilisation. The story invites its readers to question the ethics of imperialism.</p>
<p>Other, more recent works question the naturalness of the roles doled out to men and women, and the reality of sex and gender themselves. Marge Piercy’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/29/woman-on-the-edge-of-time-40-years-on-hope-imagining-utopia-marge-piercy">Woman on the Edge of Time</a> (1976) imagines a future society in which pregnancy happens outside the body in special machines, and where men take on equally the hard work of caring for babies (thanks in part to technology that allows them to produce breast milk). There’s even a gender-neutral pronoun (the all-purpose “per” instead of “he” and “she”). Piercy’s novel forces us to recognise our assumptions about the importance and reality of sex and gender. The book is not rigorously grounded in biology and linguistics – but this doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Altered Carbon borrows images from transhumanism and uses them in a similar, genre-specific way. Its world helps us articulate the class divisions of our own society: the wealthy elite, who can live forever in a succession of bodies, are an intensified representation of present-day inequalities, including access to advanced healthcare. </p>
<p>By making our everyday world into something strange and alien, science fiction hopes that we will question and change our society. Science fiction does not invite us to be prophets, but anthropologists making sense of a complex and troubling foreign culture – which we may eventually come to recognise as our own. And so when reading or watching science fiction, look for the moments when the future seems shocking, repulsive, and alien to everything you hold dear. Ask what these moments correspond to in <em>your</em> world.</p>
<p>
<section class="inline-content">
<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249588/original/file-20181210-76968-jfryp4.png?h=128">
<div>
<header>Gavin Miller is the author of:</header>
<p><a href="https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/51591/">Science Fiction and Psychology</a></p>
<footer>Liverpool University Press provides funding as a content partner of The Conversation UK</footer>
</div>
</section>
</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Miller has received funding from Wellcome Trust for the project Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities: <a href="http://scifimedhums.glasgow.ac.uk/">http://scifimedhums.glasgow.ac.uk/</a></span></em></p>
Science fiction has a more important job to do – it allows us to see ourselves in a new light.
Gavin Miller, Senior Lecturer in Medical Humanities, University of Glasgow
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88117
2017-11-30T08:27:20Z
2017-11-30T08:27:20Z
Technologically enhanced humans: a look behind the myth
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196323/original/file-20171124-21805-13d9gze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Augmented warrior</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.Flickr.com/photos/rdecom/14132157025">U.S. Army/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What exactly do we mean by an “enhanced” human? When this possibility is brought up, what is generally being referred to is the addition of human and machine-based performances (expanding on the figure of the cyborg popularised by science fiction). But enhanced in relation to what? According to which reference values and criteria? How, for example, can happiness be measured? A good life? Sensations, like smells or touch which connect us to the world? How happy we feel when we are working? All these dimensions that make life worth living. We must be careful here not to give in to the magic of figures. A plus can hide a minus; something gained may conceal something lost. What is gained or lost, however, is difficult to identify as it is neither quantifiable nor measurable.</p>
<p>Pilots of military drones, for example, are enhanced in that they use remote sensors, optronics, and infrared cameras, enabling them to observe much more than could ever be seen with the human eye alone. But what about the prestige of harnessing the power of a machine, the sensations and thrill of flying, the courage and sense of pride gained by overcoming one’s fear and mastering it through long, tedious labour?</p>
<p>Another example taken from a different context is that of telemedecine and remote diagnosis. Seen from one angle, it creates the possibility of benefiting from the opinion of an expert specialist right from your own home, wherever it is located. For isolated individuals who are losing independence and mobility, or for regions that have been turned into medical deserts, this represents a real advantage and undeniable progress. However, field studies have shown that some people are worried that it may be a new way of being shut off from the world and confined to one’s home. Going to see a specialist, even one who is located far away, forces individuals to leave their everyday environments, change their routines and meet new people. It therefore represents an opportunity for new experiences, and to a certain extent, leads to greater personal enrichment (another possible definition for enhancement).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157862/original/image-20170222-1358-1ety749.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157862/original/image-20170222-1358-1ety749.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157862/original/image-20170222-1358-1ety749.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157862/original/image-20170222-1358-1ety749.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157862/original/image-20170222-1358-1ety749.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157862/original/image-20170222-1358-1ety749.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157862/original/image-20170222-1358-1ety749.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Telemedecine consultation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Telemedicine_Consult.jpg">Intel Free Press/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How technology is transforming us</h2>
<p>Of course, every new form of progress comes with its share of abandonment of former ways of doing and being, habits and <em>habitus</em>. What is most important is that the sum of all gains outweighs that of all losses and that new feelings replace old ones. Except this economic and market-based approach places qualitatively disparate realities on the same level: that of usefulness. And yet, there are things which are completely use_less_ – devoting time to listening, wasting time, wandering about – which seem to be essential in terms of social relations, life experiences, learning, imagination, creation etc. Therefore, the issue is not knowing whether or not machines will eventually replace humans, but rather, understanding the values we place in machines, values which will, in turn, transform us: speed, predictability, regularity, strength etc.</p>
<p>The repetitive use of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolocation">geolocation</a>, for example, is making us dependent on this technology. More worryingly, our increasing reliance on this technology is insidiously changing our everyday interactions with others in public or shared places. Are we not becoming less tolerant of the imperfections of human beings, of the inherent uncertainty of human relationships, and also more impatient in some ways? One of the risks I see here is that in the most ordinary situations, we will eventually expect human beings to behave with the same regularity, precision, velocity and even the same predictability as machines. Is this shift not already underway, as illustrated by the fact that it has become increasingly difficult for us to talk to someone passing by, to ask a stranger for directions, preferring the precise, rapid solution displayed on the screen of our iPhone to this exchange, which is full of unpredictability and in some ways, risk? These are the questions we must ask ourselves when we talk about “enhanced humans.”</p>
<p>Consequently, we must also pay particular attention to the idea that, as we get used to machines’ binary efficiency and lack of nuance, it will become “natural” for us and as a result, human weakness will become increasingly intolerable and foreign. The issue, therefore, is not knowing whether machines will overthrow humans, take our place, surpass us or even make us obsolete, but rather understanding under what circumstances – social, political, ethical, economic – human beings start acting like machines and striving to resemble the machines they design. This question, of humans acting like machines which is implicit in this form of behavior, strikes me as both crucial and pressing.</p>
<h2>Interacting with machines is more reassuring</h2>
<p>It is true that with so-called social or “companion” robots (like Paro, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nao_(robot)">Nao</a>, NurseBot, <a href="http://www.roboticstoday.com/robots/hai-bao">Bao</a>, Aibo, <a href="http://www.hackinglab.org/real_baby/index_baby.html">My Real Baby</a>) in whom we hope to see figures, capable not only of communicating with us, acting in our everyday familiar environments, but also of demonstrating emotions, learning, empathy etc. the perspective seems to be reversed. Psychologist and anthropologist Sherry Turkle has studied this shift in thinking of robots as frightening and strange to thinking about them as potential friends. What happened, she wondered, to make us ready to welcome robots into our everyday lives and even want to create emotional attachments with them when only yesterday they inspired fear or anxiety?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157864/original/image-20170222-10850-1qevttu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157864/original/image-20170222-10850-1qevttu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157864/original/image-20170222-10850-1qevttu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157864/original/image-20170222-10850-1qevttu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157864/original/image-20170222-10850-1qevttu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157864/original/image-20170222-10850-1qevttu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157864/original/image-20170222-10850-1qevttu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Korean robot, 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kiro-M5, Korea Institute of Robot and Convergence</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After several years studying nursing homes which had chosen to introduce these machines, the author of <a href="http://www.alonetogetherbook.com/"><em>Alone Together</em></a>, Sherry Turkle, concluded that one of the reasons why people sometimes prefer the company of machines to that of humans is the prior deterioration of relationships which they may have experienced in the real world. Hallmarks of these relationships are distrust, fear of being deceived and suspicion. She also cites a certain fatigue from always having to be on guard, as well as boredom: being in others’ company bores us. She deduces that the concept of social robots suggests that our way of facing intimacy may now be reduced to avoiding it altogether. According to her, this deterioration of human relationships represents the foundation and condition for developing social robots, which respond to a need for a stable environment, fixed reference points, certainty and predictably seldom offered by normal relationships in today’s context of widespread deregulation.</p>
<p>It is as if we expect our “controlled and controllable” relationships with machines to make up for the helplessness we sometimes feel, when faced with the injustice and cruelty reserved for entire categories of living beings (humans and non-humans, when we think of refugees, the homeless or animals used for industry). A solution of withdrawal, or a sort of refuge, but one which affects how we see ourselves in the world, or rather outside the world, without any real way to act upon it.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was translated from French by <a href="https://blogrecherche.wp.imt.fr/en/2017/06/23/enhanced-humans-myth/">I'MTech</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88117/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gérard Dubey has received financing from ANR.</span></em></p>
Will bionic humans, augmented by hi-tech prostheses and microchips, be a benefit for humanity? The reality is more mixed.
Gérard Dubey, Sociologue, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/78538
2017-07-31T04:19:56Z
2017-07-31T04:19:56Z
Super-intelligence and eternal life: transhumanism’s faithful follow it blindly into a future for the elite
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173109/original/file-20170609-32437-9sfejw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C998%2C738&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Distant Earth. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>The rapid development of so-called NBIC technologies – nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science – are giving rise to possibilities that have long been the domain of science fiction. Disease, ageing and even death are all human realities that these technologies seek to end. </p>
<p>They may enable us to enjoy greater “morphological freedom” – we could take on new forms through prosthetics or genetic engineering. Or advance our cognitive capacities. We could use <a href="https://theconversation.com/melding-mind-and-machine-how-close-are-we-75589">brain-computer interfaces</a> to link us to advanced artificial intelligence (AI). </p>
<p><a href="https://singularityhub.com/2016/05/16/nanorobots-where-we-are-today-and-why-their-future-has-amazing-potential/">Nanobots</a> could roam our bloodstream to monitor our health and enhance our emotional propensities for joy, love or other emotions. Advances in one area often raise new possibilities in others, and this “convergence” may bring about radical changes to our world in the near-future.</p>
<p>“Transhumanism” is the idea that humans should transcend their current natural state and limitations through the use of technology – that we should embrace self-directed human evolution. If the history of technological progress can be seen as humankind’s attempt to tame nature to better serve its needs, transhumanism is the logical continuation: the revision of humankind’s nature to better serve its fantasies. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/print/2201">David Pearce</a>, a leading proponent of transhumanism and co-founder of <a href="http://humanityplus.org/">Humanity+</a>, says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we want to live in paradise, we will have to engineer it ourselves. If we want eternal life, then we’ll need to rewrite our bug-ridden genetic code and become god-like … only hi-tech solutions can ever eradicate suffering from the world. Compassion alone is not enough.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But there is a darker side to the naive faith that Pearce and other proponents have in transhumanism – one that is decidedly dystopian.</p>
<p>There is unlikely to be a clear moment when we emerge as transhuman. Rather technologies will become more intrusive and integrate seamlessly with the human body. Technology has long been thought of as an <a href="https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Living_in_a_Connected_World/Technology_as_an_Extension_of_Self">extension of the self</a>. Many aspects of our social world, not least our <a href="http://time.com/4471451/cathy-oneil-math-destruction/">financial systems</a>, are already largely machine-based. There is much to learn from these evolving human/machine hybrid systems.</p>
<p>Yet the often Utopian language and expectations that surround and shape our understanding of these developments have been under-interrogated. The profound changes that lie ahead are often talked about in abstract ways, because evolutionary “advancements” are deemed so radical that they ignore the reality of current social conditions. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Listen to the audio version of this article in The Conversation’s In Depth Out Loud podcast:</em></p>
<iframe src="https://player.acast.com/5e29c8205aa745a456af58c8/episodes/5e29c8365aa745a456af58cd?theme=default&cover=1&latest=1" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="110px" allow="autoplay"></iframe>
<hr>
<p>In this way, transhumanism becomes a kind of “techno-anthropocentrism”, in which transhumanists often underestimate the complexity of our relationship with technology. They see it as a controllable, malleable tool that, with the correct logic and scientific rigour, can be turned to any end. In fact, just as technological developments are dependent on and reflective of the environment in which they arise, they in turn feed back into the culture and create new dynamics – often imperceptibly. </p>
<p>Situating transhumanism, then, within the broader social, cultural, political, and economic contexts within which it emerges is vital to understanding how ethical it is.</p>
<h2>Competitive environments</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.extropy.org/">Max More</a> and Natasha Vita-More, in their edited volume <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118334299.html">The Transhumanist Reader</a>, claim the need in transhumanism “for inclusivity, plurality and continuous questioning of our knowledge”.</p>
<p>Yet these three principles are incompatible with developing transformative technologies within the prevailing system from which they are currently emerging: advanced capitalism. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173113/original/file-20170609-20873-1qsbqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173113/original/file-20170609-20873-1qsbqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173113/original/file-20170609-20873-1qsbqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173113/original/file-20170609-20873-1qsbqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173113/original/file-20170609-20873-1qsbqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173113/original/file-20170609-20873-1qsbqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173113/original/file-20170609-20873-1qsbqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Perpetual doper or evolutionary defunct?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/broken-red-capsule-white-powdery-contents-602428577?src=srhG0rIC-eKuRulTj27QZA-1-23">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One problem is that a highly competitive social environment doesn’t lend itself to diverse ways of being. Instead it demands increasingly efficient behaviour. Take students, for example. If some have access to pills that allow them to achieve better results, can other students afford not to follow? This is already a quandary. Increasing numbers of students <a href="https://theconversation.com/fair-play-how-smart-drugs-are-making-workplaces-more-competitive-61818">reportedly pop performance-enhancing pills</a>. And if pills become more powerful, or if the enhancements involve genetic engineering or intrusive nanotechnology that offer even stronger competitive advantages, what then? Rejecting an advanced technological orthodoxy could potentially render someone socially and economically moribund (perhaps evolutionarily so), while everyone with access is effectively forced to participate to keep up. </p>
<p>Going beyond everyday limits is suggestive of some kind of liberation. However, here it is an imprisoning compulsion to act a certain way. We literally have to transcend in order to conform (and survive). The more extreme the transcendence, the more profound the decision to conform and the imperative to do so.</p>
<p>The systemic forces cajoling the individual into being “upgraded” to remain competitive also play out on a geo-political level. One area where technology R&D has the greatest transhumanist potential is defence. DARPA (the US defence department responsible for developing military technologies), which is attempting to create “<a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/12/andrew-herr/">metabolically dominant soldiers</a>”, is a clear example of how vested interests of a particular social system could determine the development of radically powerful transformative technologies that have destructive rather than Utopian applications.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175422/original/file-20170623-12623-6inkwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175422/original/file-20170623-12623-6inkwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175422/original/file-20170623-12623-6inkwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175422/original/file-20170623-12623-6inkwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175422/original/file-20170623-12623-6inkwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175422/original/file-20170623-12623-6inkwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175422/original/file-20170623-12623-6inkwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Designing super-soldiers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-woman-soldier-member-ranger-squad-329042594?src=nwTGhl200zehgLapCMS7Bw-1-3">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The rush to develop super-intelligent AI by globally competitive and mutually distrustful nation states could also become an arms race. In <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/58429/radical-evolution-by-joel-garreau/9780767915038/">Radical Evolution</a>, novelist Verner Vinge describes a scenario in which superhuman intelligence is the “ultimate weapon”. Ideally, mankind would proceed with the utmost care in developing such a powerful and transformative innovation.</p>
<p>There is quite rightly a <a href="http://observer.com/2015/08/stephen-hawking-elon-musk-and-bill-gates-warn-about-artificial-intelligence/">huge amount of trepidation</a> around the creation of super-intelligence and the emergence of “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity">the singularity</a>” – the idea that once AI reaches a certain level it will rapidly redesign itself, leading to an explosion of intelligence that will quickly surpass that of humans (<a href="http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/humanlevel-ai-is-right-around-the-corner-or-hundreds-of-years-away">something that will happen by 2029</a> according to futurist Ray Kurzweil). If the world takes the shape of whatever the most powerful AI is programmed (or reprograms itself) to desire, it even opens the possibility of evolution taking a turn for the entirely banal – could an AI destroy humankind <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/08/17/our_weird_robot_apocalypse_why_the_rise_of_the_machines_could_be_very_strange/">from a desire to produce the most paperclips</a> for example?</p>
<p>It’s also difficult to conceive of any aspect of humanity that could not be “improved” by being made more efficient at satisfying the demands of a competitive system. It is the system, then, that determines humanity’s evolution – without taking any view on what humans are or what they should be. One of the ways in which advanced capitalism proves extremely dynamic is in its ideology of moral and metaphysical neutrality. As philosopher <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/181796/what-money-can-t-buy/">Michael Sandel</a> says: markets don’t wag fingers. In advanced capitalism, maximising one’s spending power maximises one’s ability to flourish – hence <a href="https://theconversation.com/into-a-bizarre-future-why-the-liberal-promise-of-true-liberty-is-a-lie-71395">shopping could be said</a> to be a primary moral imperative of the individual. </p>
<p>Philosopher Bob Doede rightly suggests it is <a href="http://www.academia.edu/2636472/TRANSHUMANISM_TECHNOLOGY_AND_THE_FUTURE_">this banal logic of the market</a> that will dominate: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If biotech has rendered human nature entirely revisable, then it has no grain to direct or constrain our designs on it. And so whose designs will our successor post-human artefacts likely bear? I have little doubt that in our vastly consumerist, media-saturated capitalist economy, market forces will have their way. So – the commercial imperative would be the true architect of the future human. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175419/original/file-20170623-12614-g7qu4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175419/original/file-20170623-12614-g7qu4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175419/original/file-20170623-12614-g7qu4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175419/original/file-20170623-12614-g7qu4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175419/original/file-20170623-12614-g7qu4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175419/original/file-20170623-12614-g7qu4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175419/original/file-20170623-12614-g7qu4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">System-led evolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/using-modern-technologies-work-closeup-young-534465139">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whether the evolutionary process is determined by a super-intelligent AI or advanced capitalism, we may be compelled to conform to a perpetual transcendence that only makes us more efficient at activities demanded by the most powerful system. The end point is predictably an entirely nonhuman – though very efficient – technological entity derived from humanity that doesn’t necessarily serve a purpose that a modern-day human would value in any way. The ability to serve the system effectively will be the driving force. This is also true of natural evolution – technology is not a simple tool that allows us to engineer ourselves out of this conundrum. But transhumanism could amplify the speed and least desirable aspects of the process.</p>
<h2>Information authoritarianism</h2>
<p>For bioethicist Julian Savulescu, the main reason humans must be enhanced is for our species to survive. He says we face a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pAMuFZRzyo">Bermuda Triangle of extinction</a>: radical technological power, liberal democracy and our moral nature. As a transhumanist, Savulescu extols technological progress, also deeming it inevitable and unstoppable. It is liberal democracy – and particularly our moral nature – that should alter.</p>
<p>The failings of humankind to deal with global problems are increasingly obvious. But Savulescu neglects to situate our moral failings within their wider cultural, political and economic context, instead believing that solutions lie within our biological make up. </p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/7515623" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Yet how would Savulescu’s morality-enhancing technologies be disseminated, prescribed and potentially enforced to address the moral failings they seek to “cure”? This would likely reside in the power structures that may well bear much of the responsibility for these failings in the first place. He’s also quickly drawn into revealing how relative and contestable the concept of “morality” is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We will need to relax our commitment to maximum protection of privacy. We’re seeing an increase in the surveillance of individuals and that will be necessary if we are to avert the threats that those with antisocial personality disorder, fanaticism, represent through their access to radically enhanced technology.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such surveillance allows corporations and governments to access and make use of extremely valuable information. In <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Who-Owns-the-Future/Jaron-Lanier/9781451654974">Who Owns the Future</a>, internet pioneer Jaron Lanier explains: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Troves of dossiers on the private lives and inner beings of ordinary people, collected over digital networks, are packaged into a new private form of elite money … It is a new kind of security the rich trade in, and the value is naturally driven up. It becomes a giant-scale levee inaccessible to ordinary people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Crucially, this levee is also invisible to most people. Its impacts extend beyond skewing the economic system towards elites to significantly altering the very conception of liberty, because the authority of power is both radically more effective and dispersed. </p>
<p>Foucault’s notion that we live in a <a href="http://dm.ncl.ac.uk/courseblog/files/2011/03/michel-foucault-panopticism.pdf">panoptic society</a> – one in which the sense of being perpetually watched instils discipline – is now stretched to the point where today’s incessant machinery <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745613969.html">has been called</a> a “superpanopticon”. The knowledge and information that transhumanist technologies will tend to create could strengthen existing power structures that cement the inherent logic of the system in which the knowledge arises.</p>
<p>This is in part evident in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/13/ai-programs-exhibit-racist-and-sexist-biases-research-reveals">tendency of algorithms toward race and gender bias</a>, which reflects our already existing social failings. Information technology tends to interpret the world in defined ways: it privileges information that is easily measurable, such as GDP, at the expense of unquantifiable information such as human happiness or well-being. As invasive technologies provide ever more granular data about us, this data may in a very real sense come to define the world – and intangible information may not maintain its rightful place in human affairs. </p>
<h2>Systemic dehumanisation</h2>
<p>Existing inequities will surely be magnified with the introduction of highly effective psycho-pharmaceuticals, genetic modification, super intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, nanotechnology, robotic prosthetics, and the possible development of life expansion. They are all fundamentally inegalitarian, based on a notion of limitlessness rather than a standard level of physical and mental well-being we’ve come to assume in healthcare. It’s not easy to conceive of a way in which these potentialities can be enjoyed by all. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175420/original/file-20170623-12653-1ytx2ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175420/original/file-20170623-12653-1ytx2ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175420/original/file-20170623-12653-1ytx2ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175420/original/file-20170623-12653-1ytx2ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175420/original/file-20170623-12653-1ytx2ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175420/original/file-20170623-12653-1ytx2ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175420/original/file-20170623-12653-1ytx2ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Will they come along for the ride?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/lesvos-greece-october-12-2015-refugee-375252433">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sociologist Saskia Sassen <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674599222">talks of</a> the “new logics of expulsion”, that capture “the pathologies of today’s global capitalism”. The expelled include the more than <a href="https://publications.iom.int/system/files/fataljourneys_vol2.pdf">60,000 migrants who have lost their lives</a> on fatal journeys in the past 20 years, and the victims of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/18/mass-incarceration-black-americans-higher-rates-disparities-report">racially skewed</a> profile of <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/18613/chapter/4">the increasing prison population</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175423/original/file-20170623-12633-1neek5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175423/original/file-20170623-12633-1neek5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175423/original/file-20170623-12633-1neek5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175423/original/file-20170623-12633-1neek5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175423/original/file-20170623-12633-1neek5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175423/original/file-20170623-12633-1neek5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175423/original/file-20170623-12633-1neek5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grenfell Tower, London, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.epa.eu/disasters-photos/fire-photos/fire-at-lancaster-west-estate-in-london-photos-53584044">EPA/Will Oliver</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Britain, they include the <a href="http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-02-20-30000-excess-deaths-2015-linked-cuts-health-and-social-care">30,000 people whose deaths</a> in 2015 were linked to health and social care cuts and the many who perished in <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-grenfell-local-authorities-must-break-the-link-between-fire-and-inequality-79707">the Grenfell Tower fire</a>. Their deaths can be said to have resulted from systematic marginalisation. </p>
<p>Unprecedented <a href="http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2017/01/eight-people-own-same-wealth-as-half-the-world">acute concentration of wealth</a> happens alongside these expulsions. Advanced economic and technical achievements enable this wealth and the expulsion of surplus groups. At the same time, <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674599222">Sassen writes</a>, they create a kind of nebulous centrelessness as the locus of power:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The oppressed have often risen against their masters. But today the oppressed have mostly been expelled and survive a great distance from their oppressors … The “oppressor” is increasingly a complex system that combines persons, networks, and machines with no obvious centre.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Surplus populations removed from the productive aspects of the social world may rapidly increase in the near future as improvements in AI and robotics potentially result in significant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/mar/31/the-robot-debate-is-over-the-jobs-are-gone-and-they-arent-coming-back">automation unemployment</a>. Large swaths of society may become productively and economically redundant. For historian <a href="http://ideas.ted.com/the-rise-of-the-useless-class/">Yuval Noah Harari</a> “the most important question in 21st-century economics may well be: what should we do with all the superfluous people?”</p>
<p>We would be left with the scenario of a small elite that has an almost total concentration of wealth with access to the most powerfully transformative technologies in world history and a redundant mass of people, no longer suited to the evolutionary environment in which they find themselves and entirely dependent on the benevolence of that elite. The dehumanising treatment of today’s expelled groups shows that prevailing liberal values in developed countries don’t always extend to those who don’t share the same privilege, race, culture or religion. </p>
<p>In an era of radical technological power, the masses may even represent a significant security threat to the elite, which could be used to justify aggressive and authoritarian actions (perhaps enabled further by a culture of surveillance).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176931/original/file-20170705-24525-47w93n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176931/original/file-20170705-24525-47w93n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176931/original/file-20170705-24525-47w93n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176931/original/file-20170705-24525-47w93n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176931/original/file-20170705-24525-47w93n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176931/original/file-20170705-24525-47w93n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176931/original/file-20170705-24525-47w93n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Life in the Hunger Games.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Lionsgate</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In their transhumanist tract, <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137302977">The Proactionary Imperative</a>, Steve Fuller and Veronika Lipinska argue that we are obliged to pursue techno-scientific progress relentlessly, until we achieve our god-like destiny or infinite power – effectively to serve God by becoming God. They unabashedly reveal the incipient violence and destruction such Promethean aims would require: “replacing the natural with the artificial is so key to proactionary strategy … at least as a serious possibility if not a likelihood [it will lead to] the long-term environmental degradation of the Earth.”</p>
<p>The extent of suffering they would be willing to gamble in their cosmic casino is only fully evident when analysing what their project would mean for individual human beings: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A proactionary world would not merely tolerate risk-taking but outright encourage it, as people are provided with legal incentives to speculate with their bio-economic assets. Living riskily would amount to an entrepreneurship of the self … [proactionaries] seek large long-term benefits for survivors of a revolutionary regime that would permit many harms along the way. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Progress on overdrive will require sacrifices.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175421/original/file-20170623-12648-1r1ghrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175421/original/file-20170623-12648-1r1ghrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175421/original/file-20170623-12648-1r1ghrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175421/original/file-20170623-12648-1r1ghrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175421/original/file-20170623-12648-1r1ghrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175421/original/file-20170623-12648-1r1ghrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175421/original/file-20170623-12648-1r1ghrn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">God-like elites.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/floating-woman-200385053?src=S2Ck47xViOHicruTKd9-EQ-1-15">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The economic fragility that humans may soon be faced with as a result of automation unemployment would likely prove extremely useful to proactionary goals. In a society where vast swaths of people are reliant on handouts for survival, market forces would determine that less social security means people will risk more for a lower reward, so “proactionaries would reinvent the welfare state as a vehicle for fostering securitised risk taking” while “the proactionary state would operate like a venture capitalist writ large”. </p>
<p>At the heart of this is the removal of basic rights for “Humanity 1.0”, Fuller’s term for modern, non-augmented human beings, replaced with duties towards the future augmented Humanity 2.0. Hence the very code of our being can and perhaps must be monetised: “personal autonomy should be seen as a politically licensed franchise whereby individuals understand their bodies as akin to plots of land in what might be called the ‘genetic commons’”. </p>
<p>The neoliberal preoccupation with privatisation would so extend to human beings. Indeed, the <a href="https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm">lifetime of debt that is the reality</a> for most citizens in developed advanced capitalist nations, <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137302977">takes a further step</a> when you are born into debt – simply by being alive “you are invested with capital on which a return is expected”.</p>
<p>Socially moribund masses may thus be forced to serve the technoscientific super-project of Humanity 2.0, which uses the ideology of market fundamentalism in its quest for perpetual progress and maximum productivity. The only significant difference is that the stated aim of godlike capabilities in Humanity 2.0 is overt, as opposed to the undefined end determined by the infinite “progress” of an ever more efficient market logic that we have now.</p>
<h2>A new politics</h2>
<p>Some transhumanists are beginning to understand that the most serious limitations to what humans can achieve are social and cultural – not technical. However, all too often their reframing of politics falls into the same trap as their techno-centric worldview. They commonly argue the new political poles are not left-right but techno-conservative or techno-progressive (and even <a href="https://transpolitica.org/publications/envisioning-politics-2-0/">techno-libertarian and techno-sceptic</a>). Meanwhile Fuller and Lipinska argue that the new political poles will be up and down instead of left and right: those who want to dominate the skies and became all powerful, and those who want to preserve the Earth and its species-rich diversity. It is a false dichotomy. Preservation of the latter is likely to be necessary for any hope of achieving the former. </p>
<p>Transhumanism and advanced capitalism are two processes which value “progress” and “efficiency” above everything else. The former as a means to power and the latter as a means to profit. Humans become vessels to serve these values. Transhuman possibilities urgently call for a politics with more clearly delineated and explicit humane values to provide a safer environment in which to foster these profound changes. Where we stand on questions of social justice and environmental sustainability has never been more important. Technology doesn’t allow us to escape these questions – it doesn’t permit political neutrality. The contrary is true. It determines that our politics have never been more important. Savulescu is right when he says radical technologies are coming. He is wrong in thinking they will fix our morality. They will reflect it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78538/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The quest for technology to be the salvation of humankind neglects to consider some darker truths that lead to dystopia.
Alexander Thomas, PhD Candidate, University of East London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/76458
2017-04-30T20:01:35Z
2017-04-30T20:01:35Z
Fighting the common fate of humans: to better life and beat death
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167142/original/file-20170428-15086-15blist.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can technology help us to beat death?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Zwiebackesser</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This piece is republished with permission from <a href="https://griffithreview.com/editions/millennials-strike-back/">Millenials Strike Back</a>, the 56th edition of Griffith Review. Selected pieces consist of extracts, or long reads in which Generation Y writers address the issues that define and concern them.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>The oldest surviving great work of literature tells the story of a Sumerian king, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gilgamesh">Gilgamesh</a>, whose historical equivalent may have ruled the city of Uruk some time between 2800 and 2500 BC.</p>
<p>A hero of superhuman strength, Gilgamesh becomes instilled with existential dread after witnessing the death of his friend, and travels the Earth in search of a cure for mortality. </p>
<p>Twice the cure slips through his fingers and he learns the futility of fighting the common fate of man.</p>
<h2>Merging with machines</h2>
<p>Transhumanism is the idea that we can transcend our biological limits, by merging with machines. The idea was popularised by the renowned technoprophet <a href="http://www.kurzweilai.net/ray-kurzweil-biography">Ray Kurzweil</a> (now a director of engineering at Google), who came to public attention in the 1990s with a string of astute predictions about technology. </p>
<p>In his 1990 book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Age-Intelligent-Machines-Ray-Kurzweil/dp/0262610795">The Age of Intelligent Machines</a> (MIT Press), Kurzweil predicted that a computer would beat the world’s best chess player by the year 2000. It <a href="https://www.wired.com/2011/05/0511ibm-deep-blue-beats-chess-champ-kasparov/">happened in 1997</a>.</p>
<p>He also foresaw the explosive growth of the internet, along with the advent of wearable technology, drone warfare and the automated translation of language. Kurzweil’s <a href="https://futurism.com/kurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-will-happen-by-2045/">most famous prediction is what he calls</a> “the singularity” – the emergence of an artificial super-intelligence, triggering runaway technological growth – which he foresees happening somewhere around 2045.</p>
<p>In some sense, the merger of humans and machines has already begun. Bionic implants, such as the <a href="http://www.cochlear.com/wps/wcm/connect/au/home/understand/hearing-and-hl/hl-treatments/cochlear-implant">cochlear implant</a>, use electrical impulses orchestrated by computer chips to communicate with the brain, and so restore lost senses.</p>
<p>At <a href="https://svhm.org.au/home/research">St Vincent’s Hospital</a> and the <a href="http://research.unimelb.edu.au/">University of Melbourne</a>, my colleagues are developing other ways to tap into neuronal activity, thereby giving people natural control of a robotic hand.</p>
<p>These cases involve sending simple signals between a piece of hardware and the brain. To truly merge minds and machines, however, we need some way to send thoughts and memories.</p>
<p>In 2011, scientists at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles took the first step towards this when they <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21677369">implanted rats with a computer chip</a> that worked as a kind of external hard drive for the brain. </p>
<p>First the rats learned a particular skill, pulling a sequence of levers to gain a reward. The silicon implant listened in as that new memory was encoded in the brain’s hippocampus region, and recorded the pattern of electrical signals it detected. </p>
<p>Next the rats were induced to forget the skill, by giving them a drug that impaired the hippocampus. The silicon implant then took over, firing a bunch of electrical signals to mimic the pattern it had recorded during training. </p>
<p>Amazingly, the rats remembered the skill – the electrical signals from the chip were essentially replaying the memory, in a crude version of that scene in The Matrix where Keanu Reeves learns (downloads) kung-fu.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V8ZdGmgj0PQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Matrix: I know king fu.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Again, the potential roadblock: the brain may be more different from a computer than people such as Kurzweil appreciate. As <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nicolas-p-rougier-201211">Nicolas Rougier</a>, a computer scientist at Inria (the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation), <a href="https://theconversation.com/silicon-soul-the-vain-dream-of-electronic-immortality-52368">argues</a>, the brain itself needs the complex sensory input of the body in order to function properly.</p>
<p>Separate the brain from that input and things start to go awry pretty quickly. Hence sensory deprivation is used as a form of torture. Even if artificial intelligence is achieved, that does not mean our brains will be able to integrate with it.</p>
<p>Whatever happens at the singularity (if it ever occurs), Kurzweil, now aged 68, wants to be around to see it. His <a href="http://www.fantastic-voyage.net/">Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever</a> (Rodale Books, 2004) is a guidebook for extending life in the hope of seeing the longevity revolution. In it he details his dietary practices, and outlines some of the 200 supplements he takes daily.</p>
<p>Failing that, he has a plan B.</p>
<h2>Freezing death</h2>
<p>The central idea of cryonics is to preserve the body after death in the hope that, one day, future civilisations will have the ability (and the desire) to reanimate the dead.</p>
<p>Both Kurzweil and de Grey, along with about 1,500 others (including, apparently, Britney Spears), are <a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/life/tech/2015/06/19/can-buy-immortality-200000-want/">signed up to be cryopreserved</a> by <a href="http://www.alcor.org/">Alcor Life Extension Foundation</a> in Arizona.</p>
<p>Offhand, the idea seems crackpot. Even in daily experience, you know that freezing changes stuff: you can tell a strawberry that’s been frozen. Taste, and especially texture, change unmistakably. The problem is that when the strawberry cells freeze, they fill with ice crystals. The ice rips them apart, essentially turning them to mush. </p>
<p>That’s why Alcor don’t freeze you; they turn you to glass.</p>
<p>After you die, your body is drained of blood and replaced with a special cryogenic mixture of antifreeze and preservatives. When cooled, the liquid turns to a glassy state, but without forming dangerous crystals. </p>
<p>You are placed in a giant thermos flask of liquid nitrogen and cooled to -196°C, cold enough to effectively stop biological time. There you can stay without changing, for a year or a century, until science discovers the cure for whatever caused your demise.</p>
<p>“People don’t understand cryonics,” says Alcor president Max More in a YouTube tour of his facility. “They think it’s this strange thing we do to dead people, rather than understanding it really is an extension of emergency medicine.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uBUTlNu90Xw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Alcor president Max More.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The idea may not be as crackpot as it sounds. Similar cryopreservation techniques are already being used to preserve human embryos used in fertility treatments. </p>
<p>“There are people walking around today who have been cryopreserved,” More continues. “They were just embryos at the time.”</p>
<p>One proof of concept, of sorts, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781097/">was reported</a> by cryogenics expert Greg Fahy of <a href="http://www.21cm.com/">21st Century Medicine</a> (a privately funded cryonics research lab) in 2009.</p>
<p>Fahy’s team removed a rabbit kidney, vitrified it, and reimplanted into the rabbit as its only working kidney. Amazingly, the rabbit survived, if only for nine days. </p>
<p>More recently, a new technique developed by Fahy enabled the perfect preservation of a rabbit brain though vitrification and storage at -196°C. After rewarming, advanced 3D imaging revealed that the rabbit’s “connectome” – that is, the connections between neurons – was undisturbed.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the chemicals used for the new technique are toxic, but the work does raise the hope of some future method that may achieve the same degree of preservation with more friendly substances.</p>
<p>That said, preserving structure does not necessarily preserve function. Our thoughts and memories are not just coded in the physical connections between neurons, but also in the strength of those connections – coded somehow in the folding of proteins.</p>
<p>That’s why the most remarkable cryonics work to date may be that performed at Alcor in 2015, when scientists managed to glassify a tiny worm for two weeks, and then <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25867710">return it to life with its memory intact</a>.</p>
<p>Now, while the worm has only 302 neurons, you have more than 100 billion, and while the worm has 5,000 neuron-to-neuron connections you have at least 100 trillion. So there’s some way to go, but there’s certainly hope.</p>
<p>In Australia, a new not-for-profit, <a href="https://southerncryonics.com/the-project/">Southern Cryonics</a>, is planning to open the first cryonics facility in the Southern Hemisphere. </p>
<p>“Eventually, medicine will be able to keep people healthy indefinitely,” Southern Cryonics spokesperson and secretary Matt Fisher tells me in a phonecall.</p>
<p>“I want to see the other side of that transition. I want to live in a world where everyone can be healthy for as long as they want. And I want everyone I know and care about to have that opportunity as well.”</p>
<p>To get Southern Cryonics off the ground, ten founding members have each put in A$50,000, entitling them to a cryonic preservation for themselves or a person of their choice. Given that the company is not-for-profit, Fisher has no financial incentive to campaign for it. He simply believes in it.</p>
<p>“I’d really like to see [cryonic preservation] become the most common choice for internment across Australia,” he says.</p>
<p>Fisher admits there is no proof yet that cryopreservation works. The question is not about what is possible today, he says. It’s about what may be possible in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathal D. O'Connell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
How far would you go to better your life, to live longer, to beat death? And how much can technology help us in that quest?
Cathal D. O'Connell, Centre Manager, BioFab3D (St Vincent's Hospital), The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/75565
2017-04-03T10:55:08Z
2017-04-03T10:55:08Z
Ghost in the Shell thrills but ducks the philosophical questions posed by a cyborg future
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163466/original/image-20170331-31733-1dyisee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paramount Pictures</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How closely will we live with the technology we use in the future? How will it change us? And how close is “close”? <a href="http://kodanshacomics.com/series/ghost-in-the-shell/">Ghost in the Shell</a> imagines a futuristic, hi-tech but grimy and ghetto-ridden Japanese metropolis populated by people, robots, and technologically-enhanced human cyborgs. </p>
<p>Beyond the superhuman strength, resilience, and X-ray vision provided by bodily enhancements, one of the most transformative aspects of this world is the idea of brain augmentation, that as cyborgs we might have two brains rather than one. Our biological brain – the “ghost” in the “shell” – would interface via neural implants to powerful embedded computers that would give us lightening fast reactions and heightened powers of reasoning, learning and memory.</p>
<p>First written as a Manga comic series in 1989 during the early days of the internet, Ghost in the Shell’s creator, Japanese artist Masamune Shirow, foresaw that this brain-computer interface would overcome the fundamental limitation of the human condition: that our minds are trapped inside our heads. In Shirow’s <a href="http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/values.html">transhuman</a> future our minds would be free to roam, relaying thoughts and imaginings to other networked brains, entering via the cloud into distant devices and sensors, even “deep diving” the mind of another in order to understand and share their experiences.</p>
<p>Shirow’s stories also pin-pointed some of the dangers of this giant technological leap. In a world where knowledge is power, these brain-computer interfaces would create new tools for government surveillance and control, and new kinds of crime such as “mind-jacking” – the remote control of another’s thoughts and actions. Nevertheless there was also a spiritual side to Shirow’s narrative: that the cyborg condition might be the next step in our evolution, and that the widening of perspective and the merging of individuality from a networking of minds could be a path to enlightenment.</p>
<h2>Lost in translation</h2>
<p>Borrowing heavily from Ghost in the Shell’s re-telling by director Mamoru Oshii in his <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113568/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk1">classic 1995 animated film version</a>, the <a href="http://io9.gizmodo.com/ghost-in-the-shell-delivers-a-beautiful-but-ultimately-1793845309">newly arrived Hollywood cinematic interpretation</a> stars Scarlett Johansson as Major, a cyborg working for Section 9, a government-run security organisation charged with fighting corruption and terrorism. Directed by Rupert Sanders, the new film is visually stunning and the storyline lovingly recreates some of the best scenes from the original anime.</p>
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<p>Sadly though, Sanders’ movie pulls its punches around the core question of how this technology could change the human condition. Indeed, if <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/apr/15/scarlett-johanssons-role-in-ghost-in-the-shell-ignites-twitter-storm">casting Western actors in most key roles</a> wasn’t enough, the new film also engages in a form of cultural appropriation by superimposing the myth of the American all-action hero – who you are is defined by what you do – on a character who is almost the complete antithesis of that notion.</p>
<p>Major fights the battles of her masters with increasing reluctance, questioning the actions asked of her, drawn to escape and contemplation. This is no action hero, but someone trying to piece together fragments of meaning from within her cyborg existence with which to assemble a worthwhile life. </p>
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<p>A scene midway through the film shows, even more bluntly, the central role of memory in creating the self. We see the complete breakdown of a man who, having been mind-jacked, faces the realisation that his identity is built on false memories of a life never lived, and a family who never existed. The 1995 anime insists that we are individuals only because of our memories. While the new film retains much of the same story line, it refuses to follow the inference. Rather than being defined by our memories, Major’s voice tells us that “we cling to memories as if they define us, but what we do defines us”. Perhaps this is meant to be reassuring, but to me it is both confusing and unfaithful to the spirit of the original tale.</p>
<p>The new film also backs away from another key idea of Shirow’s work, that the human mind – even the human species – are, in essence, information. Where the 1995 anime talked of the possibility of leaving the physical body – the shell – elevating consciousness to a higher plane and “becoming part of all things”, the remake has only veiled hints that such a merging minds, or a melding of the human mind with the internet, could be either positive or transformational.</p>
<h2>Open lives</h2>
<p>In the real world, the notion of networked minds is already upon us. Touchscreens, keypads, cameras, mobile, the cloud: we are more and more directly and instantly linked to a widening circle of people, while opening up our personal lives to surveillance and potential manipulation by governments, advertisers, or worse. </p>
<p>Brain-computer interfaces are also on their way. There are already brain implants that can mitigate some of the symptoms of brain conditions, from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/27/brain-implants-mental-disorders-darpa_n_5395708.html">Parkinson’s disease to depression</a>. Others are being developed to overcome sensory impairments such as <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41052/title/The-Bionic-Eye/">blindness</a> or to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/paralysed-man-moves-arm-for-first-time-in-years-using-brain-implant-that-can-read-his-thoughts-a7654761.html">control a paralysed limb</a>. On the other hand, the remote control of behaviour using implanted brain stimulators has been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_control_animal">demonstrated in several animal species</a>, a frightening technology that could be <a href="https://theconversation.com/brainjacking-a-new-cyber-security-threat-64315">applied to humans if someone were to choose to misuse it</a> in that way.</p>
<p>The possibility of voluntarily networking our minds is also here. Devices like the <a href="https://www.emotiv.com/">Emotiv</a> are simple wearable electroencephalograph-based (<a href="http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/EEG/Pages/Introduction.aspx">EEG</a>) devices that can detect some of the signature electrical signals emitted by our brains, and are sufficiently intelligent to interpret those signals and turn them into useful output. For example, an Emotiv connected to a computer can control a videogame by the power of the wearer’s thoughts alone.</p>
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<p>In terms of artificial intelligence, the work in my lab at <a href="http://www.sheffieldrobotics.ac.uk/">Sheffield Robotics</a> explores the possibility of building <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/psychology/about/news-archive/2015/prescott-me_myself_and_icub">robot analogues of human memory for events and experiences</a>. The fusion of such systems with the human brain is not possible with today’s technology – but it is imaginable in the decades to come. Were an electronic implant developed that could <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/513681/memory-implants/">vastly improve your memory and intelligence</a>, would you be tempted? Such technologies may be on the horizon, and science fiction imaginings such as Ghost in the Shell suggest that their power to fundamentally change the human condition should not be underestimated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75565/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Prescott receives funding from the European FET Flagship Programme through the Human Brain Project (HBP-SGA1 grant agreement 720270). He is a director and shareholder of Consequential Robotics a UK company that develops companion and assistive robot technologies.</span></em></p>
The latest remake of Ghost in the Shell ducks the philosophical questions posed by the cyborg technology of the future.
Tony Prescott, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the Sheffield Robotics Institute, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/61928
2016-07-04T14:47:25Z
2016-07-04T14:47:25Z
Could we upload a brain to a computer – and should we even try?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129248/original/image-20160704-19103-xptzjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>People have always dreamed about going beyond the limitations of their bodies: the pain, illness and, above all, death. Now a new movement is dressing up this ancient drive in new technological clothes. Referred to as transhumanism, it is the belief that science will provide a futuristic way for humans to evolve beyond their current physical forms and realise these dreams of transcendence.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most dramatic way transhumanists believe that technology will transform the human condition is the idea that someone’s mind could be converted into digital data and “uploaded” into an immensely powerful computer. This would allow you to live in a world of unbounded virtual experiences and effectively achieve immortality (as long as someone remembers to do the backups and doesn’t switch you off).</p>
<p>Yet transhumanists seem to ignore the fact that this kind of mind-uploading has some insurmountable obstacles. The practical difficulties mean it couldn’t happen in the foreseeable future, but there are also some more fundamental problems with the whole concept.</p>
<p>The idea of brain uploading is a staple of science fiction. The author and director of engineering at Google, <a href="http://www.kurzweilai.net/ray-kurzweil-biography">Ray Kurzweil</a>, has perhaps done the most to popularise the idea that it might become reality – perhaps <a href="http://singularity.com">as soon as 2045</a>. Recently, the economist <a href="http://ageofem.com">Robin Hanson</a> has explored in detail the consequences of such a scenario for society and the economy. He imagines a world in which all work is carried out by disembodied emulations of human minds, running in simulations of virtual reality using city-size cloud computing facilities.</p>
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<p>It’s a short step from the idea that our minds could be uploaded, to the notion that they already have been and that we are already living in a Matrix-style computer simulation. Technology entrepreneur Elon Musk recently revived this discussion by arguing the chance that we are not living in a computer simulation was only <a href="https://theconversation.com/elon-musk-says-were-probably-living-in-a-computer-simulation-heres-the-science-60821">“one in billions”</a>. Of course, this is just a technological revival of the idea that reality is an illusion, which has been discussed by philosophers and mystics for <a href="http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dcarg.htm">hundreds of years</a>.</p>
<p>But there are some serious problems with the idea that we could upload our minds to a computer. To start with, the practical issue: our brains each have trillions of connections between <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19226510">86 billion or so</a> neurons. To replicate the mind digitally we would have to map each of these connections, something that is far beyond our current capabilities. With the current speed of development of computers and imaging technologies, we <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/334/6056/618">might be able</a> to do this in a few decades but only for a dead and sectioned brain.</p>
<h2>More than molecules</h2>
<p>Yet even if we could create such a “wiring diagram” for a living brain, that wouldn’t be enough to understand how it operates. For that we’d need to quantify exactly how the neurons interact at each of the junctions, and that’s a matter of molecular-level detail. We don’t even know how many molecules are in the brain, let alone how many are vital for its functions, but whatever the answer it’s too many to replicate with a computer.</p>
<p>This points us towards a deeper conceptual difficulty. Just because we can simulate some aspects of the way the brain works, that doesn’t necessarily mean we are completely emulating a real brain, or indeed a mind. No conceivable increase in computer power will allow us to simulate the brain at the level of individual molecules. So brain emulation would only be possible if we could <a href="http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/?p=1558">abstract its digital, logical operations</a> from the messy molecular level detail.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129249/original/image-20160704-19091-p4lk60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129249/original/image-20160704-19091-p4lk60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129249/original/image-20160704-19091-p4lk60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129249/original/image-20160704-19091-p4lk60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129249/original/image-20160704-19091-p4lk60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129249/original/image-20160704-19091-p4lk60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129249/original/image-20160704-19091-p4lk60.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Who turned out the lights?</span>
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<p>To understand the operations of a man-made computer, we don’t need to keep track of the currents and voltages in every component, much less understand what every electron is doing. We’ve designed the switching operations of the transistors so there’s an unambiguous mapping from the state of the circuits to the simple digital logic of ones and zeros. But no-one designed a brain – it evolved – so there is no reason to expect any simple mapping of its operations to digital logic.</p>
<h2>Dangerous idea</h2>
<p>Even if mind uploading is an impossible dream, some might argue that it does no harm to imagine such possibilities. Everyone at some point must fear their own mortality, and who am I to argue with the many different ways people have of dealing with those fears?</p>
<p>But transhumanism’s mixing of essentially religious ideas with scientific language matters because it distorts the way we think about technology. Transhumanism tends to see technology as a way to grant all our wishes. And this is often justified by the argument that technology will inevitably drive human development in a positive direction.</p>
<p>Yet this <a href="http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Against_Transhumanism_1.0_small.pdf">distorts our scientific priorities</a> and gets in the way of us making sensible choices about developing the technologies we need to solve our very real current problems. Brain uploading is a great premise for speculative fiction, but it’s not a good basis for talking about the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Transhumanism sees mind uploading as the ultimate destiny of humanity, but it’s actually a dangerous distraction.
Richard Jones, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/19742
2013-11-01T13:06:52Z
2013-11-01T13:06:52Z
Talent is unfair, and genes can’t be used to change that
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/34188/original/ggk2p354-1383238984.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C245%2C1726%2C1290&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">DNA can't help you win.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">saynine</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Talent is unfair. One can quibble about what it actually is. But there is little doubt that it is something that emerges not just from the genes but also from their interaction with the environment. Different people are born with different aptitudes for different things. Some of these aptitudes help a life go well. So through no fault of their own, some people will have less chance of a good life.</p>
<p>If we were to make a choice behind a veil of ignorance between a world where there was more talent to go around and a world with less talent, it seems that the reasonable choice is to choose the world of talent. We would probably also want to choose a world where talent was more equally distributed than one where it was less equal. But even the less talented people in a talented but unequal world could benefit from the greater prosperity and creativity.</p>
<p>In practice talent needs plenty of help to develop: without support and good teachers innate potential is unlikely to matter. So the ability to help kids develop their potential (and help them overcome their less able sides) is important for actualising that talent. Without it none of the above worlds would be preferable. But figuring out how to cultivate and stimulate kids is hard. Hence, any information that could help do this better would be welcome.</p>
<p>So <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/kathrynasbury/2013/10/genes-do-influence-children-and-acknowledging-that-can-make-schools-better/">if genetic information could personalise education</a>, well, go for it.</p>
<p>But I am <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/10377735/Theres-much-more-to-IQ-than-biology-and-DNA.html">less convinced</a> than the geneticists that we can <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/root-of-maths-genius-sought-1.14050">actually do it</a>, at least in the near future. Genetics is hard. It is surprisingly tricky to establish how genes translate into actual outcomes since so much is interacting. Even when there are statistical differences between groups it might not tell us much. </p>
<p>For example, my genes reveal, at least according to one study, that I ought to have three fewer non-verbal IQ points than those who don’t have this particular variant (GG at SNP rs363050). Given that I am in the philosophy faculty at Oxford I can’t be that stupid – no doubt I have compensating genes. Or a really good upbringing. Or maybe the variation only matters in some people. Or with some environments. Knowing about this genetic information would not have helped my teachers to teach me better. Giving some extra non-verbal tasks might have make sense on average to people like me, but it is not clear that it would have helped me. The teachers would have been better off looking at who I was and what tasks I did well or badly at. In cases like this looking at the phenotype, which is the actual behaviour and abilities, is much more revealing that any amount of genotype information.</p>
<p>What if our society starts to pre-judge children based on their genotypes? It certainly is a real risk, but it would be judging that is not based on the science. In fact, it would be stupid – hiring people or channelling kids based on a weak marker for ability rather than actual demonstrations of ability will lead to big mistakes. Maybe the science does lend itself too easily to simplistic caricatures, but the fault is not in the science itself or even pointing out that it might be useful, but in us as a society allowing oversimplifications to rule decisions.</p>
<p>Genetic labelling, even if well-meaning and based on real information, can have detrimental effects. Being told you are a low performer will usually not motivate you. Teacher expectations can easily bias student performance, and vice versa. Genetic markers are ready-made labels – but only if we let them be labels. Genetic determinism is a mistake, and we should not teach it – either through the curriculum, or through the structure of the school itself.</p>
<p>There is a second problem with personalised education. Getting something useful out of the genetic information requires not just good genetic data gathering, but also good educational data gathering. It doesn’t matter if we find associations between genes and grades if we have no idea how to influence things. This will require vast amounts of fairly detailed data and a close collaboration between the behavioural geneticists and educators – not a simple task, as neuroscience has realised when trying to help education. Just because we know how learning works in the brain doesn’t mean we can apply that cognitive knowledge well to education.</p>
<p>In the long run I am sure we will figure out a few useful things the genome does tell us about learning styles, talent or other things that matter for education that could not be detected by a skilled teacher. But that raises another problem: might the personalisation itself be unfair? </p>
<p>I am not talking about the well-off getting better education (that is an issue regardless of genetics). Some kids will have genetic markers that enable useful personalisation that help them excel, and some kids will lack them – they will have to do with standard education. This is in a sense exactly the same unfairness as the random distribution of talent represents, but here it is a random distribution of personalizability. One can still argue that unequal distributions are fine as long as the worse off benefit (educational resources get allocated more efficiently), but it seems that we should strive for something better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19742/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anders Sandberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Talent is unfair. One can quibble about what it actually is. But there is little doubt that it is something that emerges not just from the genes but also from their interaction with the environment. Different…
Anders Sandberg, James Martin Research Fellow, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.