The Age of Transhumanism

Are we becoming post-humans?

 The Age of Transhumanism
• The transhumanism term was coined in 1957 by Julian Huxley, UNESCO’s first Director-
General

• A philosophy whose essence is to use technology to overcome biological limitations of

the man and improve the human condition

• This overcoming and improvement are understood as freeing the person from illnesses,
ageing processes, and achieving the state of full happiness, permanent, top excitement,
as well as replacing many organs and the entire body eventually, with artificial elements,
better than the original biological ones.
 What is Human Enhancement?
• Therapy-uplifting from below human “normality” to “normality”

• Enhancement- uplifting from “normality” to “ubernormality”

• Through developments in NBIC, the neuro-biological nature of man will be

altered unrecognizably

• The aim of the transhumanist movement is the creation of a better, super-

intelligent, more moral human species called the “post-human” species
 The Age of Transhumanism

• Exactly like the philosophy of the Enlightenment, it is transhumanism that is based on the claim
that human nature can be corrected.

• Transhumanism is thus called evolutionary humanism, where evolution is seen as a progression

from human to transhuman to posthuman.

• Man should not be afraid of being dehumanized even if the result of this process means
disconnecting him from the homo sapiens species.

• The post homo sapiens state is post-human, but not post-existential. Transhumanism introduces
the category of a cyborg, a person of second stage evolution
What Are The Human Enhancements So Far?
• Hans Moravec, former director of robotics at Carnegie-Mellon University
and developer of advanced robots for both NASA and the military,
popularized the idea of living perpetually via a digital substrate.
• He envisioned a procedure in which the entirety of the information
encoded within the neurons of a human brain could be read, copied, and
uploaded to a computer
• Immortality through software existence.
• Embodied Cognition is the opposite of brain emulation. That the body is
an extension of the mind and helps the mind to think and recognize and
decide.
What Are The Human Enhancements So Far?
• The Bionic Man-Jesse Sullivan
• Braingate--allows a person to manipulate objects in the world using only the mind
• Cochlear Implants and Night Vision and Silent Talk
• Affective BCIs: Electrocorticography (ECoG) and Electroencephalography (EEG)
• Exoskeletons and Flexible Battlesuits-MIT’s Soldier Nanotechnologies
• Reciprocyte-an artificial nano-red blood vessel
• Pharmacological Enhancements. Stimulant drugs-Ritalin and Adderall, used by
many college students to boost concentration and ward off sleep; Provigil, used to
improve working memory and brighten mood; Anabolic steroids ; Viagra; Aricept-
improves verbal and visual memory; Resvestrol– life extender.
What Are The Human Enhancements So Far?
• Cybernetic Enhancements-Brain Implants for unlimited memory and
computing capacity
• Genetic Enhancements : Genetic Modification and the Aryan Race;
hair color, eye color, skin tone, height, weight, facial structure—
Inheritable enhancements; Athleticism, and even IQ, personality, and
other mental traits.
• Nanotechnology Enhancements: Nanobots and Inventive medicine—
postpone ageing.
• Moral Enhancement: ??
 The Ethics of Human Enhancement
• Ethical Issues of Affective Brain–Computer Interfaces: a system that uses
neurophysiological signals to extract features that are related to affective
states (e.g. emotions and moods). Data protection and informed consent,
neurohacking, marketing and political manipulation, inauthentic\fake
emotions
• Exacerbated Social Inequality
• Exacerbated Corporate Inequality at all Managerial Levels
• The Ethics of Autonomy , Choice and Social Life of the first Transhumans
• The Ethics of the Emaciated Family
• The Ethics of the Imbalanced Transhuman
 The Ethics of Human Enhancement
• The Geo-Ethics of the Aryan Race
• Decease-free longevity for the privileged
• Superintelligence for the enhanced
• 4IR is about replacing labour with capital; low and medium human skills with high
human skills and even high human skills with AI and Cyborgs.
• In the first two revolutions, capital needed labour. In the 3IR, capital created diverse
new jobs, which needed low-skilled labour, like Uber drivers and Zomato delivery boys.
• The 4IR is about finding a cheaper and exponentially more productive labour-substitute
called AI and Post-humans.
• Ethical Implications: The Pink Slip \Capital vs Labour Decisions\Profit Maximisation vs
Universal Minimum Wage\Social Unrest
Are You Ready to Face a Post-Human
Species?