Le transhumanisme

Transhumanism use science and technology to become more than human ! To merit the label of postman beings.

A little history

1814, in translation of the final book "Divine Comedy" of Dante's Paradiso. Francis Carey translate "Words may not tell of that transhumance change". It's a physical transformation of the nature human body.

1990's, Max More begin articulating the principles of transhumants as a futurist philosophy. He has organized an intelligentsia that has since grown into the worldwide transhumanist movement.

Somes communities

Humanity + : 1996 _ Nick Bostrom & David Pearce.

The equal access to human enhancement technologies across classes

and borders.

Transhumanity.net : 2012 _ Hank Pellissier

June 2017, The Transhuman House community platform to talk about

Transhumanism.

Technoprog! : 2007 _ Marc Roux

That aim to enhance the human condition and life expectancy

Do it yourself !

Tristan Roberts

Tristan Roberts is the first human to inject an untested, experimental gene therapy into his stomach. This experience was make in the living room of his friend. He is a computer programmer of 28 years old without knowledge in biology. Him and his friends are members of a community of Biohackers, the Do It Yourself movement in biology, medical science and genetics.

Six years ago, he was diagnosed as HIV positive, and two years ago he stopped taking drugs. But he wants to be cured, and he hopes to find a remedy. So he injects himself with a syringe a trillions of plasmids (pieces of DNA). This serum should trigger production of antibody.

He makes a blood test three weeks later, but the result is not conclusive. Roberts plans to inject a second version that contains 10 to 100 times the number of plasmids.

6th senses

Moon Ribas had wired herself to experience tiny shifts tectonic plates, and was converting those tremors into choreography. She said “Now I feel I have two heartbeats, like my own and the earthbeat”. Today the chip is in her ankle

Liviu Babitz has implanted on the surface of his skin, an “exo-sense” model. This unit is to the upper chest, the device gently vibrates whenever the wearer is facing magnetic north.

So what's next ?

Elon Musk, has founded Neuralink to develop brain implants, in order to create a direct human-machine interface. He would like man to merge with the machine, to extend the limited capabilities of the human. A first neuronal interface of this type will be effective in only five years.

The giant producer of processor ARM has teamed up with the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (CSNE) to develop chips for the human brain. The aim is to develop a system that people can move a prothesis and receive sensory feedback, like the temperature. They think that this chip will ready in 10 years.

The team of Dong Song; researching brain implants to help humans extend their memory. They have tested this implant on 20 volunteers; It stimulate the short-term memory and working memory with an increase of 15 at 20 % .

Longevity !

Some researchers create a biohybrid microrobots with a microalgae with fluorescence imaging innate properties. They are able to degrade cancer cells into a body

Other have made a prototype of a completely edible pneumatic robot made of gelatin, and this robot can move

EPFL have made a prototype of a completely edible pneumatic robot made if gelatin

Microswimmers : Multifunctional biohybrid magnetite micro robots for imaging-guided therapy.

Technological singularity

Definition : John von Neumann first used the term "singularity" in 1950's

"The technological singularity is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial super intelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization."

This singularity will could we make immortal.

Rau Kurzweil thinks that we will move our consciousness to a more bio mechanical artificial body or maintain our own bodies with nano technology.

Transcendence 2014 (FILM)

Season 3 episode 4 / San Junipero

Singularitarians :

- Ray Kurzweil : Google's guru of AI and Futurism.

- Nick Bostrom : Philosopher and futurist.

- Peter Thiel : entrepreneur, venture capitalist, philanthropist, political activist, and author.

- Peter Diamandis : engineer physician.

Universities :

- Singularity University / California

- Future of Humanity Institute / United-Kingdom

2029 : super-humanoid computer - nanotech and biotech that will eliminate most poverty and disease, and predicted that computers will have emotional intelligence;

2045 : " computer will be billions of times more powerful than human intelligence."

The machine is friendly and will flourish alongside human, we will be a hybrid society !

Skeptics' camp :

- Bill Joy : co-funder of the sun microsystems

- Mitch Kapor : co-funder the Electronic frontier and Mozilla

- Paul Allen : microsoft co-funder

- Elon Musk : co-funder of Tesla and company SpaceX

Accusing them of vastly underestimating the brain's complexity.

"with AI we are summoning the demon" and "our biggest existential threat" to call AI

machine become evil and kill us !

To conclude

We can ask ourselves if we are already transhumance ?

Because, we use all day and time technologies and AI to helps us, and exceed our physical and cognitive limitation.

I mean, from which moment are we regard like transhumance or cyborg ?

If a patient need a new heart or renal transplantation, and we transplant a artificial organ - can we say this person is a cyborg ?

And if we listen to Ray Kurzweil and the other partisans of the singularity should we have fear or be glad of a life without limitation ?

Ray Kurzweil believes that human will be less biological, because we are always evolving. So the next step of our evolution will be the internal implementation of technology. Human-robot hybrid, it's just a human with a chip in his brain instead of a smartphone in his hand.

Do you want become a cyborg or stay being human ? Think about it !