How Do Transhumanists Party?
How Do Transhumanists Party?
How Do Transhumanists Party?
Posted 124 days ago
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How Do Transhumanists Party?
Vernor Vinge on Singularity 1 on 1: We Can Surpass the Wildest Dreams of Optimism
Vernor Vinge on Singularity 1 on 1: We Can Surpass the Wildest Dreams of Optimism
Vernor Vinge on Singularity 1 on 1: We Can Surpass the Wildest Dreams of Optimism
Posted 130 days ago
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Vernor Vinge on Singularity 1 on 1: We Can Surpass the Wildest Dreams of Optimism
Love and Sex with Robots: The Next Step of the Relationship between Man and Machine?
Love and Sex with Robots: The Next Step of the Relationship between Man and Machine?
Love and Sex with Robots: The Next Step of the Relationship between Man and Machine?
Posted 168 days ago
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Love and Sex with Robots: The Next Step of the Relationship between Man and Machine?
Aubrey de Grey on Singularity 1 on 1: Better Funding and Advocacy Can Defeat Aging
Aubrey de Grey on Singularity 1 on 1: Better Funding and Advocacy Can Defeat Aging
Aubrey de Grey on Singularity 1 on 1: Better Funding and Advocacy Can Defeat Aging
Posted 186 days ago
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Aubrey de Grey on Singularity 1 on 1: Better Funding and Advocacy Can Defeat Aging
A Transhumanist Manifesto
A Transhumanist Manifesto
A Transhumanist Manifesto
Posted 259 days ago
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A Transhumanist Manifesto
Hamlet's Transhumanist Dilemma: Will Technology Replace Biology?
Hamlet’s Transhumanist Dilemma: Will Technology Replace Biology?
Hamlet’s Transhumanist Dilemma: Will Technology Replace Biology?
Posted 339 days ago
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Hamlet’s Transhumanist Dilemma: Will Technology Replace Biology?
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Huckelberry Finn (Robotic Edition) or Was Mark Twain Racist?

by Socrates
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The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn has been without doubt one of the greatest American novels ever since it was published in 1884. Recently, however, Mark Twain‘s timeless wit, satirical wisdom, deep irony and historical context have given way to a new political correctness clearly lacking the historical perspective and subtle sophistication needed to grasp the author’s scathing depiction of entrenched stereotypes and 19th century American racism. Thus, in the 2011 NewSouth Books edition of Huck Finn, the words injun and nigger are to be “revised” to indian and slave “only to make it [the book] viable to the 21st century.” On the upside, it seems that rumors of the death of the archetypal Mark-Twainian irony, wit and satire have been (once again) greatly exaggerated: Two humor-enhanced fans of Twain’s work have started raising funds for the project of replacing all [...]

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The Technological Singularity Goes Mainstream (Again)

by Socrates
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The technological singularity goes mainstream again (and again). The last 12 months or so we have witnessed an unparalleled growth of mainstream coverage of transhumanism, the singularity, artificial intelligence and Ray Kurzweil. Some of the more notable mentions include: PBS on Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity; the NY Times’ Humans are so Yesterday; Ray Kurzweil on the Daily Show with John Stewart and New Zeland TV features Singularity University. (Yeah, it does seem that Michael Anissimov is right to say that Transhumanism Has Already Won.) Yesterday, Time Magazine’s cover story was about Ray Kurzweil and Barry Ptolemy‘s long anticipated feature documentary Transcendent Man. It is hard to get any more mainstream than that. I hope that people will go to watch the film en masse, listen to what Ray has to say and start thinking about the vital issues stemming [...]

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James Martin on Singularity 1 on 1: We Can Control Accelerating Technology

by Socrates
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Yesterday I was privileged to have an hour long Skype interview with James Martin for my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast. James Martin is Andrew Crofts‘ archetype Change Agent in addition to being a world-renowned computer scientist, author, lecturer, teacher, philanthropist, futurist and film-maker. During our conversation we cover a whole spectrum of interesting topics such as: James’ interest in computers in particular and technology and futurism in general; his book that eventually turned into a movie -  The Meaning of the 21st Century, his current project titled the Transformation of Humankind; the technological singularity; the risks and promises of exponential growth of 21st century technologies such as genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnologies. So, go ahead, listen to or download the audio above or scroll down to watch the video of the interview in full. Most importantly – don’t hesitate [...]

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Human Rights for Artificial Intelligence: What is the Threshold for Granting (Human) Rights?

by CMStewart

It is the year 2045. Strong artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated into our society. Humanoid robots with non-biological brain circuitries walk among people in every nation. These robots look like us, speak like us, and act like us. Should they have the same human rights as we do? The function and reason of human rights are similar to the function and cause of evolution. Human rights help develop and maintain functional, self-improving societies. Evolution perpetuates the continual development of functional, reproducible organisms. Just as humans have evolved, and will continue to evolve, human rights will continue to evolve as well. Assuming strong AI will eventually develop strong sentience and emotion, the AI experience of sentience and emotion will likely be significantly different from the human experience. But is there a definable limit to the human experience? What makes a human [...]

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The Change Agent, the Ghostwriter and the Singularity: Andrew Crofts on Singularity 1 on 1

by Socrates
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A couple of months ago I saw Roman Polanski’s film the Ghost Writer based on the titular bestselling book by Robert Harris. At the time, I could hardly imagine that only a couple of months after the movie premiere I will be communicating with Andrew Crofts - the archetype ghostwriter on whom Ewan McGregor’s character was most probably based upon. Andrew wrote a popular guest article for SingularityWeblog.com where he shared the story behind his latest book The Change Agent: How to Create a Wonderful World. The book talks about the life and ideas of Andrew’s archetype change agent - James Martin, a world-renowned futurist, computer scientist, author, lecturer and, among many other things, the largest donor in the history of Oxford University. (Most recently, James Martin produced a pivotal documentary film called The Meaning of the 21st Century. It [...]

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Artificial Skin: from Star Wars to Stanford

by Socrates
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Another case of science fiction becoming science fact: Reuters News just posted this video of the latest milestone reached towards the creation of artificial skin. Original description of Ben Gruber’s video report: Scientists at Stanford University have developed artificial electronic skin that is sensitive enough to feel a butterfly’s soft step. It’s an innovation researchers say could pave the way for the creation of a replacement for damaged human skin.

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Stephen Wolfram on Singularity 1 on 1: To Understand the Future, Explore the Computational Universe

by Socrates
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Yesterday I was privileged to have an hour long phone interview with Dr. Stephen Wolfram for my Singularity 1 on 1 podcast. We started our conversation on how Stephen got interested in exploring science in general and eventually focused on computation in particular. Then we moved on to a number of other interesting topics such as his work on Mathematica, his monumental book A New Kind of Science, his unique computational search engine Wolfram|Alpha, artificial intelligence and the technological singularity. I have to say that after spending 2 or 3 days in intense preparation for the interview I already knew that Dr. Wolfram is an exceptionally intelligent person. However, after our conversation and especially after taking into consideration Wolfram’s breadth and depth of work, and the profound actual and potential implications thereof, it seems to me that he may be [...]

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What Do You Want To Print For Lunch? 3D Food Printer Gives New Meaning To Fast Food

by Socrates
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Another chapter of the on-going revolution in 3D printing technology is unfolding in the field of food. Cornell University graduate students from the computational synthesis lab are developing an open source 3D food printer that allows users to print their own lunch. The initial price point of the printer is expected to be around 1,000 dollars with hopes that soon after its debut the price will drop to about $700. Since it is an open source project all the digital blueprints, food recipes, designs and information required to build, buy and operate your own 3D food printer will be available as a free download to anyone interested. So, how long before we start printing vegetarian steaks?

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