Transhumanists believe that the only way for humanity to survive in the future is to merge with advanced technology. Today’s rapid developments in gene-editing and artificial intelligence point to the potential for a ‘humanity 2.0’ to upload their minds, enhance their bodies, create robot companions and have babies outside the womb. Ideas that were previously considered science fiction are fast becoming a reality. When might we expect these developments, and what ethical issues will they create?
Join Elise Bohan (University of Oxford) Prof. Steve Fuller (University of Warwick) and Anders Sandberg (Future of Humanity Institute) to discover what transhumanism means for the future of humankind.
Speakers
Elise Bohan
Elise Bohan is a Senior Research Scholar at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute (FHI). She holds a PhD in evolutionary macrohistory, wrote the world’s first book-length history of transhumanism as a doctoral student, and recently launched her debut book Future Superhuman: Our transhuman lives in a make-or-break century (NewSouth, 2022).
Prof. Steve Fuller
Prof. Steve Fuller is Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology at the University of Warwick, UK. Originally trained in history and philosophy of science, he is the author of more than twenty books. From 2011 to 2014 he published three books with Palgrave on ‘Humanity 2.0’. His most recent book is Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of Transhuman Era (Schwabe Verlag, 2020).
Anders Sandberg
Anders Sandberg is a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) at Oxford University where his research focuses on the societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technologies. He is also research associate at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics.
Featured Book
Future Superhuman: Our transhuman lives in a make-or-break century by Elise Bohan (UNSW Press, 2022)
We’re hurtling towards a superhuman future – or, if we blunder, extinction. The only way out of our existential crises, from global warming to the risks posed by nuclear weapons, novel and bioengineered pathogens and unaligned AI, is up. We’ll need more technology to safeguard our future – and we’re going to invent and perhaps even merge with some of that technology.
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