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Johan Autio

BioCentre - 0 views

  • In Kurzweil we have the technologist; de Grey the therapist;  Bostrom the philosopher and Hughes the sociologist.
  • Ray Kurzweil proposes that we are speeding towards a time when our outdated systems of neurons and synapses will be traded for far more efficient electronic circuits, allowing us to become artificially super-intelligent and transferring our minds from brains into machines.
  • Agar makes the perceptive comment that despite the apparent appeal of greater processing power it would nevertheless be no longer human.
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  • we might accidentally undermine capacities of equal value.
  • our specifies-specific form of intelligence may well be linked to species-specific form of desire.
  • Thus, if we start building upon and enhancing our capacity to protect and promote deeply held convictions and beliefs then due to the interconnectedness, it may well affect and remove our desire to perform such activities
  • In terms of risk, those radically enhanced to live longer may actually be the most risk adverse and fearful people to live. Taking the example of driving a car, a forty year-old senescing human being who gets into their car to drive to work and is involved in a fatal accident “stands to lose, at most, a few healthy, youthful years and a slightly larger number of years with reduced quality” (p.116). In stark contrast should a negligibly senescent being who drives a car and is involved in an accident resulting in their death, stands to lose on average one thousand, healthy, youthful years
  • with the end of ageing comes an increased sense of risk-aversion so the desire for risky activity such as driving will no longer be prevalent.
  • because we are living for longer we will not be in such a hurry to get to places! 
  • Bostrom and Ord argue that it boils down to a preference for the status quo; current human intellects and life spans are preferred and deemed best because they are what we have now and what we are familiar with
  • Agar discusses the fact that in his view, Bostrom falls into a focalism – focusing on and magnifying the positives whilst ignoring the negative implications. 
  • Agar goes onto develop and reiterate his earlier point that the sort of radical enhancements Bostrom et al enthusiastically support and promote take us beyond what is human so they are no longer human.
  • t therefore cannot be said to be human enhancement given the fact that the traits or capacities that such enhancement afford us would be in many respects superior to ours, but they would not be ours.
  • can foresee a situation where it would be very difficult for humans to ‘choose’ to remain human. 
  • The pressure to radically enhance would be considerable given the fact that the radically enhanced would no doubt be occupying the positions of power in society and would consider the moral obligation to utilise to the full enhancement techniques as being a moral imperative for the good of society.
  • the author proposes that we have two options: radical enhancement is either enforced across the board or banned outright.
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Johan Autio

Rationally Speaking: Human, know thy place! - 0 views

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    ""I actually find a preoccupation with anti-aging technologies to be, I think, somewhat spiritually immature and unmanly... I'm inclined to think that there's something profound about aging and death.""
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