The founding of the Transhumanist Party of the United States, the intensifying of the U.S. BRAIN-Initiative and the start of Google's project "Ending death" were important milestones in the year 2014, and potential further steps towards "transhumanist" politics. The most significant development was that the radical international technology community became a concrete political force, not by chance starting its global political initiative in the U.S. According to political scientist and sociologist Roland Benedikter, research scholar at the University of California at Santa Barbara, "transhumanist" politics has momentous growth potential but with uncertain outcomes. The coming years will probably see a dialogue between humanism and transhumanism in - and about - most crucial fields of human endeavor, with strong political implications that will challenge, and could change the traditional concepts, identities and strategies of Left and Right.
Roland Benedikter is the co-author of two Pentagon and U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff White Papers concerning the future of Neurotechnology and the Ethics of Neurowarfare (2013 and 2014), several books about global strategic matters (two of those on Xi Jinping's China) and of the upcoming book Neuroscience and Neuroethics: Impacting Human Futures (in cooperation with James Giordano, Springer New York) which will be published in 2015. He has co-authored the commentary "Neuroculture: How to keep ethical pace with the current 'deep' transformations through neurotechnology? for "Leftist Review" with James Giordano in March 2012. Katja Siepmann and Annabella McIntosh conducted the interview.
In the book you co-authored with Pentagon-advisor and Georgetown-neuroscientist and neuroethicist James Giordano "Neuroscience and Neuroethics: Impacting Human Futures" you state that these two fields at the interface between science and politics might lead to bigger changes in the coming years than either conventional politics or science. The reason: Technology is becoming an increasingly more powerful political and social force - not only sectorially or nationally, but globally.
Roland Benedikter: In recent years technology has indeed emerged as a concrete social and political force. 2014 has seen a noticeable intensification of that trend. The traditional political players are poorly prepared for it. What, for example, nowadays takes place in just one year at the interface between the human brain and technology, until recently required a decade. It is an exponential development. The mechanization of society and humanity is occurring within many disciplines- for example, in the form of neurotechnology, which is increasingly used for medical and both dual-use and direct military purposes. But there are other fields too. From neuroeconomics to, neuroaesthetics, neurosprituality, neurosociology and even neuropolitics, the "neuro"-prefix is becoming omnipresent in the understanding and meaning of our time and civilization - and with regard to its self-ascribed identity.
What exactly is going on?
Roland Benedikter: Supporters of "human enhancement"[1], which encompasses scientists, entrepreneurs and politicians and transcends language, cultural and ideological barriers, advocate mechanization of the human body in general and the broad "culturalization" of brain-machine interfaces in particular as the progressive, transformative path for humanity in the 21st century. By playing a consulting role in the "high spheres" of politics, science, and management, representatives of the transhumanist movement (including the World Transhumanist Association), which was initiated in the 1980s, are promoting the fusion of humans and computers. Among other things, they recommend the broad use of implants to enhance cognitive abilities, neural engineering to expand human consciousness and the cyborgization of the body and its tissues and systems in order to increase resilience, flourishing and lifespan.
Sounds gruesome at first. What is the idea behind all this?
Roland Benedikter: The name "transhumanism" is the basic concept that tells it all. Its followers want to go beyond the present human condition. At its core it means to overcome the "natural" limitations inherent in human existence, which is to be born, live relatively short, half-conscious lives, and then die. The supporters of "human enhancement" and "transhumanism" intend to break through these current physical and cognitive (and perhaps even spiritual) barriers. In order to do that, they will pursue biotechnological upgrades to the human body and thus, conceivably, try to eliminate the negative effects of ageing and eventually (at least in their aspiration) even death.
You state (in a scientifically "neutral" sense) that the first breakthrough of this development could now be imminent, but there will also be inescapable associated ethical problems?
Roland Benedikter: Possibly. Those who view the future human being as a technoid being, if not as a body fully integrated into technology - as seem to do, for example, Google's chief engineer Ray Kurzweil or the Oxford professor of philosophy Nick Bostrom, who is the head of the "Future of Humanity Institute" at the faculty of philosophy and the Oxford James Martin 21st Century School -- regard the mid of the century as a probable date for reaching the "singularity." That's the moment when artificial intelligence allegedly surpasses that of human intelligence and becomes in some way "self-conscious", as these thinkers expect.[2] Kurzweil has recently even referred to the year 2029 as the date when technology could reach a level of self-conscious "intelligence".[3] If that happens, even on an approximate basis, it will without doubt affect virtually everything, even though it will likely not occur in as spectacular ways as predicted.
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