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Tranhumanist CEO Wants to Help You Live Forever

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AUSTIN, TEXASYou've seen Her. You've heard about the upcoming Ex Machina movie. Now, meet Martine Rothblatt, a transgender, transhumanist who wants to help you live forever by creating your own personal mind clone. If that sounds like science fiction, it is a fiction the board of her company, United Therapeutics, is sold onlast year she was the highest paid female CEO in the nation, earning $38 million.

Siri is just the beginning, she told the crowd at this year's SXSW conference here in Austin.

"There will be continued advances in software that we see throughout our lives. Eventually, these advances in software will rise to the level of consciousness," Rothblatt said, predicting that at that point, there will be no reason why the human consciousness can't live on indefinitely.

The core idea of transhumanism is that technology will someday free us of our mortal coil. The first step is creating what she calls a mind file. A mind file is a digital record that encapsulates your thoughts, mannerisms, relationships, and morebasically, it's a digital record of your entire self. And if you have a Facebook profile, according to Rothblatt, your mind file is well underway.

"We are living in a world where all of your life is captured," she said. "There is work going on at Amazon, Google, and Apple that is Mindware. It is software designed to process and recreate all of these inputs to create a consciousness."

Once the Mindware has its inputs, it just needs a robot to host it, Rothblatt said. Trust her, she's already done it.

Rothblatt hired a team of roboticists to create a "mind clone" of her wife, Bina Aspen. The mind clone, named Bina48, is a head and torso, albeit one that looks eerily like the real Bina Aspen. Bina48 is remarkably sophisticated for a home-built mind clone: she carries on a conversation, she tweets, and she expresses novel ideas. Rothblatt says soon everyone will be able to have a mind clone like Bina48.

"If I can do this as one person with a robotics team, what happens when we have 100 million makers in the world?" Rothblatt challenged the crowd. "What happens when open-source mindware gets put up on the Web for anyone to download?"

Extending human life isn't just a software problem for Rothblatt; she is also at the forefront of organ transplant technology. One of her current projects involves breeding genetically modified pigs to reduce the rates of organ transplant rejection.

"When we started doing this, the longest a genetically-modified pig organ could survive was two hours, and now we are up to over eight days. It's mind-blowing," she said.

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Tranhumanist CEO Wants to Help You Live Forever

Mind cloning, off-the-grid chats & ambient mobile alerts lead chatter at South by Southwest

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AUSTIN, Texas As a plane with a Grumpy Cat flag flew overhead, courtesy of Friskies, the Technorati flooded into panel discussions and happy hour spots at the annual tech festival South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, on Sunday.

Top tech influencers pondered immortality and mind cloning. FireChat, an app that lets smartphone users connect via mobile chat even without a cellular connection, was another hot topic. Here's a look at the most notable trending topics Sunday at the tech jamboree.

OFF-THE-GRID MOBILE CHAT

No cell service? No problem.

An app called FireChat uses phone signals such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to connect to other users' phones and enable chats without any network connection. The app, created by a San Francisco startup called Open Garden, debuted in 2012 and was a hit last August at the Burning Man festival in Black Rock, Nevada, where cell phone service is scarce.

It links people via what it calls a "peer-to-peer mesh network," connecting through phone signals rather than a network. The range is about 90 feet but the connection can jump from phone to phone if there's a crowd. It's software-only, says co-founder and CEO Micha Benoliel. Currently the app supports public group chats and hashtags; private messaging is coming.

The app, which is a finalist for South by Southwest's innovation awards, has 5 million users and has been used by tens of thousands of people in India and the Philippines at political protests. As a new startup, Benoliel says his first time at South by Southwest has been positive. "The best surprise has been going to parties and having people asking how they can use FireChat for their event," he says.

TRANSGENDER AND BEYOND IN TECH

United Therapeutics CEO Martine Rothblatt, who considers herself a "transhumanist," discussed advances in "mind cloning" in a keynote Sunday. She said she believes people will one day be able to clone their cognitive functions, and detailed her biotech company's advances in cloning organs and making the process of transferring organs from donor to recipient more efficient.

Rothblatt urged everyone to question authority and noted that in other eras she might not have survived as a transgender person.

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Mind cloning, off-the-grid chats & ambient mobile alerts lead chatter at South by Southwest

Trending at SXSW: Mind cloning, off-the-grid messaging – Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, Sports

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By MAE ANDERSON AP Technology Writer

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - As a plane with a Grumpy Cat flag flew overhead, courtesy of Friskies, the Technorati flooded into panel discussions and happy hour spots at the annual tech festival South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, on Sunday.

Top tech influencers pondered immortality and mind cloning. FireChat, an app that lets smartphone users connect via mobile chat even without a cellular connection, was another hot topic. Here's a look at the most notable trending topics Sunday at the tech jamboree.

OFF-THE-GRID MOBILE CHAT

No cell service? No problem.

An app called FireChat uses phone signals such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to connect to other users' phones and enable chats without any network connection. The app, created by a San Francisco startup called Open Garden, debuted in 2012 and was a hit last August at the Burning Man festival in Black Rock, Nevada, where cell phone service is scarce.

It links people via what it calls a "peer-to-peer mesh network," connecting through phone signals rather than a network. The range is about 90 feet but the connection can jump from phone to phone if there's a crowd. It's software-only, says co-founder and CEO Micha Benoliel. Currently the app supports public group chats and hashtags; private messaging is coming.

The app, which is a finalist for South by Southwest's innovation awards, has 5 million users and has been used by tens of thousands of people in India and the Philippines at political protests. As a new startup, Benoliel says his first time at South by Southwest has been positive. "The best surprise has been going to parties and having people asking how they can use FireChat for their event," he says.

TRANSGENDER AND BEYOND IN TECH

United Therapeutics CEO Martine Rothblatt, who considers herself a "transhumanist," discussed advances in "mind cloning" in a keynote Sunday. She said she believes people will one day be able to clone their cognitive functions, and detailed her biotech company's advances in cloning organs and making the process of transferring organs from donor to recipient more efficient.

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Trending at SXSW: Mind cloning, off-the-grid messaging - Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, Sports

Apple Watch Exposed! NWO Conspiracy to Popularize Useless Product for Promoting Transhumanist Agenda – Video

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Apple Watch Exposed! NWO Conspiracy to Popularize Useless Product for Promoting Transhumanist Agenda
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Apple Watch Exposed! NWO Conspiracy to Popularize Useless Product for Promoting Transhumanist Agenda - Video

Ask Warren Ellis Your Craziest Questions About The Future

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To help us kick off the new White Noise, Warren Ellis has graciously agreed to answer our questions about the future. Ask the creator of Transmetropolitan and the popularizer of the bowel disruptor what's on your mind. We'll send some choice questions over and publish his answers later this week.

This Q/A is my first intrepid undertaking as editor of White Noise. Never give up on your dreams, folks. I was thrilled by the badass feedback on our reboot post and the awesome range of people who are ready to contribute to this site. If you haven't yet, head over to that post and tell us what you want to cover what topics you'd love to write, read, photograph, draw, or debate about, and why. Then come back here with a question for Warren Ellis.

Ellis is the force behind the graphic novels Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Red, and Global Frequency, has worked on every comics property you've ever heard of, is the author of the best-selling Gun Machine, and has a demonstrated knack for seeing which way where we're trending with technology. Much of his work specializes in "transhumanist" themes like nanotech, body modification, and cryonics y'know, the good stuff. When he agreed to appear on White Noise, I high-fived my Spider Jerusalem action figure.

At a reading, I once stood up to tremulously ask Ellis what fantastical tech he'd most like to see come about in our lifetime, and received the answer of teleportation. Then I texted my friends "We are the same, Warren Ellis and I. I don't think I'm breathing."

What if you could ask Warren Ellis anything about the future?

Image: Warren Ellis / Darick Robertson, Transmetropolitan

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Ask Warren Ellis Your Craziest Questions About The Future

Theorist to Theorist – Godrules Pt 1 – Transhumanist Confusion – Video

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Theorist to Theorist - Godrules Pt 1 - Transhumanist Confusion
Here I talk with Anthony Woodcock, creator of the youtube channel, Godrules. In this recording we talk about the prevalent problems with the western philosophies and the pushing of the Trans-human...

By: UnderstandingConspiracy

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Theorist to Theorist - Godrules Pt 1 - Transhumanist Confusion - Video

Alfred Webre:Draco, CIA drive child sacrifice in Religions, Gov, Schools, Wars-Transhumanist Agenda – Video

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Alfred Webre:Draco, CIA drive child sacrifice in Religions, Gov, Schools, Wars-Transhumanist Agenda
NOTE: You can access more context and links here as you watch the interview. Thank you. Draco-CIA-NSA-MKULTRA drive ritual child sacrifice in Religions (Vatican/Jesuit/Talmudic)- ...

By: Alfred Lambremont Webre

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Alfred Webre:Draco, CIA drive child sacrifice in Religions, Gov, Schools, Wars-Transhumanist Agenda - Video

DARPA's 'Cortical Modem' will plug straight into your BRAIN

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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a brain interface it hopes could inject images directly into the visual cortex.

news of the "Cortical Modem" project has emerged in transhumanist magazine Humanity Plus, which reports the agency is working on a direct neural interface (DNI) chip that could be used for human enhancement and motor-function repair.

Project head Dr Phillip Alvelda, Biological Technologies chief with the agency, told the Biology Is Technology conference in Silicon Valley last week the project had a short term goal of building a US$10 device the size of two stacked nickels that could deliver images without the need for glasses or similar technology.

The project was built on research by Dr Karl Deisseroth whose work in the field of neuroscience describes how brain circuits create behaviour patterns.

Specifically the work dealt in Deisseroth's field of Optogenetics, where proteins from algae could be inserted into neurons to be subsequently controlled with pulses of light.

"The short term goal of the project is the development of a device about the size of two stacked nickels with a cost of goods on the order of $10 which would enable a simple visual display via a direct interface to the visual cortex with the visual fidelity of something like an early LED digital clock," the publication reported.

"The implications of this project are astounding."

The seemingly dreamy research was limited to animal studies, specifically the real time imaging of a zebra fish brain with some 85,000 neurons, due to the need to mess with neuron DNA and the 'crude device' would be a long way off high fidelity augmented reality, the site reported.

DARPA's Biological Technologies Office was formed last April to cook up crazy ideas born at the intersection of biology and physical science. Its mind-bending research fields are geared to improve soldiers' performance, craft biological systems to bolster national security, and future the stability and well-being of humanity.

The project follows DARPA's upgrading of the heavy-set Atlas robot which was granted a battery allowing it to move about free of its electrical umbilical cord.

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DARPA's 'Cortical Modem' will plug straight into your BRAIN

Scientists propose 'cortical modem' implant to give you Terminator vision

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US military research agency DARPA forsees a tiny implant that could restore sight loss or give you a heads-up display without a helmet or glasses.

With just a bit of dabbling in your DNA, scientists could plug a heads-up display directly into your brain. Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock

Forget HoloLens, forget smart glasses and forget augmented reality -- scientists have proposed a "cortical modem" that plugs into your DNA and your visual cortex to cure sight loss and show a heads-up display in front of your very eyes.

The cortical modem concept is the brainchild of DARPA, the US Defense Research Projects Agency. Originally founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, DARPA is the US military's research and development agency. It's perhaps best known outside of military circles for the development of ARPANET, an early packet switching network that formed a precursor to the Internet.

The cortical modem concept was presented by DARPA's Phillip Alvelda at a recent pow-wow in Silicon Valley, at which innovators, investors and other big brains were introduced to the agency's Biological Technologies Office (BTO), a blue-sky-thinking initiative announced last year.

During the event, transhumanist publication H+ reports that DARPA was described onstage as a "friendly, but somewhat crazy, rich uncle".

That crazy, rich -- or crazy rich -- uncle foresees the device providing a heads-up display or augmented reality projection appearing in your natural vision with no helmet or smart glasses or anything at all in front of your eyes. Like the Terminator. Or Robocop. Or something less shoot-y.

The short-term plan is for a tiny device about the size of two coins that would give you a heads-up display somewhere around the level of an LED alarm clock. It could cost just $10.

The cortical modem is rooted in the field of optogenetics, which involves studying and even controlling specified cells within living tissue by shining light on them. Light-responsive proteins can be added to the brains of living beings, allowing scientists to turn neurons on or off with never-before-seen precision. They can then study neurological activity -- at the same event presenting real-time visual maps of mouse thoughts -- and potentially even control that activity, perhaps one day correcting neurological disorders.

The cortical modem could do just that, restoring sight to someone with sight loss. Optogenetics is still a relatively young field of study, however, and has yet to be tested in humans -- it would require fiddling around with the DNA in a subject's neurons, which, let's face it, isn't the sort of project you dive into on a Friday afternoon.

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Scientists propose 'cortical modem' implant to give you Terminator vision

Creative AI: The robots that would be painters

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Painting might be the last thing you'd expect computers to excel at. It's abstract, expressive, and tied to cultures, psychology, and subjectivity, whereas computers are objective, precise, and governed by the rules of mathematics. Painting, with its emotional reasoning and unclear meanings, appears to be the antithesis of a feeling, logical computer. But they aren't so far apart as they seem. Painting and other forms of visual art owe much to areas of mathematics such as geometry and perspective, and the algorithms that computers adhere to can in fact be made to generate images as varied and subtle as a human painter.

Much like its musical counterpart, algorithmic art dates back to the time before computers were commonplace and in its purest sense requires no artificial intelligence whatsoever. You've probably seen examples of fractal art, which replicates patterns in a recursive, algorithmic way to often-stunning results that vary in appearance from geometric to organic to alien.

Traditionally, algorithmic art involves a human coming up with a concept that an algorithm then generates or visualizes either from scratch or based on existing material. An extreme example of this is Nagoya University researchers Yasuhiro Suzuki and Tomohiro Suzuki's evolutionary painting algorithm, which takes example paintings of a given style and progressively mutates them cutting and splicing and flipping elements, throwing out at each evolution any images that don't match the user's initial stylistic choices. But algorithmic art is more commonly used in the sense of images that are generated by computer code written by people like Dextro, who is one of the leading practitioners of algorithmic/generative art.

As with music, game development, and writing, much of the attention from artists and scientists has been placed upon algorithms and intelligent tools that augment the artist's creativity. The Processing programming language was designed as an electronic sketchbook for artists and designers, while some of the better-known apps for algorithmic artists include Ultra Fractal, Scribble, and Fragmentarium.

There are now over a dozen separate kinds of algorithmically-based art, including fractal art, genetic art, cellular automata, proceduralism, and transhumanist art. And there are multitudes of websites such as The Algorists, Algorithmic Worlds, and The compArt database Digital Art that celebrate the work of artists who use algorithms.

Harold Cohen watches AARON paint in 1995

But there are some who would teach computers to paint like humans, to push them beyond the point of being an extension of the artist and into the territory of artist themselves. The pioneer in this regard is a former artist and University of California San Diego professor called Harold Cohen. He started working on an art-creating program called AARON in 1973, while a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Lab.

AARON's capacity to paint improved year after year as its maker taught it more difficult or complex techniques. It learned to situate objects or people in 3D space in the 1980s, and could paint in color from 1990 onwards. In time its paintings found their way into many of the world's major art museums and onward into the hands of private collectors who paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars for AARON's art.

AARON paints not with pixels, we should note, but with real paint on an actual canvas. Cohen built a painting machine for his painting AI. He taught it to mix paint (fabric dyes, not oil), and even gave it an imagination of sorts. Enough of one, at least, that it can paint still life and portraits of human figures without photos or other human input as reference.

AARON learned to use color in a decorative motif in 1992 (Photo: Becky Cohen)

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Creative AI: The robots that would be painters

Transhumanist Declaration – Humanity+ | Elevating the …

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Humanity stands to be profoundly affected by science and technology in the future. We envision the possibility of broadening human potential by overcoming aging, cognitive shortcomings, involuntary suffering, and our confinement to planet Earth. We believe that humanitys potential is still mostly unrealized. There are possible scenarios that lead to wonderful and exceedingly worthwhile enhanced human conditions. We recognize that humanity faces serious risks, especially from the misuse of new technologies. There are possible realistic scenarios that lead to the loss of most, or even all, of what we hold valuable. Some of these scenarios are drastic, others are subtle. Although all progress is change, not all change is progress. Research effort needs to be invested into understanding these prospects. We need to carefully deliberate how best to reduce risks and expedite beneficial applications. We also need forums where people can constructively discuss what should be done, and a social order where responsible decisions can be implemented. Reduction of existential risks, and development of means for the preservation of life and health, the alleviation of grave suffering, and the improvement of human foresight and wisdom should be pursued as urgent priorities, and heavily funded. Policy making ought to be guided by responsible and inclusive moral vision, taking seriously both opportunities and risks, respecting autonomy and individual rights, and showing solidarity with and concern for the interests and dignity of all people around the globe. We must also consider our moral responsibilities towards generations that will exist in the future. We advocate the well-being of all sentience, including humans, non-human animals, and any future artificial intellects, modified life forms, or other intelligences to which technological and scientific advance may give rise. We favour allowing individuals wide personal choice over how they enable their lives. This includes use of techniques that may be developed to assist memory, concentration, and mental energy; life extension therapies; reproductive choice technologies; cryonics procedures; and many other possible human modification and enhancement technologies.

The Transhumanist Declaration was originally crafted in 1998 by an international group of authors: Doug Baily, Anders Sandberg, Gustavo Alves, Max More, Holger Wagner, Natasha Vita-More, Eugene Leitl, Bernie Staring, David Pearce, Bill Fantegrossi, den Otter, Ralf Fletcher, Kathryn Aegis, Tom Morrow, Alexander Chislenko, Lee Daniel Crocker, Darren Reynolds, Keith Elis, Thom Quinn, Mikhail Sverdlov, Arjen Kamphuis, Shane Spaulding, and Nick Bostrom. This Transhumanist Declaration has been modified over the years by several authors and organizations. It was adopted by the Humanity+ Board in March, 2009.

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Transhumanist Declaration - Humanity+ | Elevating the ...

Transhumanist Values – Nick Bostrom’s Home Page

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1. What is Transhumanism?

Transhumanism is a loosely defined movement that has developed gradually over the past two decades.[1] It promotes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and evaluating the opportunities for enhancing the human condition and the human organism opened up by the advancement of technology. Attention is given to both present technologies, like genetic engineering and information technology, and anticipated future ones, such as molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence.

The enhancement options being discussed include radical extension of human health-span, eradication of disease, elimination of unnecessary suffering, and augmentation of human intellectual, physical, and emotional capacities. Other transhumanist themes include space colonization and the possibility of creating superintelligent machines, along with other potential developments that could profoundly alter the human condition. The ambit is not limited to gadgets and medicine, but encompasses also economic, social, institutional designs, cultural development, and psychological skills and techniques.

Transhumanists view human nature as a work-in-progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold in desirable ways. Current humanity need not be the endpoint of evolution. Transhumanists hope that by responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means we shall eventually manage to become posthuman, beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings have.

Some transhumanists take active steps to increase the probability that they personally will survive long enough to become posthuman, for example by choosing a healthy lifestyle or by making provisions for having themselves cryonically suspended in case of de-animation.[2] In contrast to many other ethical outlooks, which in practice often reflect a reactionary attitude to new technologies, the transhumanist view is guided by an evolving vision to take a more proactive approach to technology policy. This vision, in broad strokes, is to create the opportunity to live much longer and healthier lives, to enhance our memory and other intellectual faculties, to refine our emotional experiences and increase our subjective sense of well-being, and generally to achieve a greater degree of control over our own lives. This affirmation of human potential is offered as an alternative to customary injunctions against playing God, messing with nature, tampering with our human essence, or displaying punishable hubris.

Transhumanism does not entail technological optimism. While future technological capabilities carry immense potential for beneficial deployments, they also could be misused to cause enormous harm, ranging all the way to the extreme possibility of intelligent life becoming extinct. Other potential negative outcomes include widening social inequalities or a gradual erosion of the hard-to-quantify assets that we care deeply about but tend to neglect in our daily struggle for material gain, such as meaningful human relationships and ecological diversity. Such risks must be taken very seriously, as thoughtful transhumanists fully acknowledge.[3]

Transhumanism has roots in secular humanist thinking, yet is more radical in that it promotes not only traditional means of improving human nature, such as education and cultural refinement, but also direct application of medicine and technology to overcome some of our basic biological limits.

The range of thoughts, feelings, experiences, and activities accessible to human organisms presumably constitute only a tiny part of what is possible. There is no reason to think that the human mode of being is any more free of limitations imposed by our biological nature than are those of other animals. In much the same way as Chimpanzees lack the cognitive wherewithal to understand what it is like to be human the ambitions we humans have, our philosophies, the complexities of human society, or the subtleties of our relationships with one another, so we humans may lack the capacity to form a realistic intuitive understanding of what it would be like to be a radically enhanced human (a posthuman) and of the thoughts, concerns, aspirations, and social relations that such humans may have.

Our own current mode of being, therefore, spans but a minute subspace of what is possible or permitted by the physical constraints of the universe (see Figure 1). It is not farfetched to suppose that there are parts of this larger space that represent extremely valuable ways of living, relating, feeling, and thinking.

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Transhumanist Values - Nick Bostrom's Home Page


  1. Transhumanist