What is biohacking? The new science of optimizing your brain and body. – Vox.com

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Even if you havent heard the term biohacking before, youve probably encountered some version of it. Maybe youve seen Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey extolling the benefits of fasting intermittently and drinking salt juice each morning. Maybe youve read about former NASA employee Josiah Zayner injecting himself with DNA using the gene-editing technology CRISPR. Maybe youve heard of Bay Area folks engaging in dopamine fasting.

Maybe you, like me, have a colleague whos had a chip implanted in their hand.

These are all types of biohacking, a broad term for a lifestyle thats growing increasingly popular, and not just in Silicon Valley, where it really took off.

Biohacking also known as DIY biology is an extremely broad and amorphous term that can cover a huge range of activities, from performing science experiments on yeast or other organisms to tracking your own sleep and diet to changing your own biology by pumping a younger persons blood into your veins in the hope that itll fight aging. (Yes, that is a real thing, and its called a young blood transfusion. More on that later.)

The type of biohackers currently gaining the most notoriety are the ones who experiment outside of traditional lab spaces and institutions on their own bodies with the hope of boosting their physical and cognitive performance. They form one branch of transhumanism, a movement that holds that human beings can and should use technology to augment and evolve our species.

Some biohackers have science PhDs; others are complete amateurs. And their ways of trying to hack biology are as diverse as they are. It can be tricky to understand the different types of hacks, what differentiates them from traditional medicine, and how safe or legal they are.

As biohacking starts to appear more often in headlines and, recently, in a fascinating Netflix series called Unnatural Selection its worth getting clear on some of the fundamentals. Here are nine questions that can help you make sense of biohacking.

Depending on whom you ask, youll get a different definition of biohacking. Since it can encompass a dizzying range of pursuits, Im mostly going to look at biohacking defined as the attempt to manipulate your brain and body in order to optimize performance, outside the realm of traditional medicine. But later on, Ill also give an overview of some other types of biohacking (including some that can lead to pretty unbelievable art).

Dave Asprey, a biohacker who created the supplement company Bulletproof, told me that for him, biohacking is the art and science of changing the environment around you and inside you so that you have full control over your own biology. Hes very game to experiment on his body: He has stem cells injected into his joints, takes dozens of supplements daily, bathes in infrared light, and much more. Its all part of his quest to live until at least age 180.

One word Asprey likes to use a lot is control, and that kind of language is typical of many biohackers, who often talk about optimizing and upgrading their minds and bodies.

Some of their techniques for achieving that are things people have been doing for centuries, like Vipassana meditation and intermittent fasting. Both of those are part of Dorseys routine, which he detailed in a podcast interview. He tries to do two hours of meditation a day and eats only one meal (dinner) on weekdays; on weekends, he doesnt eat at all. (Critics worry that his dietary habits sound a bit like an eating disorder, or that they might unintentionally influence others to develop a disorder.) He also kicks off each morning with an ice bath before walking the 5 miles to Twitter HQ.

Supplements are another popular tool in the biohackers arsenal. Theres a whole host of pills people take, from anti-aging supplements to nootropics or smart drugs.

Since biohackers are often interested in quantifying every aspect of themselves, they may buy wearable devices to, say, track their sleep patterns. (For that purpose, Dorsey swears by the Oura Ring.) The more data you have on your bodys mechanical functions, the more you can optimize the machine that is you or so the thinking goes.

Then there are some of the more radical practices: cryotherapy (purposely making yourself cold), neurofeedback (training yourself to regulate your brain waves), near-infrared saunas (they supposedly help you escape stress from electromagnetic transmissions), and virtual float tanks (which are meant to induce a meditative state through sensory deprivation), among others. Some people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on these treatments.

A subset of biohackers called grinders go so far as to implant devices like computer chips in their bodies. The implants allow them to do everything from opening doors without a fob to monitoring their glucose levels subcutaneously.

For some grinders, like Zoltan Istvan, who ran for president as head of the Transhumanist Party, having an implant is fun and convenient: Ive grown to relish and rely on the technology, he recently wrote in the New York Times. The electric lock on the front door of my house has a chip scanner, and its nice to go surfing and jogging without having to carry keys around.

Istvan also noted that for some people without functioning arms, chips in their feet are the simplest way to open doors or operate some household items modified with chip readers. Other grinders are deeply curious about blurring the line between human and machine, and they get a thrill out of seeing all the ways we can augment our flesh-and-blood bodies using tech. Implants, for them, are a starter experiment.

On a really basic level, biohacking comes down to something we can all relate to: the desire to feel better and to see just how far we can push the human body. That desire comes in a range of flavors, though. Some people just want to not be sick anymore. Others want to become as smart and strong as they possibly can. An even more ambitious crowd wants to be as smart and strong as possible for as long as possible in other words, they want to radically extend their life span.

These goals have a way of escalating. Once youve determined (or think youve determined) that there are concrete hacks you can use by yourself right now to go from sick to healthy, or healthy to enhanced, you start to think: Well, why stop there? Why not shoot for peak performance? Why not try to live forever? What starts as a simple wish to be free from pain can snowball into self-improvement on steroids.

That was the case for Asprey. Now in his 40s, he got into biohacking because he was unwell. Before hitting age 30, he was diagnosed with high risk of stroke and heart attack, suffered from cognitive dysfunction, and weighed 300 pounds. I just wanted to control my own biology because I was tired of being in pain and having mood swings, he told me.

Now that he feels healthier, he wants to slow the normal aging process and optimize every part of his biology. I dont want to be just healthy; thats average. I want to perform; thats daring to be above average. Instead of How do I achieve health? its How do I kick more ass?

Zayner, the biohacker who once injected himself with CRISPR DNA, has also had health problems for years, and some of his biohacking pursuits have been explicit attempts to cure himself. But hes also motivated in large part by frustration. Like some other biohackers with an anti-establishment streak, hes irritated by federal officials purported sluggishness in greenlighting all sorts of medical treatments. In the US, it can take 10 years for a new drug to be developed and approved; for people with serious health conditions, that wait time can feel cruelly long. Zayner claims thats part of why he wants to democratize science and empower people to experiment on themselves.

(However, he admits that some of his stunts have been purposely provocative and that I do ridiculous stuff also. Im sure my motives are not 100 percent pure all the time.)

The biohacking community also offers just that: community. It gives people a chance to explore unconventional ideas in a non-hierarchical setting, and to refashion the feeling of being outside the norm into a cool identity. Biohackers congregate in dedicated online networks, in Slack and WhatsApp groups WeFast, for example, is for intermittent fasters. In person, they run experiments and take classes at hacklabs, improvised laboratories that are open to the public, and attend any one of the dozens of biohacking conferences put on each year.

Certain kinds of biohacking go far beyond traditional medicine, while other kinds bleed into it.

Plenty of age-old techniques meditation, fasting can be considered a basic type of biohacking. So can going to a spin class or taking antidepressants.

What differentiates biohacking is arguably not that its a different genre of activity but that the activities are undertaken with a particular mindset. The underlying philosophy is that we dont need to accept our bodies shortcomings we can engineer our way past them using a range of high- and low-tech solutions. And we dont necessarily need to wait for a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, traditional medicines gold standard. We can start to transform our lives right now.

As millionaire Serge Faguet, who plans to live forever, put it: People here [in Silicon Valley] have a technical mindset, so they think of everything as an engineering problem. A lot of people who are not of a technical mindset assume that, Hey, people have always been dying, but I think theres going to be a greater level of awareness [of biohacking] once results start to happen.

Rob Carlson, an expert on synthetic biology whos been advocating for biohacking since the early 2000s, told me that to his mind, all of modern medicine is hacking, but that people often call certain folks hackers as a way of delegitimizing them. Its a way of categorizing the other like, Those biohackers over there do that weird thing. This is actually a bigger societal question: Whos qualified to do anything? And why do you not permit some people to explore new things and talk about that in public spheres?

If its taken to extremes, the Whos qualified to do anything? mindset can delegitimize scientific expertise in a way that can endanger public health. Luckily, biohackers dont generally seem interested in dethroning expertise to that dangerous degree; many just dont think they should be locked out of scientific discovery because they lack conventional credentials like a PhD.

Some biohacks are backed by strong scientific evidence and are likely to be beneficial. Often, these are the ones that are tried and true, debugged over centuries of experimentation. For example, clinical trials have shown that mindfulness meditation can help reduce anxiety and chronic pain.

But other hacks, based on weak or incomplete evidence, could be either ineffective or actually harmful.

After Dorsey endorsed a particular near-infrared sauna sold by SaunaSpace, which claims its product boosts cellular regeneration and fights aging by detoxing your body, the company experienced a surge in demand. But according to the New York Times, though a study of middle-aged and older Finnish men indicates that their health benefited from saunas, there have been no major studies conducted of this type of sauna, which directs incandescent light at your body. So is buying this expensive product likely to improve your health? We cant say that yet.

Similarly, the intermittent fasting that Dorsey endorses may yield health benefits for some, but scientists still have plenty of questions about it. Although theres a lot of research on the long-term health outcomes of fasting in animals and much of it is promising the research literature on humans is much thinner. Fasting has gone mainstream, but because its done so ahead of the science, it falls into the proceed with caution category. Critics have noted that for those whove struggled with eating disorders, it could be dangerous.

And while were on the topic of biohacking nutrition: My colleague Julia Belluz has previously reported on the Bulletproof Diet promoted by Asprey, who she says vilifies healthy foods and suggests part of the way to achieve a pound a day weight loss is to buy his expensive, science-based Bulletproof products. She was not convinced by the citations for his claims:

What I found was a patchwork of cherry-picked research and bad studies or articles that arent relevant to humans. He selectively reported on studies that backed up his arguments, and ignored the science that contradicted them.

Many of the studies werent done in humans but in rats and mice. Early studies on animals, especially on something as complex as nutrition, should never be extrapolated to humans. Asprey glorifies coconut oil and demonizes olive oil, ignoring the wealth of randomized trials (the highest quality of evidence) that have demonstrated olive oil is beneficial for health. Some of the research he cites was done on very specific sub-populations, such as diabetics, or on very small groups of people. These findings wouldnt be generalizable to the rest of us.

Some of the highest-risk hacks are being undertaken by people who feel desperate. On some level, thats very understandable. If youre sick and in constant pain, or if youre old and scared to die, and traditional medicine has nothing that works to quell your suffering, who can fault you for seeking a solution elsewhere?

Yet some of the solutions being tried these days are so dangerous, theyre just not worth the risk.

If youve watched HBOs Silicon Valley, then youre already familiar with young blood transfusions. As a refresher, thats when an older person pays for a young persons blood and has it pumped into their veins in the hope that itll fight aging.

This putative treatment sounds vampiric, yet its gained popularity in the Silicon Valley area, where people have actually paid $8,000 a pop to participate in trials. The billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel has expressed keen interest.

As Chavie Lieber noted for Vox, although some limited studies suggest that these transfusions might fend off diseases like Alzheimers, Parkinsons, heart disease, and multiple sclerosis, these claims havent been proven.

In February, the Food and Drug Administration released a statement warning consumers away from the transfusions: Simply put, were concerned that some patients are being preyed upon by unscrupulous actors touting treatments of plasma from young donors as cures and remedies. Such treatments have no proven clinical benefits for the uses for which these clinics are advertising them and are potentially harmful.

Another biohack that definitely falls in the dont try this at home category: fecal transplants, or transferring stool from a healthy donor into the gastrointestinal tract of an unhealthy recipient. In 2016, sick of suffering from severe stomach pain, Zayner decided to give himself a fecal transplant in a hotel room. He had procured a friends poop and planned to inoculate himself using the microbes in it. Ever the public stuntman, he invited a journalist to document the procedure. Afterward, he claimed the experiment left him feeling better.

But fecal transplants are still experimental and not approved by the FDA. The FDA recently reported that two people had contracted serious infections from fecal transplants that contained drug-resistant bacteria. One of the people died. And this was in the context of a clinical trial presumably, a DIY attempt could be even riskier. The FDA is putting a stop to clinical trials on the transplants for now.

Zayner also popularized the notion that you can edit your own DNA with CRISPR. In 2017, he injected himself with CRISPR DNA at a biotech conference, live-streaming the experiment. He later said he regretted that stunt because it could lead others to copy him and people are going to get hurt. Yet when asked whether his company, the Odin, which he runs out of his garage in Oakland, California, was going to stop selling CRISPR kits to the general public, he said no.

Ellen Jorgensen, a molecular biologist who co-founded Genspace and Biotech Without Borders, two Brooklyn-based biology labs open to the public, finds antics like Zayners worrisome. A self-identified biohacker, she told me people shouldnt buy Zayners kits, not just because they dont work half the time (shes a professional and even she couldnt get it to work), but because CRISPR is such a new technology that scientists arent yet sure of all the risks involved in using it. By tinkering with your genome, you could unintentionally cause a mutation that increases your risk of developing cancer, she said. Its a dangerous practice that should not be marketed as a DIY activity.

At Genspace and Biotech Without Borders, we always get the most heartbreaking emails from parents of children afflicted with genetic diseases, Jorgensen says. They have watched these Josiah Zayner videos and they want to come into our class and cure their kids. We have to tell them, This is a fantasy. ... That is incredibly painful.

She thinks such biohacking stunts give biohackers like her a bad name. Its bad for the DIY bio community, she said, because it makes people feel that as a general rule were irresponsible.

Existing regulations werent built to make sense of something like biohacking, which in some cases stretches the very limits of what it means to be a human being. That means that a lot of biohacking pursuits exist in a legal gray zone: frowned upon by bodies like the FDA, but not yet outright illegal, or not enforced as such. As biohackers traverse uncharted territory, regulators are scrambling to catch up with them.

After the FDA released its statement in February urging people to stay away from young blood transfusions, the San Francisco-based startup Ambrosia, which was well known for offering the transfusions, said on its website that it had ceased patient treatments. The site now says, We are currently in discussion with the FDA on the topic of young plasma.

This wasnt the FDAs first foray into biohacking. In 2016, the agency objected to Zayner selling kits to brew glow-in-the-dark beer. And after he injected himself with CRISPR, the FDA released a notice saying the sale of DIY gene-editing kits for use on humans is illegal. Zayner disregarded the warning and continued to sell his wares.

In 2019, he was, for a time, under investigation by Californias Department of Consumer Affairs, accused of practicing medicine without a license.

The biohackers I spoke to said restrictive regulation would be a counterproductive response to biohacking because itll just drive the practice underground. They say its better to encourage a culture of transparency so that people can ask questions about how to do something safely, without fear of reprisal.

According to Jorgensen, most biohackers are safety-conscious, not the sorts of people interested in engineering a pandemic. Theyve even generated and adopted their own codes of ethics. She herself has had a working relationship with law enforcement since the early 2000s.

At the beginning of the DIY bio movement, we did an awful lot of work with Homeland Security, she said. And as far back as 2009, the FBI was reaching out to the DIY community to try to build bridges.

Carlson told me hes noticed two general shifts over the past 20 years. One was after 2001, after the anthrax attacks, when Washington, DC, lost their damn minds and just went into a reactive mode and tried to shut everything down, he said. As of 2004 or 2005, the FBI was arresting people for doing biology in their homes.

Then in 2009, the National Security Council dramatically changed perspectives. It published the National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats, which embraced innovation and open access to the insights and materials needed to advance individual initiatives, including in private laboratories in basements and garages.

Now, though, some agencies seem to think they ought to take action. But even if there were clear regulations governing all biohacking activities, there would be no straightforward way to stop people from pursuing them behind closed doors. This technology is available and implementable anywhere, theres no physical means to control access to it, so what would regulating that mean? Carlson said.

Some biohackers believe that by leveraging technology, theyll be able to live longer but stay younger. Gerontologist Aubrey de Grey claims people will be able to live to age 1,000. In fact, he says the first person who will live to 1,000 has already been born.

De Grey focuses on developing strategies for repairing seven types of cellular and molecular damage associated with aging or, as he calls them, Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. His nonprofit, the Methuselah Foundation, has attracted huge investments, including more than $6 million from Thiel. Its aim is to make 90 the new 50 by 2030.

Wondering whether de Greys goals are realistic, I reached out to Genspace co-founder Oliver Medvedik, who earned his PhD at Harvard Medical School and now directs the Kanbar Center for Biomedical Engineering at Cooper Union. Living to 1,000? Its definitely within our realm of possibility if we as a society that doles out money [to fund research we deem worthy] decide we want to do it, he told me.

Hes optimistic, he said, because the scientific community is finally converging on a consensus about what the root causes of aging are (damage to mitochondria and epigenetic changes are a couple of examples). And in the past five years, hes seen an explosion of promising papers on possible ways to address those causes.

Researchers who want to fight aging generally adopt two different approaches. The first is the small molecule approach, which often focuses on dietary supplements. Medvedik calls that the low-hanging fruit. He spoke excitedly about the possibility of creating a supplement from a plant compound called fisetin, noting that a recent (small) Mayo Clinic trial suggests high concentrations of fisetin can clear out senescent cells in humans cells that have stopped dividing and that contribute to aging.

The other approach is more dramatic: genetic engineering. Scientists taking this tack in mouse studies usually tinker with a genome in embryo, meaning that new mice are born with the fix already in place. Medvedik pointed out thats not very useful for treating humans we want to be able to treat people who have already been born and have begun to age.

But he sees promise here too. He cited a new study that used CRISPR to target Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a genetic disorder that manifests as accelerated aging, in a mouse model. It wasnt a total cure they extended the life span of these mice by maybe 30 percent but what I was very interested in is the fact that it was delivered into mice that had already been born.

Hes also intrigued by potential non-pharmaceutical treatments for aging-related diseases like Alzheimers for example, the use of light stimulation to influence brain waves but those probably wont help us out anytime soon, for a simple reason: Its not a drug. You cant package and sell it, he said. Pharma cant monetize it.

Like many in the biohacking community, Medvedik sounded a note of frustration about how the medical system holds back anti-aging progress. If you were to come up with a compound right now that literally cures aging, you couldnt get it approved, he said. By the definition weve set up, aging isnt a disease, and if you want to get it approved by the FDA you have to target a certain disease. That just seems very strange and antiquated and broken.

Not everyone whos interested in biohacking is interested in self-experimentation. Some come to it because they care about bringing science to the masses, alleviating the climate crisis, or making art that shakes us out of our comfort zones.

My version of biohacking is unexpected people in unexpected places doing biotechnology, Jorgensen told me. For her, the emphasis is on democratizing cutting-edge science while keeping it safe. The community labs shes helped to build, Genspace and Biotech Without Borders, offer classes on using CRISPR technology to edit a genome but participants work on the genome of yeast, never on their own bodies.

Some people in the community are altruistically motivated. They want to use biohacking to save the environment by figuring out a way to make a recyclable plastic or a biofuel. They might experiment on organisms in makeshift labs in their garages. Or they might take a Genspace class on how to make furniture out of fungi or paper out of kombucha.

Experimental artists have also taken an interest in biohacking. For them, biology is just another palette. The artists Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr from the University of Western Australia were actually the first people to create and serve up lab-grown meat. They took some starter cells from a frog and used them to grow small steaks of frog meat, which they fed to gallery-goers in France at a 2003 art installation called Disembodied Cuisine.

More recently, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg has used old floral DNA to recreate the smell of flowers driven to extinction by humans, enabling us to catch a whiff of them once more.

And this summer, a London museum is displaying something rather less fragrant: cheese made from celebrities. Yes, you read that right: The cheese was created with bacteria harvested from the armpits, toes, bellybuttons, and nostrils of famous people. If youre thoroughly grossed out by this, dont worry: The food wont actually be eaten this bioart project is meant more as a thought experiment than as dinner.

When you hear about people genetically engineering themselves or trying young blood transfusions in an effort to ward off death, its easy to feel a sense of vertigo about what were coming to as a species.

But the fact is weve been altering human nature since the very beginning. Inventing agriculture, for example, helped us transform ourselves from nomadic hunter-gatherers into sedentary civilizations. And whether we think of it this way or not, were all already doing some kind of biohacking every day.

The deeper I delve into biohacking, the more I think a lot of the discomfort with it boils down to simple neophobia a fear of whats new. (Not all of the discomfort, mind you: The more extreme hacks really are dangerous.)

As one of my colleagues put it to me, 40 years ago, test tube babies seemed unnatural, a freak-show curiosity; now in vitro fertilization has achieved mainstream acceptance. Will biohacking undergo the same progression? Or is it really altering human nature in a more fundamental way, a way that should concern us?

When I asked Carlson, he refused to buy the premise of the question.

If you assert that hackers are changing what it means to be human, then we need to first have an agreement about what it means to be human, he said. And Im not going to buy into the idea that there is one thing that is being human. Across the sweep of history, its odd to say humans are static its not the case that humans in 1500 were the same as they are today.

Thats true. Nowadays, we live longer. Were taller. Were more mobile. And we marry and have kids with people who come from different continents, different cultures a profound departure from old customs that has nothing to do with genetic engineering but thats nonetheless resulting in genetic change.

Still, biohackers are talking about making such significant changes that the risks they carry are significant too. What if biohackers upgrades dont get distributed evenly across the human population? What if, for example, the cure for aging becomes available, but only to the rich? Will that lead to an even wider life expectancy gap, where rich people live longer and poor people die younger?

Medvedik dismissed that concern, arguing that a lot of interventions that could lengthen our lives, like supplements, wouldnt be expensive to produce. Theres no reason why that stuff cant be dirt-cheap. But that depends on what we do as a society, he said. Insulin doesnt cost much to produce, but as a society weve allowed companies to jack up the price so high that many people with diabetes are now skipping lifesaving doses. Thats horrifying, but its not a function of the technology itself.

Heres another risk associated with biohacking, one I think is even more serious: By making ourselves smarter and stronger and potentially even immortal (a difference of kind, not just of degree), we may create a society in which everyone feels pressure to alter their biology even if they dont want to. To refuse a hack would mean to be at a huge professional disadvantage, or to face moral condemnation for remaining suboptimal when optimization is possible. In a world of superhumans, it may become increasingly hard to stay merely human.

The flip side of all this is the perfect race or eugenics specter, Jorgensen acknowledged. This is a powerful set of technologies that can be used in different ways. Wed better think about it and use it wisely.

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, youll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and to put it simply getting better at doing good.

Josiah Zayner is a biohacker whos famous for injecting himself with the gene-editing tool CRISPR. At a time when the technology exists for us to change (or hack) our own DNA, what are the ethics of experimenting on ourselves, and others, at home? On the launch episode of this new podcast, host Arielle Duhaime-Ross talks to Zayner about how hes thinking about human experimentation today. Plus: new efforts to come up with a code of conduct for biohackers, from legislation to self-regulation.

Subscribe to Reset now on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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What is biohacking? The new science of optimizing your brain and body. - Vox.com

Groping toward appropriate regulation of AI. Data regulation and its offensive potential. – The CyberWire

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At a glance.

Wired traces the influences shaping the EUs proposed Artificial Intelligence Act, which is expected to impact policy internationally, as has the GDPR. The legislation would categorize AI applications by risk level and more closely control high risk systems.

Critiques of the bill fall along predictable lines. Some human rights groups want stricter controls and worry about law enforcement, education, health care, public surveillance, border security, social scoring, insurance, transhumanism, and subliminal manipulation applications. They point to the power disparity between those wielding the tools and those on the receiving end, and highlight existing abuses.

Some industry groups describe the law as overbroad, fearing it will impose unmanageable costs, interfere with basic business functions, squash innovation, and drive away talent. Competing studies put total compliance costs between 1.6 and 10 billion yearly.

The EU hopes the bill will level the playing field and spur growth while promoting principled business decisions. Meanwhile, the US is developing its own guidelines and regulations, including a National Institute of Standards and Technology tool and an Algorithmic Accountability Act. In the background, as always, looms Chinese innovation, and what strategic advantages authoritarian rivals will achieve while the West puzzles out competing interests and ethical dilemmasexercising a soft advantage of its own.

Breaking Defense reiterates concerns that the vulnerability disclosure component of Beijings Data Security Law (DSL) will help the CCP stockpile zero days for use against state and private sector targets. As weve seen, the legislation directs researchers, companies, and foreign firms with local offices to disclose to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology within forty-eight hours uncovered zero days, and restricts their further distribution. Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, both of which contract with the US Defense Department, are covered by the regulation.

Heritage Foundation China scholar Dean Cheng sees the move as an instance of lawfare, or legal warfare, and says Beijing is 100 percent likely to weaponize the disclosed vulnerabilities. Georgetown University security researcher Dakota Cary observed that theyve effectively co-opted a pipeline of research, which costs a great deal of money to do, in order to increase their own offensive and defensive hacking capabilities.

The DSL, Fortune notes, also prohibits unapproved cross-border data transfers. The law took effect yesterday.

SWI reports that Switzerland is working to establish a rapid reaction cyber defense command center staffed by roughly six-hundred military personnel with new capacities to protect private sector and critical infrastructure assets. The center will deliver informational, logistical, and technical capabilities.

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Groping toward appropriate regulation of AI. Data regulation and its offensive potential. - The CyberWire

Pandemics and transhumanism – The Times of India Blog

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The pandemic has forced authorities around the world to scramble for solutions within the realm of possibility. One of the more futuristic, radical solutions which is still relegated to the sidelines is transhumanism. It is a branch of philosophy that believes in transcending the limitations of the human population through technological augmentation. From hearing aids, pacemakers, bionic arms, the manifestations of transhumanism are very much present in our lives. However, the radical applications of being able to tweak biology to suit ones interests and needs at a commercial cost is yet to see the light of day. The basic tenet of transhumanism is extension of human life. Yet, eternal life comes across as a utopian thought where inadequate manufacturing of PPE kits for doctors and nurses have us jolted back to the harsh realities of current pandemic dwelling.

Since the globalized nature of modern capitalistic order and the consequent interconnectedness of our lives has made the possibility of frequent pandemics ever so plausible, we find ourselves at the juncture of a major shift towards increasing receptivity to transhumanist solutions. The famous American inventor and futurist Kurzweil wrote in his book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology about a journey towards a meshing point of humans and machine intelligence The Singularity. He envisioned nanobots which allowed people to eat whatever they want while remaining healthy and fit, provide copious energy, ward off infections or cancer, replace organs and augment their brains. There will come a future where human bodies will carry so much augmentation that they would be able to alter their physical manifestation at will.

Even if the coronavirus fades off without wiping humans off the planet, it has given an eerie trailer of what future outbreaks might hold in store. Hence due security measures have to be pondered upon -whether in the labs, where deadly pathogens are being researched upon or in the malicious possibilities of a biowarfare. Frontline workers can be provided tech enhancements to ensure better armament against infectious, mutating viral diseases. Protective exoskeletons, real-time blood monitors for pathogens, can bid riddance to any temporary means of protection which are vulnerable against quality and efficacy issues.

In 2011, surgeons in Sweden had successfully transplanted a fully synthetic, tissue-engineered trachea into a man with late-stage tracheal cancer. The trachea was created entirely in a lab with tissue grown from the patients own stem cells inside a bioreactor designed to protect the organ and promote cell growth. Under transhumanism, artificial organs would be superior to ordinary donor organs in several ways. They can be made to order more quickly than a donor organ can often be found; would be grown from a patients own cells and hence wont require dangerous immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection.

As of 2018, prototypes of artificial lungs are also surfacing at the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch, where the team spent the last 15 years developing the prototype. Upon completion, the bioengineered lungs were transplanted into four pigs. There was no indication of transplant rejection when the animals were examined at regular intervals for months after transplant. The researchers also observed that the bioengineered lungs became vascularized, establishing the necessary blood vessel networks to do its job. For diseases like covid-19, which affect a particular body organ, having an option of a bioengineered organ could very well be a safeguard.

But transhumanists are not just trying to extend human lives, they also want to revive them. They aim to merge bioengineering, AI capabilities, 3-D printing to resurrect the dead victims of any catastrophe much like the pandemic on our hands right now. Ways of dealing with grief at the loss of a loved one can possibly be placated with measures like interactive custom-holograms, social media feed powered by AI that could generate new messages based on the pattern of the old ones.

There are strong ethical considerations that also pop up in the discussion of transhumanism. Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, a German philosopher and bioethicist believes that processes like cryonics will go against most ecological principles given the amount of resources needed to keep a body in suspended animation post-death. Even though, transhumanism does not explicitly encourage breeding for the superiority of one specific group, the methods endorsed by some prominent transhumanists aim for physiological superiority. Considering that for the time being, solutions emanating will be heavy on the monetary end in the healthcare set-up, it could breed inequality in access. A huge gap in resources will be experienced in the society, as the affluent section amasses money and influence to set out an eternal timeline for themselves, coming at a lethal cost for the other half of the society.

Solving problems that will plague us in the future is a rising urge shared by leaders, philanthropists and billionaires around the world. This is why proponents like Zoltan Istvan fear the fact that the exponential rise of transhumanist technologies might leave governments fumbling to discuss and bring about policy directions to regulate and guard changes. Important questions like how far is too far? will need phased guidance as we have learnt from the chaotic response to systemic changes being implemented in the medical field during Covid-19. A conversation on transhumanism should not be put off any further and needs to permeate across different strata of stakeholders.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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A Poisoned World – Pt 134 – Transhumanism (pt 13) Transhumanist Agenda With Tom Horn (part B) – Video

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A Poisoned World - Pt 134 - Transhumanism (pt 13) Transhumanist Agenda With Tom Horn (part B)
APW Vol. 18 - Trans-Humanism https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoYNGjvDZYC4I6EDPTMNRlDxbPO40CiGP Download/view the on-going APW series here: http://APoisonedWorld.webs.com.

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A Poisoned World - Pt 134 - Transhumanism (pt 13) Transhumanist Agenda With Tom Horn (part B) - Video

A Poisoned World – Pt 135 – Transhumanism (pt 14) Transhumanist Agenda With Tom Horn (part C) – Video

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A Poisoned World - Pt 135 - Transhumanism (pt 14) Transhumanist Agenda With Tom Horn (part C)
APW Vol. 18 - Trans-Humanism https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoYNGjvDZYC4I6EDPTMNRlDxbPO40CiGP Download/view the on-going APW series here: http://APoisonedWorld.webs.com.

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Transhumanism, Ethics, and the Internet

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Transhumanism, Ethics, and the Internet: A Dispatch from the "Transhuman Visions" conference

By Brian Green

Transhumanism is a contemporary worldview whose proponents seek to radically extend human life and grant humans enhancements in an effort to render them as powerful as possible. The first-ever Transhuman Visions conference, organized by Hank Pellissier of the Brighter Brains Institute, met on February 1, 2014, in San Francisco, California. I attended because I have longstanding academic interests in the technological, religious, sociological, psychological, and ethical aspects of transhumanism.

The very first speaker at the conference, Roen Horn, reflected some of the complex religious aspects of transhumanism; he used a lot of Christian imagery, while at the same time denying that we can appeal to a (possibly imaginary) God for our immortality. In his view, if we want to be immortal, we have to do it on our own. Atheism, anti-theism, agnosticism, and new age spirituality were subtexts in many of the presentations. Horn's use of the catch phrase "eternal life pirates never surrender" also presented something of both the whimsy and the seriousness of the movement.

Another speaker, Rich Lee, was a "grinder" a devotee of do-it-yourself technological body modification. He had inserted magnetic implants in his own body in order to augment his own sensory perception, and electronic RFID chips into his hands so as to wirelessly control locks and other items that require identification to operate. Transhumanism and extreme body modification share the idea of the manipulability of the human body in accord with the human will. This is a movement that might grow in popularity yet remain somewhat limited in its appeal, at least for the near-termas tattoos and body modification currently remain.

Several speakers discussed ways to increase health and longevity. Caloric restriction is the only well-proven way to extend life, but very few people actually follow it, since it is rather unpleasant. These speakers discussed a few ways, such as periodic fasting, to get some of the perceived benefits of caloric restriction without having to actually starve oneself. Among other things, the speakers also recommended wearing orange glasses in the evenings in order to prevent artificial lights from interfering with natural bodily rhythms that promote a good night's sleep.

Aubrey de Grey was the most prominent speaker at the conference. Something of a celebrity in the radical life-extension community, de Grey discussed ways to popularize the life-extension movement so as to gain more funding for its research. He argued that significant gains could be made with just $50 billion invested in anti-aging research. One clever audience member asked if de Grey would shave his long beard for a crowd-funded $5 million donation, to which de Grey replied "yes!" and then even lowered the bar to $1 million; what happens to his beard remains to be seen.

Perhaps the most interesting speaker, and one who gained great applause from the audience, was Randal Koene, who discussed his initiative to get all those working in fields relevant to "whole brain emulation" (WBE) to cooperate in their efforts. Transhumanists see WBE as a kind of Holy Grail of life extension because they believe it will allow them to upload their minds into computers and thus attain complete immortality, with humans living inside a computer network as "substrate independent minds" (SIMs). Personally, I am skeptical of the relevance of this idea to life extension, since WBEs in a computer will not be "alive" in any biological sense (a rather key aspect of "life extension")nor do I think minds can be substrate independent. Of more relevance for life extension is neural prosthetic technology, which allows brain damage to be repaired through brain-computer interfaces. This technology is actually progressing very rapidly, with brain damaged tissue already electronically restored in animals. One might reasonably ask where the dividing line between neuroprosthetics and WBE might be: How much brain has to be replaced before the prosthetic is your brain? Could a brain-dead person be restored to life with a partial or whole-brain prostheses? But these questions will not be resolved by debate but by actual experiments.

Another speaker at the conference, Zoltan Istvan, proposed the idea that those who speak out against transhumanism might be committing a crime because they are advocating a worldview that will lead to many deaths. Perhaps such speech should be banned, he proposed. Needless to say, such a course of action would raise some grave ethical questions. This type of thinking, which could perhaps lead to a type of totalitarian transhumanism, is something that I had not heard much about before.

Utopianism was a definite ethical theme at the conference. For transhumanists, Utopia means humanity without death and with godlike powers. Utopia is a "greatest good," all other goods are subordinate to it, including, as noted above, the pleasure of eating, the absence of pain from body modifications, existence as a body of flesh, and perhaps even freedoms (of speech, etc.). As an infinite good, however, Utopia can be used to morally justify anything (by arguing that in the face of an infinite good any finite evil is negligible). This can be extremely dangerous.

While transhumanism has existed primarily as an Internet-based movement for a couple of decades now, the Transhuman Visions conference was an event intended to build face to face human relationships. As the movement has grown in popularity, especially in the tech-friendly Bay Area, it has finally passed a critical threshold, so that now in-person contact starts to make sense for those interested in it. The conference had approximately 300 attendees.

As for me, I am a transhumanism enthusiast, but also a skeptic. While I see no intrinsic moral problems with extending healthy human life as long as we can (realizing that important related questions of justice, cost, accessibility, side-effects, etc., would also need to be addressed), I do not think material immortality is possible in this world. As material creatures subject to entropy, we must eventually break down and die. The existential denial of our own mortality is an evasion, not a solution. But transhumanism does not stop at evasion; it is a social movement with a lot of highly motivated and intelligent people, and is actively researching solutions of many types. I was very impressed by several of the people I spoke to. Some were there because they were deeply concerned about the health of their loved ones and they saw transhumanism as the chance to save their loved one's lives.

Research into extending healthy life is a worthy task and not one to be discouraged. While the extreme search for immortality is, I think, futile, and futile acts can be morally problematic, the general effort to extend life is not futile, and is certainly something that would interest many people. Significantly lengthened lifespans will likely not appear quickly, but by a long slow process of medical advance, and those individual medical advances, compounding over time, will be a very good thing.

Brian Green is assistant director of campus ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and an adjunct professor teaching ethics in the SCU Graduate School of Engineering.

February 2014

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Would human enhancement create Supermen or super tyrants? – RT

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Tomasz Pierscionek is a doctor specialising in psychiatry. He was previously on the board of the charity Medact, is editor of the London Progressive Journal and has appeared as a guest on RTs Sputnik and Al-Mayadeens Kalima Horra.

The dream that we may one day transcend our physical and intellectual barriers through advancements in cybernetics and nanotechnology could became a reality during this century. But would this be a blessing or a curse?

As science expands its frontiers and technology continues to evolve, ideas once deemed fanciful or considered part of science fiction find themselves within the realm of possibility. New discoveries may give rise to unique potential and perils, as the field of ethics struggles to keep pace with the latest technological advancements. The dream that one day we humans may eclipse our physical and mental fetters through augmentation by cybernetics or nanotechnology could become a reality. Although transhumanism and posthumanism are considered modern concepts, the idea of improving or transcending the human condition has been explored in philosophy and literature since at least the mid-19th century.

In his bookThus Spoke Zarathustra, 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche introduced the concept of the bermensch (overman or superman) as a goal towards which humans ought to strive, whereby they take control of their own destinies, work collectively towards the betterment of humanity and create a higher set of ideals to give their existence greater meaning. Nietzsche wrote Man is something that shall be overcome. (The notion of bermensch was later corrupted by the Nazis, who integrated it into their perverse racial theories).

Samuel Becketts playEndgame (1957) suggests some possible outcomes from refining the human body with technology, before rejecting transhumanism as a sinister concept: the very technology which keeps Becketts characters alive, after they have exceeded their natural lifespans, also entraps them and makes them over-reliant upon it. Even as far back as 1839, American writer Edgar Allan Poe made reference to unnatural life extension in a satirical short story The Man That Was Used Up where a mysterious and eulogized war hero, whose body parts have been replaced with prosthetics, needs to be assembled piece by piece each day by his African American valet.

Artificial limbs, mechanical heart valves, and devices such as pacemakers already exist to reduce disability and improve, or extend, an individuals quality of life. British engineer Professor Kevin Warwick and his wife took things to another level in 2002 when they had microchips and sensors implanted into their arms, and connected to their nervous systems, enabling them to feel each others sensations. Professor Warwick could reportedly feel the same sensations as his wife from a different location.

Some might dismiss this project as a curious gimmick, but Warwick has voiced plans to expand the project and develop a community of fellow cyborgs connected via their chip implants to superintelligent machines, creating, in effect, superhumans.

He hopes such future technology might greatly enhance human potential, commenting Being linked to another persons nervous system opens up a whole world of possibilities.

The prospect of attaining superior intelligence or physical attributes may be tempting or appear liberating, but cybernetic enhancement could, theoretically, also be used as a means of control. Whoever manufactures the technologies that augment humans would be in a very powerful position and wield an immense degree of control over their human customers (or subjects). Moreover, cybernetically enhanced humans could see their microchips hacked, have their sensations detected by unwanted parties and stored in a database, or be at risk of receiving unsolicited or unpleasant impulses. Might we evolve from homo sapiens to homo servus?

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Ray Kurzweil, American author and advocate for transhumanism, predicted in his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near that within a few decades time the human organism will become upgraded, due to mindboggling advancements in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics, to create, in effect, a new species with superior skills and intelligence, virtually immortal lifespans, and unforeseen capabilities. Kurzweil predicts the Singularity will occur by the middle of this century and realize the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.

While considering the possibly that augmented humans might exist within our lifespans, it becomes clear that the technology to transcend our bog-standard homo sapiens existence would not be available to all simultaneously. The wealthy, or otherwise privileged, could become yet more powerful and emotionally distant from those they rule, or over whom they exert economic control. Would the elites use bermensch making technologies to forever establish themselves as a ruling class with God like powers to laud over the Untermensch poor and oppressed who toil until their comparatively short and expendable lifespans give out?

Alternatively, if the means to augment humans became widely available, would there be pressure to convert to a transhuman state? Would those who transcend, or those who refuse to do so, be discriminated against? While many barriers presently divide humans (economic, religious, cultural, political, ethnic), is it wise to introduce what could become yet another excuse for division and antipathy?

Of course, military applications of human enhancing technologies would soon be found. Armed forces across the globe would want to give their soldiers an edge over the enemy. Soldiers having no physical, physiological, or cognitive limitation will be key to survival and operational dominance in the future, says Michael Goldblatt, former director of the Defense Sciences Office (DSO), part of the US Department of Defense's DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). DSOs scientists have reportedly sought ways to make soldiers remain active on the battlefield for up to seven days with little or no sleep, and have considered how neural implants might improve cognitive function or allow future soldiers [to] communicate by thought alone.

Whilst we humans spend much time feuding and fighting, is it wise to give ourselves superhuman abilities before we have developed the ethical reasoning, moral compass, and maturity to wield such power? Upgrading ourselves by way of advances in genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics could usher in a new era of ultimate freedom, where even the most oppressed are liberated from their drudgery, or condemn the human race to permanent slavery. Although new technologies can be used for either laudable or nefarious purposes, they are typically used for whatever purpose creates the most profit.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Would human enhancement create Supermen or super tyrants? - RT

Transhumanist Values – Nick Bostrom

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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

Nick Bostrom’s Home Page

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ETHICS & POLICY

Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed Technological Development Suns are illuminating and heating empty rooms, unused energy is being flushed down black holes, and our great common endowment of negentropy is being irreversibly degraded into entropy on a cosmic scale. These are resources that an advanced civilization could have used to create value-structures, such as sentient beings living worthwhile lives... [Utilitas, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2003): 308-314] [translation: Russian] [html] [pdf]

Human Enhancement Original essays by various prominent moral philosophers on the ethics of human enhancement. [Eds. Nick Bostrom & Julian Savulescu (Oxford University Press, 2009)].

Enhancement Ethics: The State of the Debate The introductory chapter from the book (w/ Julian Savulescu): 1-22 [pdf]

TRANSHUMANISM

Transhumanist Values Wonderful ways of being may be located in the "posthuman realm", but we can't reach them. If we enhance ourselves using technology, however, we can go out there and realize these values. This paper sketches a transhumanist axiology. [Ethical Issues for the 21st Century, ed. Frederick Adams, Philosophical Documentation Center Press, 2003; reprinted in Review of Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. 4, May (2005)] [translations: Polish, Portugese] [html] [pdf]

RISK & THE FUTURE

Global Catastrophic Risks Twenty-six leading experts look at the gravest risks facing humanity in the 21st century, including natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, global warming, biological weapons, totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, general artificial intelligence, and social collapse. The book also addresses over-arching issuespolicy responses and methods for predicting and managing catastrophes. Foreword by Lord Martin Rees. [Eds. Nick Bostrom & Milan Cirkovic (Oxford University Press, 2008)]. Introduction chapter free here [pdf]

TECHNOLOGY ISSUES

THE NEW BOOK

"I highly recommend this book."Bill Gates

"terribly important ... groundbreaking" "extraordinary sagacity and clarity, enabling him to combine his wide-ranging knowledge over an impressively broad spectrum of disciplinesengineering, natural sciences, medicine, social sciences and philosophyinto a comprehensible whole" "If this book gets the reception that it deserves, it may turn out the most important alarm bell since Rachel Carson's Silent Springfrom 1962, or ever."Olle Haggstrom, Professor of Mathematical Statistics

"Nick Bostrom makes a persuasive case that the future impact of AI is perhaps the most important issue the human race has ever faced. Instead of passively drifting, we need to steer a course. Superintelligence charts the submerged rocks of the future with unprecedented detail. It marks the beginning of a new era."Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkley

"Those disposed to dismiss an 'AI takeover' as science fiction may think again after reading this original and well-argued book." Martin Rees, Past President, Royal Society

"a magnificent conception ... it ought to be required reading on all philosophy undergraduate courses, by anyone attempting to build AIs and by physicists who think there is no point to philosophy." Brian Clegg, Popular Science

"There is no doubting the force of [Bostrom's] arguments...the problem is a research challenge worthy of the next generation's best mathematical talent. Human civilisation is at stake." Financial Times

"This superb analysis by one of the world's clearest thinkers tackles one of humanity's greatest challenges: if future superhuman artificial intelligence becomes the biggest event in human history, then how can we ensure that it doesn't become the last?" Professor Max Tegmark, MIT

"a damn hard read" The Telegraph

ANTHROPICS & PROBABILITY

Cars In the Other Lane Really Do Go Faster When driving on the motorway, have you ever wondered about (and cursed!) the fact that cars in the other lane seem to be getting ahead faster than you? One might be tempted to account for this by invoking Murphy's Law ("If anything can go wrong, it will", discovered by Edward A. Murphy, Jr, in 1949). But there is an alternative explanation, based on observational selection effects... [PLUS, No. 17 (2001)]

PHILOSOPHY OF MIND

DECISION THEORY

BIO

Bostrom has a background in physics, computational neuroscience, and mathematical logic as well as philosophy. He is the author of some 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias (Routledge, 2002), Global Catastrophic Risks (ed., OUP, 2008), Human Enhancement (ed., OUP, 2009), and the academic book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (OUP, 2014), which became a New York Times bestseller. He is best known for his work in five areas: (i) existential risk; (ii) the simulation argument; (iii) anthropics (developing the first mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects); (iv) impacts of future technology; and (v) implications of consequentialism for global strategy.

He is recipient of a Eugene R. Gannon Award (one person selected annually worldwide from the fields of philosophy, mathematics, the arts and other humanities, and the natural sciences). He has been listed on Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers list; and he was included on Prospect magazines World Thinkers list, the youngest person in the top 15 from all fields and the highest-ranked analytic philosopher. His writings have been translated into 24 languages. There have been more than 100 translations and reprints of his works.

BACKGROUND

I was born in Helsingborg, Sweden, and grew up by the seashore. I was bored in school. At age fifteen or sixteen I had an intellectual awakening, and feeling that I had wasted the first one and a half decades of my life, I resolved to focus on what was important. Since I did not know what was important, and I did not know how to find out, I decided to start by trying to place myself in a better position to find out. So I began a project of intellectual self-development, which I pursued with great intensity for the next one and a half decades.

As an undergraduate, I studied many subjects in parallel, and I gather that my performance set a national record. I was once expelled for studying too much, after the head of Ume University psychology department discovered that I was concurrently following several other full-time programs of study (physics, philosophy, and mathematical logic), which he believed to be psychologically impossible.

For my postgraduate work, I went to London, where I studied physics and neuroscience at King's College, and obtained a PhD from the London School of Economics. For a while I did a little bit stand-up comedy on the vibrant London pub and theatre circuit.

During those years, I co-founded, with David Pearce, the World Transhumanist Association, a nonprofit grassroots organization. Later, I was involved in founding the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, a nonprofit virtual think tank. The objective was to stimulate wider discussion about the implications of future technologies, in particular technologies that might lead to human enhancement. (These organizations have since developed on their own trajectories, and it is very much not the case that I agree with everything said by those who flock under the transhumanist flag.)

Since 2006, I've been the founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. This unique multidisciplinary research aims to enable a select set of intellects to apply careful thinking to big-picture question for humanity and global priorities. The Institute belongs to the Faculty of Philosophy and the Oxford Martin School. Since 2011, I also direct the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology.

I am in a very fortunate position. I have no teaching duties. I am supported by a staff of assistants and brilliant research fellows. There are virtually no restrictions on what I can work on. I must try very hard to be worthy of this privilege and to cast some light on matters that matter.

CONTACT

For administrative matters, scheduling, and invitations, please contact my assistant, Lamprini Repouliou:

Email: fhiadmin[atsign]philosophy[dot]ox[dot]ac[dot]uk Phone: +44 (0)1865 286800

If you need to contact me directly (I regret I am unable to respond to all emails): nick[atsign]nickbostrom[dot]com.

VIRTUAL ESTATE

http://www.fhi.ox.ac.ukFuture of Humanity Institute

http://www.anthropic-principle.comPapers on observational selection effects

http://www.simulation-argument.comDevoted to the question, "Are you living in a computer simulation?"

http://www.existential-risk.orgHuman extinction scenarios and related concerns

On the bank at the end Of what was there before us Gazing over to the other side On what we can become Veiled in the mist of nave speculation We are busy here preparing Rafts to carry us across Before the light goes out leaving us In the eternal night of could-have-been

CRUCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

A thread that runs through my work is a concern with "crucial considerations". A crucial consideration is an idea or argument that might plausibly reveal the need for not just some minor course adjustment in our practical endeavours but a major change of direction or priority.

If we have overlooked even just one such consideration, then all our best efforts might be for naughtor less. When headed the wrong way, the last thing needed is progress. It is therefore important to pursue such lines of inquiry as might disclose an unnoticed crucial consideration.

Some of the relevant inquiries are about moral philosophy and values. Others have to do with rationality and reasoning under uncertainty. Still others pertain to specific issues and possibilities, such as existential risks, the simulation hypothesis, human enhancement, infinite utilities, anthropic reasoning, information hazards, the future of machine intelligence, or the singularity hypothesis.

High-leverage questions associated with crucial considerations deserve to be investigated. My research interests are quite wide-ranging; yet they all stem from the quest to understand the big picture for humanity, so that we can more wisely choose what to aim for and what to do. Embarking on this quest has seemed the best way to try to make a positive contribution to the world.

SOME VIDEOS AND LECTURES

SOME ADDITONAL (OLD, COBWEBBED) PAPERS

On this page.

INTERVIEWS

POLICY

MISCELLANEOUS

words trying to be more than words, bla bla...

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"Mormon Transhumanism" by Lincoln Cannon at Venturists Cryonics Conference – Video

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"Mormon Transhumanism" by Lincoln Cannon at Venturists Cryonics Conference
Lincoln Cannon presents at the Venturists cryonics conference about Mormonism, Mormon Transhumanism, the New God Argument, and the Mormon Transhumanist Assoc...

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Transhumanism & the rapture by Chuck Missler And Mike Hoggard – Video

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Transhumanism the rapture by Chuck Missler And Mike Hoggard
The Rapture Transhumanism by Chuck Missler And Mike Hoggard Steve Quayle, Tom Horn, LA Marzulli, Stan Deyo, Russ Dizdar, End Times, Last Days, Revelation, Blood Moons, Mark Of The Beast, ...

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Dr Scott Johnson 11/16/14 (4/4) Transhumanism and Corrupting Our DNA, Depopulation Agenda – Video

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Dr Scott Johnson 11/16/14 (4/4) Transhumanism and Corrupting Our DNA, Depopulation Agenda
End Time Current Events: 11-16-14 Part 4 Table of Contents: There is a blanket prohibition on all of our military in Africa fighting Ebola against any ph...

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Dr Scott Johnson 11/16/14 (4/4) Transhumanism and Corrupting Our DNA, Depopulation Agenda - Video