Harari, Humans, Algorithms, and AI
A futurist’s warning: AI may soon redefine the boundaries of human agencyThis anthropological starting point assumes the similarity of humans to computers, not the other way around.
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China Jumps on the Transhumanism Train
It is said to be is devoting much energy and many resources to the life-extension projectThe country has increased life expectancy through orthodox means such lifestyle and healthcare improvement. But some of the research seeks more.
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The Problem of Smith: When Mind Uploading Multiplies Identity
Tyler Bauer: If personal identity is grounded in an immaterial soul, the real Smith is the body that contains his original soul.
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Reuters Pulls Vid Where Xi Hails Organ Transplants for Longevity
Putin didn’t seem to care much about what he was heard to say about organ transplants but China is known to harvest organs from doomed political prisonersWhen dictators adopt transhumanism, it won’t just be Ray Kurzweil trying to upload himself to digital immortality. There will be a very dark side.
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Xi and Putin Are Transhumanists – Are You Surprised?
Transhumanism is mostly a materialistic wail of despair in the night, a desperate quest for hope for those who are terrified that death leads to obliterationIt wouldn’t surprise me if Xi has a political prisoner all tissue-typed and ready to be sliced and diced should the need arise.
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Why Humans Aren’t That Biased, and Machines Aren’t That Smart
Claims about the cognitive biases that supposedly overwhelm our judgment should be taken with a helping of saltIt’s no wonder that techno-futurists trumpet a coming machine intelligence with such ease — they’ve lowered the standards so much to begin with.
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Podcast Guest Claims He Won’t Die, Says We’re Creating God With AI
Got immortality? This man says he has the secret.Johnson’s views on AI sound crazy, but they reflect a burgeoning hope that computerized superintelligence will somehow solve all the enigmas of existence.
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Should We Worry About Where Transhumanism Is Heading?
Wesley J. Smith asks some hard questions about the moral implications of Zoltan Istvan’s “anything to defeat death” atheist movementTraditionally, atheists have not thought that just about anything is permissible in order to avoid death; like the religious, they approached it philosophically
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High Tech Wizards Are Trying To Create a God in Their Own Image
Some AI industry figures believe in the coming of the Singularity, wherein machines duplicate and then exceed the abilities of manThere is no convincing evidence that computers will ever experience creativity, understanding, and sentience. These are human attributes that can’t be computed.
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Green Goblin, the Hasty Transhumanist
A classic Marvel villain presents a picture of hurried science gone wrong“The product is certified ready for human testing.” I’m not quoting Elon Musk in relation to Neuralink. That’s the line from the fictional Norman Osborn in Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man movie, starring Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and the green maniac himself, Willem Dafoe. I’ve seen this movie dozens of times, so maybe it’s due to the weird fact that twenty-plus years after this film hit the scene, we now live in a world where big science organizations like Osborn’s Oscorp seem to be dealing with similar conflicts that ultimately produced the iconic Green Goblin. Not that Elon Musk or Sam Altman are going to start flying around on saucers and terrorize New York City. But they are eager to rush Read More ›
The Singularity — When We Merge With AI — Won’t Happen
Futurist predictions depend on the assumption that the human brain is like a machine, says, computer scientist Erik Larson. But it isn’tLarson tells his EP podcast host that the real danger is that powerful AI in the hands of bad actors could bring down banking systems and cripple grids.
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William Dembski: When Is Transhumanism a Form of Technobigotry?
In his further essays in the current series, he explains why AI cannot avoid collapse without the input of novel information from humansAI systems alone go bankrupt, Dembski argues, because intelligence by nature requires novel insights and creativity, which is to say, an oracle from outside.
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Robert J. Marks to speak at Big Sky Conference in Billings, Montana
He will focus on the way in which, while AI offers exciting possibilities, many claims for AI are provably overblownMarks points out in his work that many key acts of the mind, especially those involving creativity, are non-computable and AI doesn’t and can’t do them.
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The Transhumanist Delusion of the Nazis
"All the Light We Cannot See" shows what can happen when the delusions of transhumanism join forces with an appalling ideology.The Nazis were keen on creating a superhuman race with unsurpassable physical, intellectual, and (ironically) moral qualities.
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AI as Refashioned Religion
How AI fits into the transhumanist utopian dream, and where that dream might have come fromAI’s greatest threat may not be its sophistication, but our own over-reliance on it. As a technology, it has its uses and benefits. As a religion, it fails.
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Wrapping Up the Westworld Series
Ultimately, the moral of the story is transhumanismThe first time I watched Westworld, I remember enjoying it, but upon revisiting the series, my opinion of it has dropped a great deal. There are a variety of problems. First, it’s a bait and switch. It teases the idea of showing how robots can come to life, and it plays with your expectations for most of the series. It even goes as far as to discuss theories like The Bicameral Mind, and The Turing Test. Then, in the last episode, it confirms what the viewer has been slowly growing to suspect. The robots had been coming to life the entire time, and Ford had been wiping their memories. The show says that Ford programmed the robots to experience everything Read More ›
Barbie: A Subtle Critique of Transhumanism?
Reviews for the new "Barbie" movie abound. But have most of them missed the point?Since its release in July, Barbie has proved as controversial as it has popular. Its joint release alongside Oppenheimer has had movie theaters across the country teeming with “Barbenheimer” fans, those zealous people who watched both movies on the same day in an unprecedented feat of pink glitz and existential dread. But what is Barbie about? Is it a takedown of the patriarchy, a gentle comedy, or something a bit more subtle and powerful? The reviews have ranged between harsh critique and lavish praise. With the flood of commentary, though, have most people missed a central and yet subtle point? Elayne Allen, writing for Public Discourse, offers an alternative interpretation of the movie which might have bypassed the imaginations of Read More ›
Jay Richards Talks Transhumanism and AI
The underlying philosophy of transhumanism should be rejectedDr. Jay Richards, a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and a friend of the Walter Bradley Center, which publishes Mind Matters, spoke recently at the Acton University conference, discussing both transhumanism and AI. Transhumanists, Richards notes, look at the scope of “cosmic evolution,” see a kind of increasing complexity among the human race, and speculate the next dramatic step: achieving immortality through a mixture of genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. Richards described the transhumanist ideology as “anti-human,” but cautioned against having a reactionary response to all new technologies that seem to be involved in transhumanism’s vision, noting that some of them, when analyzed specifically, could have benefits (such as AI). The underlying philosophy of transhumanism, however, should be rejected. Read More ›
Two Writers on Transhumanist Trends
Paul Kingsnorth and Mary Harrington discuss the modern urge to throw off all natural limitsThis is a conversation from a year ago but nevertheless remains radically pertinent today. Paul Kingsnorth and Mary Harrington, both who have written on various modern trends to try and transcend bodily limits, sat down on the Rebel Wisdom YouTube channel to have a chat. Both have written for the online magazine UnHerd, but up until this point, had never interacted with each other. Kingsnorth is a former environmentalist who became disillusioned with the movement and eventually converted to Orthodox Christianity. He is also a novelist and currently lives a simple life in Ireland. Harrington is a contributing editor of UnHerd and writes on feminism, politics, and other pressing cultural issues. Both believe that the urge to throw off human Read More ›
That Hideous Strength, A.K.A. Transhumanism
C.S. Lewis's classic science fiction tale is about the temptation to reject being humanC.S. Lewis’s 1946 science fiction novel That Hideous Strength is almost eighty years old now. Written during the throes of World War II, the novel is the culmination of Lewis’s cosmic trilogy, preluded by Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. There are hosts of other articles attending to the prescience of Lewis’s terrifying novel, and for good reason; That Hideous Strength is a warning against using technology to dehumanize people and ultimately cripple the world into submission. It’s a great book as a novel, but it seems especially appropriate to revisit in lieu of the growing interest in transhumanism and the rapid acceleration of AI development. It feels like much of the talk on AI in recent months involves Read More ›