November 13, 2024
A New Edition of Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy Is Now Available
Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy (vol. 27, no. 4, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
Transhumanism
August 27, 2024
Maybe You Will Be Able to Live Past 122
(MIT Technology Review) – The longevity scene is having a moment, thanks to a combination of scientific advances, public interest, and an unprecedented level of investment. A few key areas of research suggest that we might be able to push … Read More
August 16, 2024
This Researcher Wants to Replace Your Brain, Little by Little
(MIT Technology Review) – The US government just hired a researcher who thinks we can beat aging with fresh cloned bodies and brain updates. A US agency pursuing moonshot health breakthroughs has hired a researcher advocating an extremely radical plan … Read More
August 9, 2024
A Scientist Says Humans Will Reach the Singularity Within 21 Years
(Popular Mechanics via MSN) – An American computer scientist-turned-futurist, Kurzweil has long believed that humanity is headed toward what’s known as “the singularity,” when man and machine merge. In 1999, Kurzweil theorized that artificial general intelligence would be achieved once … Read More
August 7, 2024
A New Edition of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics Is Now Available
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics (vol. 45, no. 4, 2024) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
July 10, 2024
Outliving Your Peers Is Now a Competitive Sport
(Wall Street Journal) – Longevity has officially become a competitive sport. Welcome to the “Rejuvenation Olympics.” In this contest founded by tech entrepreneur and longevity bro Bryan Johnson, anti-agers take their health obsession to new levels. Just not dying isn’t … Read More
July 10, 2024
Rich People Freeze Themselves, and Fortunes, for Future Revival
(Bloomberg via Yahoo!) – Nobody wants to come back from the dead poor. Luckily for the rich, making wealth immortal is more solvable than reversing death. Estate attorneys are creating trusts aimed at extending wealth until people who get cryonically … Read More
July 1, 2024
Ray Kurzweil Is (Still, Somehow) Excited About Humans Merging with Machines
(Washington Post via MSN) – There is a meme, popular among tech world insiders, that distinguishes between two types of people: wordcels and shape rotators. Wordcels are humanists, effete creatures who trade in anachronisms like writing and philosophy. Shape rotators, … Read More
June 13, 2024
If Ray Kurzweil Is Right (Again), You’ll Meet His Immortal Soul in the Cloud
(Wired) – Ray Kurzweil rejects death. The 76-year-old scientist and engineer has spent much of his time on earth arguing that humans can not only take advantage of yet-to-be-invented medical advances to live longer, but also ultimately merge with machines, … Read More
May 23, 2024
That Viral Video Showing a Head Transplant Is a Fake. But It Might Be Real Someday.
(MIT Technology Review) – We can report that BrainBridge is not a real company—it’s not incorporated anywhere. The video was made by Hashem Al-Ghaili, a Yemeni science communicator and film director who made a viral video in 2022 called “EctoLife” … Read More
May 14, 2024
Digital Recreations of Dead People Need Urgent Regulation, AI Ethicists Say
(The Guardian) – Digital recreations of dead people are on the cusp of reality and urgently need regulation, AI ethicists have argued, warning “deadbots” could cause psychological harm to, and even “haunt”, their creators and users. Such services, which are … Read More
May 8, 2024
Deepfakes of Your Dead Loved Ones Are a Booming Chinese Business
(MIT Technology Review) – There are plenty of people like Sun who want to use AI to preserve, animate, and interact with lost loved ones as they mourn and try to heal. The market is particularly strong in China, where … Read More
April 30, 2024
China Has a Controversial Plan for Brain-Computer Interfaces
(Wired) – China’s brain-computer interface technology is catching up to the US. But it envisions a very different use case: cognitive enhancement. At a tech forum in Beijing last week, a Chinese company unveiled a “homegrown” brain-computer interface that allowed … Read More
April 29, 2024
‘Eugenics on Steroids’: The Toxic and Contested Legacy of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute
(The Guardian) – Founded in 2005 and lauded by Silicon Valley, the Nick Bostrom’s centre for studying existential risk warned about AI but also gave rise to cultish ideas such as effective altruism. Two weeks ago it was quietly announced … Read More
April 26, 2024
An AI Startup Made a Hyperrealistic Deepfake of Me That’s So Good It’s Scary
(MIT Technology Review) – I’m stressed and running late, because what do you wear for the rest of eternity? This makes it sound like I’m dying, but it’s the opposite. I am, in a way, about to live forever, thanks … Read More
April 16, 2024
How to Die in Good Health
(The New Yorker) – On a recent afternoon, I chased my three-year-old daughter around the playground for an hour. When we returned home, she spread a jigsaw puzzle out on the floor and looked up expectantly. I liked the idea … Read More
March 4, 2024
Barbie vs. Botox
(The New Atlantis) – Transhumanism is so over. Wrinkles are so back. Young women’s social media feeds are flooded with plugs for Botox. By our early twenties, modernity is already dangling opportunities in front of us to flee from a … Read More
February 15, 2024
He Was Killed in a School Shooting. Now AI Has Him Speaking Again.
(Wall Street Journal) – Joaquin Oliver was killed in the Parkland school shooting. Now with AI, the 17-year-old’s voice can be heard again. WSJ’s Joanna Stern sat down with Joaquin’s parents to find out how and why they are preserving … Read More
January 26, 2024
Sundance Documentary Eternal You Shows How AI Companies Are ‘Resurrecting’ the Dead
(Engadget) – A woman has a text chat with her long-dead lover. A family gets to hear a deceased elder speak again. A mother gets another chance to say goodbye to her child, who died suddenly, via a digital facsimile. … Read More
January 9, 2024
How We Remember the Dead by Their Digital Afterlives
(Nature) – The Digital Departed: How We Face Death, Commemorate Life, and Chase Virtual Immortality Timothy Recuber NYU Press (2023) Many of us will have turned to the Internet to grieve and remember the dead — by posting messages on … Read More
December 21, 2023
One Man’s Longevity Obsession Now Includes Fountain-of-Youth Injections
(Bloomberg) – About a million tourists descend upon Roatán each year. The island, just off the coast of Honduras, boasts a large barrier reef ideal for scuba diving and snorkeling, and it has the beaches, jungles and slow pace of … Read More
December 19, 2023
The Most Secretive Longevity Lab Finally Opens Its Doors
(Bloomberg) – Retro Biosciences, a startup with $180 million from Sam Altman, has a simple and audacious goal: Add 10 good years to your life. And until now, we haven’t had a glimpse of its best ideas. (Read More)
December 12, 2023
Using A.I. to Talk to the Dead
(New York Times) – Some people are turning to A.I. technology as a way to commune with the dead, but its use as part of the mourning process has raised ethical questions while leaving some who have experimented with it … Read More
November 21, 2023
The Race to Optimize Grief
(Vox) – While mimicking conversational style is just one of the many uses of the popular generative chatbot ChatGPT, there’s a niche yet growing slate of platforms that use deep learning and large language models to re-create the essence of … Read More
November 10, 2023
