July 24, 2017
(The Verge) – The better wearable devices get, the less sense it makes to permanently modify your body. Things like exoskeletons, smart glasses, and external brain-computer interfaces are safer and much easier to upgrade than their implanted counterparts. Plus, you … Read More
July 6, 2017
(Wired) – But helping to restore a damaged brain is only an entry point for Kernel. Johnson, a 39-year-old from Utah, is looking forward—with almost unseemly enthusiasm—to the day that healthy people can get neural augmentation. He has emerged as … Read More
June 23, 2017
(Deutsche Welle) – But the second, and perhaps more interesting aspect of digitalization, is that we can experiment with our identity, Sjoblad says. He calls himself a “biohacker,” a person who “hacks” biological, organic processes to make them better. According … Read More
June 9, 2017
(Wired) – Life hacks make tedious tasks like slicing avocados or opening jars a bit easier. Such tricks are for amateurs. Hardcore hackers slice open their arms, or hands, or ears to install magnets, RFID tags, and other nifty devices … Read More
May 9, 2017
(Wired) – A next-generation technology, likely to arrive in five to 10 years, is being credited as the saviour of capitalism. Known today as neural prosthetics, or neural lace, it’s essentially tech that reads your brainwaves. This tech promises to … Read More
May 5, 2017
(The Conversation) – Neuralink – which is “developing ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers” – is probably a bad idea. If you understand the science behind it, and that’s what you wanted to hear, you can … Read More
April 19, 2017
(The Guardian) – Many transhumanists such as Kurzweil contend that they are carrying on the legacy of the Enlightenment – that theirs is a philosophy grounded in reason and empiricism, even if they do lapse occasionally into metaphysical language about … Read More
April 4, 2017
(The Conversation) – How closely will we live with the technology we use in the future? How will it change us? And how close is “close”? Ghost in the Shell imagines a futuristic, hi-tech but grimy and ghetto-ridden Japanese metropolis … Read More
March 28, 2017
(STAT News) – Tech billionaire Elon Musk is announcing a new venture called Neuralink focused on linking brains to computers. The company plans to develop brain implants that can treat neural disorders — and that may one day be powerful … Read More
March 7, 2017
(Undark) – What if technology could set us free from our own mortal bodies? If there were a way to expand our mental and physical beings beyond the limitations we were born with? If we could harness science to morph … Read More
March 2, 2017
(NPR) – “Flesh is a dead format,” writes Mark O’Connell in To Be a Machine, his new nonfiction book about the contemporary transhumanist movement. It’s an alarming statement, but don’t kill the messenger: As he’s eager to explain early in … Read More
February 24, 2017
(Australia Broadcasting Co) – Can transhumanists, biohackers and grinders live forever? The answer is maybe soon — at least according to them. Ok. So what’s a transhumanist? Like some scientists, they believe that ageing is a disease, and they are … Read More
February 20, 2017
(The Atlantic) – The billionaire technologists’ obsession with living forever can approach a sort of parody. Oracle’s Ellison once said, “Death makes me very angry”—suggesting this pillar of nature is just another consumer pain-point to be relieved with an app. … Read More
February 16, 2017
(Wired) – We must all become cyborgs if we are to survive the inevitable robot uprising. That’s the message from Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the entrepreneur who wants to send the human race to Mars. At the World … Read More
February 9, 2017
(New York Times) – In the autumn of 2015, a man of my acquaintance purchased a 38-foot recreational vehicle — a 1978 Blue Bird Wanderlodge — and, having made to this vehicle such modifications as would lend it the appearance … Read More
January 9, 2017
(The Guardian) – Liviu Babitz opens his collar to reveal a small silicone gadget, the size of a matchbox, attached to his chest with two titanium bars that sit just under the skin. Most resembling a compact bike light, the … Read More
November 17, 2016
(Market Watch) – Interest has been spreading, with Watson quickly working through his latest supply of magnets. One woman recently traveled to Ice 9 Studio from Australia for a radio-frequency identification chip she uses to store personal information. Watson’s business … Read More
September 21, 2016
(Scientific American) – The cosmos has never been particularly loquacious with its intentions, often requiring Brobdingnagian-sized ventures—from particle accelerators and space telescopes to genome and connectome projects—to tease out its deepest secrets. Can the same be done for death? A … Read More
August 5, 2016
The New Bioethics (vol. 22, no. 2, 2016) is available online by subscription only. Articles include: “The Human Figure and Urban Ground: Cyborgs and the City” by Aaron Parkhurst “Managing Bodies, Managing Persons: Postmortem Care and the Role of the Nurse” … Read More
July 14, 2016
(The Atlantic) – And why stop with Granny? You could have the same afterlife for yourself in any simulated environment you like. But even if that kind of technology is possible, and even if that digital entity thought of itself … Read More
July 6, 2016
(The Conversation) – But transhumanism’s mixing of essentially religious ideas with scientific language matters because it distorts the way we think about technology. Transhumanism tends to see technology as a way to grant all our wishes. And this is often … Read More
July 5, 2016
(The Guardian) – According to the foundation a wave of new cyborgs will be breaking at the end of the summer – and now you can be one, too. The foundation’s sister organization, Cyborg Nest, is currently taking orders for … Read More
June 27, 2016
(Quartz) – Harbisson’s transformation was extensively covered by the media, and elicited correspondence from people all over the world interested in new senses. In response, he and a team of collaborators have launched Cyborg Nest, a company that aims to … Read More
June 8, 2016
(Public Discourse) – Indeed, Savulescu thinks cognitive enhancement might make us humans even more dangerous to each other, given our technological prowess at building weapons of mass destruction and our propensity to pollute our environment. He regularly invokes the fear … Read More
May 31, 2016
(The Telegraph) – Advances in artificial intelligence could lead to computers and smartphones developing consciousness and they may need to be given ‘human’ rights, an expert has claimed. Marcus du Sautoy, who took over from Richard Dawkins as Professor for … Read More
