From the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies website:

Jonathan McCalmont: Nick Bostrom, you are a philosopher, the Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, a university fellow in the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at the university of Oxford and co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association. How did you come to be a transhumanist?

Nick Bostrom: It was a matter of discovering rather than becoming. I discovered that there was a name for a view that made a lot of sense to me. The view was that people ought to have the opportunity to live much longer, healthier, smarter, and happier lives, and that technological enhancement of human capacities could enable this. The name was transhumanism.

Read the rest.

Nick Bostrom is probably the one public figure that I have the most in common with. When you look at Nick’s interviews and writings, you notice that, while he is very interested in transhumanism in general, he is particularly concerned with the creation of greater-than-human intelligence. For example, in the interview he says, regarding his initial consideration of these ideas, “I was dumbstruck because it occurred to me that we would eventually learn to manipulate and engineer the stuff that thinks, and this might result in above-human intelligence. That prospect seemed uniquely important.” This focus, on the prospect of superintelligence and ensuring how its creation will go well, is a branch of transhumanism called singularitarianism. (If you find that hard to pronounce, remember, or spell, this song may help you remember.) The word comes from “Singularity” merged with “arian”, like libertarian comes from “liberty” merged with “arian”.

Recently, Nick wrote a paper with Max Tegmark using anthropic reasoning to infer the probability of planetary catastrophe. My recent post on Tegmark mentions how he himself has now developed singularitarian sensibilities. For an outline of many principles common to singularitarians, see this link. The Singularity Institute is the premier organization for singularitarians. In addition to engaging in AI research, the organization puts on events like the Stanford Singularity Summit, which brings together prominent thinkers to discuss the Singularity.

To read more about the singularitarian perspective, I recommend AI as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk.