Here is a list of prominent people who take transhumanist ideas seriously enough to either discuss them or (more rarely) fear them. For those new to this blog, “transhumanism” is briefly defined in this post. By extension, people on this list have also been exposed to the idea of abrupt or accelerating technological change, though not necessarily technological change that “transcends stakeholder politics”. The object of this list is to show that transhumanist topics have become acceptable for mainstream discussion in recent years.

1. Bill Clinton, former US President, who recommended The Age of Spiritual Machines to the audience at a talk at the Brainstorm 2001 conference. He called the book a “compelling view of the future” and lamented political leaders “out of touch” with the acceleration of technology.

2. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, who called Ray Kurzweil “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence”. Gates’ writings on robotics indicate he expects massive technological change in the near future.

3. Richard A. Clarke, top US counter-terrorism adviser turned science fiction author. His 2007 novel Breakpoint takes a pro-transhumanist stance and mentions the movement by name.

4. Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who expresses apprehension of transhumanist technologies in his landmark WIRED article, Why the future doesn’t need us.

5. Marvin Minsky, co-founder of MIT’s AI laboratory, who Isaac Asimov called one of the smart people he ever met. Minsky frequently discusses cryonics and human-level artificial intelligence.

6. Leon Kass, former chair of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2002–2005, whose seriousness and opposition towards transhumanism is outlined in the report Beyond Therapy, among other writings.

7. Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, who advocates genetic engineering of humans to prevent AIs from “taking over the world”. In Scientific American, Hawking wrote an article promoting a transhumanist vision of the future.

8. David D. Friedman, anarcho-capitalist and law professor at Santa Clara University. His recent book Future Perfect deals with transhumanist themes, and he has been writing on the topics for over two decades.

9. Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and early investor in Facebook. Thiel financed SIAI’s Singularity Summit and has offered $3.5 million in matching funds to the Methuselah Foundation.

10. Steve Jurvetson, a leading Silicon Valley venture capitalist as Managing Director of Draper Fischer Jurvetson. Jurvetson’s blog, the J-Curve, discusses accelerating change, superintelligence, synthetic life, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other transhumanist themes.

There are many others, but ten should be enough for now. The point is: don’t be afraid to bring up transhumanist topics with fellow intellectuals, at work or at home. The folks above probably all have a lot to lose, but they mention the issues with candor. By the same token, their high esteem may make others tolerant of quirky inclinations they may have, but the general response to these discussions has been positive, not dismissive.