Category Archives: Transvision

Global Challenges in Transition to the Conscious-Technology Age

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Ronald Bailey and Jerome C. Glenn at Transvision 2007

Jerome C. Glenn is the Director of The Millennium Project on global futures research of the World Federation of United Nations Associations and the Executive Director of the American Council for the United Nations University. He is the co-author with Ted Gordon of the annual State of the Future of the Millennium Project for the past ten years. His presentation at Transvision 2007 was entitled “Global Challenges in Transition to the Conscious-Technology Age.”

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Virtue Engineering: Part One

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In his 2006 Transvision presentation, James Hughes offers his views on the present and future of neurotechnologies, a subject that will feature in his upcoming book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha. He argues that the near future technologies will allow us to modify and assist our emotions and reasoning. One of their purposes will be to assist our adherence to self-chosen moral codes and citizenship obligations.

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Nanotechnology and Aerospace

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Giorgio Gaviraghi, José Cordeiro, and Tihamer Toth-Fejel at Transvision

Tihamer Toth-Fejel earned his Masters Degree from the University of Notre Dame, in the Department of Electrical Engineering. His master’s thesis was on “Self-Test: From Simple Circuits to Self-Replicating Automata” and resulted in his first article on Transhumanist themes: “Angels of Steel”. He is a Senior Associate of the Foresight Institute, where he has been a member since 1987. He was Secretary of the Molecular Manufacturing Shortcut Group, a special interest chapter of the National Space Society. He is also a senior research engineer at the General Dynamics Advanced Intelligence Systems, where he investigates nanotechnology applications for aerospace and other areas. His 2007 Transvision presentation was entitled “Small, Fast, and High: Nanotechnology and Aerospace.”

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The Emotion Machine

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Marvin Minsky, Philip Rosedale, and Ben Goertzel at Transvision 2007

Marvin Minsky is Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has led to both theoretical and practical advances in artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, neural networks, and the theory of Turing Machines and recursive functions. (In 1961 he solved Emil Post’s problem of “Tag”, and showed that any computer can be simulated by a machine with only two registers and two simple instructions.) He has made other contributions in the domains of graphics, symbolic mathematical computation, knowledge representation, computational semantics, machine perception, and both symbolic and connectionist learning. He has also been involved with advanced technologies for exploring space. At Transvision 2007 he gave a talk on some of the ideas put forth in his new book The Emotion Machine.

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The Mythical Merits of Mealy-Mouthed Messaging: Part Two

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The central goal of Aubrey de Grey’s work is to expedite the development of a true cure for human aging. As a scientist with a training in an engineering discipline (computer science), he believes himself to be well placed to bridge this gap. Continued from “The Mythical Merits of Mealy-Mouthed Messaging: Part One.”

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The Mythical Merits of Mealy-Mouthed Messaging: Part One

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The central goal of Aubrey de Grey‘s work is to expedite the development of a true cure for human aging. As a scientist with a training in an engineering discipline (computer science), he believes himself to be well placed to bridge this gap.

He attempts to do so in three main ways: by doing basic biogerontology research, by identifying and promoting specific technological approaches to the reversal (not merely the prevention) of various aspects of aging, and by arguing in a wide range of forums, extending beyond biologists, for the adoption of a more proactive approach to extending the healthy human lifespan sooner rather than later. His Transvision 2007 presentation, describing the recent advances of his anti-aging research was named “The Mythical Merits of Mealy-Mouthed Messaging.”

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Envisioning a Post-Scarcity Economy

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Verdant’s Michael Ekstract and Reason’s science correspondent Ronald Bailey at TV07

Ronald Bailey is the award-winning science correspondent for Reason, the libertarian monthly named one of “The 50 Best Magazines” three out of the past four years by the Chicago Tribune. Established in 1968 and a four-time finalist for National Magazine Awards, Reason has a print circulation of 40,000 and won the 2005 Western Publications Association “MAGGIE” Award for best political magazine. Reason Online, the magazine’s Web edition, draws 2.4 million visits per month, and the staff weblog Hit & Run has been named by Playboy, Washingtonian, and others as one of the best political blogs.

He is the author of the new book Liberation Biology: The Moral and Scientific Case for the Biotech Revolution (Prometheus), and his work appears in the The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004. In April, 2006, Bailey was shortlisted by the editors of Nature Biotechnology as one of the 22 personalities who have made the most significant contributions to biotechnology in the area of society and ethics in the last 10 years. At Transvision 2007, he presented a talk entitled “Envisioning a Post-Scarcity Economy.”

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Towards a Roadmap of Whole Brain Emulation

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Anders Sandberg at Transvision 2007

Dr. Anders Sandberg is a Swedish neuroscientist, science debater, futurist, transhumanist, and author. He earned a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience in 2003 from Stockholm University. He is currently researcher in the Oxford group of the EU ENHANCE Project at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute (both part of Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University).

He is cofounder of and writer for the think tank Eudoxa. Between 1996 and 2000 he was Chairman of the Swedish Transhumanist Association. He has also been scientific producer for the neuroscience exhibition “Se Hjärnan!” (“Behold the Brain!”), organized by Swedish Traveling Exhibitions, the Swedish Research Council and the Knowledge Foundation that is touring Sweden 2005-2006. His presentation at Transvision 2007 was called “A Roadmap Toward Whole Brain Emulation” and subtitled, “Why Philosophers Actually Care About Microscope Jitter.”

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Whither ET?

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George Dvorsky with Charlie Kam, Conference Chairman of TV07

George Dvorsky is the Deputy-Editor of Betterhumans, co-founder and president of the Toronto Transhumanist Association, and the producer of the award-winning Sentient Developments blog and podcast. He served as conference chair for Transvision 2004 conference in Toronto, the World Transhumanist Association’s annual conference, and is the co-director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Cyborg Buddha project. He has discussed through print and broadcast media the subjects of bioethics, on topics ranging from disability rights to athletics enhancement.

At Transvision 2007 he gave a presentation entitled “Whither ET? What the Failing Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Tells Us About Humanity’s Future.” The talk addressed the problem of the Fermi Paradox, the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for or contact with ETs.

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Survival of the Diverse

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Martine Rothblatt and James Gardner answering questions during the Transvision Q&A

Martine Rothblatt started United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR) in 1996 and has served as Chairman & CEO since its inception. The company develops and/or commercializes unique analogs of natural molecules for cardio-pulmonary disorders, novel monoclonal antibodies for certain cancers, small glycobiologicals for infectious diseases, telemedical services (including for International Space Station astronauts) and nutriceuticals.

Prior to starting United Therapeutics, in 1990 Dr. Rothblatt created Sirius Satellite Radio and served as its first Chairman & CEO. She also initiated and led the effort to get the Federal Communications Commission to create the satellite radio service in which both Sirius and XM operate, based on underutilized frequencies and the novel concept of using GPS-type antennas for digital audio. Her publications include five books and over fifty peer-reviewed articles.

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Cyborgs Today & in the Future

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James Hughes leading a discussion at the IEET conference in Chicago, Illinois

James Hughes, Ph.D., is the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Executive Director. A bioethicist and sociologist, he teaches Health Policy at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics. Dr. Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future (Westview Press, 2004), and produces a syndicated weekly radio program, Changesurfer Radio.

He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities and the Working Group on Ethics and Technology at Yale University. Dr. Hughes speaks on medical ethics, health care policy and future studies worldwide, and appears often on radio and television. In his talk at Transvision 2007, entitled “Cyborgs Today & in the Future,” he explored some of the historical continuities between the ideals of the Enlightenment philosophes and the present-day steps toward cybernetic augmentation of the human body.
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