What would it be like to live through our own species evolution? The biological process of natural selection that gave rise to every species on Earth takes hundreds of generations to turn one species into another, but what if that process could be skipped entirely?

What would it be like to significantly upgrade humanity in a matter of decades, or even a few years? Welcome to Transhumanism, the movement determined to use breakthrough technologies to make humanity into something more.

The idea of altering or augmenting the human body through technology is as old as humanity itself. From the moment humans first fashioned tools and learned to harness fire, humanity stepped beyond its biological constraints.

Where evolution gave wolves a fierce set of teeth and the cheetahs unmatched speeds, evolution gave humanity the most sophisticated intelligence of any animal on the planet and humans have been using that intelligence to overcome their biological deficits.

SEE ALSO: NEURALINK: HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN WILL DOWNLOAD DIRECTLY FROM A COMPUTER

Transhumanism talks about taking this dynamic and using it to not just impact the world around us, but to augment or even replace our biology with technology. Whereas humanity has fixed poor eyesight with corrective lens, straightened a persons teeth with braces, or countless other examples of humans altering out bodies or senses through technology, the transhumanist wants to replace the eye entirely or hijack existing senses in our bodies to detect any number of things that our bodies arent built to sense.

A transhuman then is someone who has taken this step and upgraded their body in a way that doesnt just fix a deficient part to behave as commonly expected but replaces something that works perfectly fine in order to do something more than is biologically possible.

Transhumanism is possible because of something known as neuroplasticity, the capacity for the neurons in our brain to make new connections and reconfigure its network in response to new stimuli, information, trauma, or dysfunction.

Examples include learning new skills, remembering information, people, or events, making complex movements with our bodies without consciously thinking about it, and taking the cacophony of stimuli around us and making sense of it all. Its how we go through life with part of our vision being obstructed by our nose though we simply dont notice it.

According to the late Paul Bach-y-Rita, we see with our brains, not our eyes. A neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the co-founder of Wicaba company that develops technology based on his researchBach-y-Rita has shown that in many ways, our senses are interchangeable. His pioneering research into blindness has even led to the development of a device that can allow someone to see with their tongue.

The key is understanding what sightor hearing, or touching, or smelling, or any other senseactually is: converting external stimuli to electrical signals that the brain then processes into our sensory perception of the world around us. Since the electrical signals traveling through our nervous system are no different from one anotherthey differ only in how the brain processes themthis leaves the door wide open for our existing sensors to be repurposed through technology.

If the visible light that enters our eye and turns on the rods and cones of our retina are essentially turned into a 0 or a 1 being tapped out onto our optical nerve, what is stopping us from creating an artificial eye that allows us to see a wider spectrum that includes infrared and ultraviolet light?

If the eye is essentially a video camera for our brain, why not swap out the camera? Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain may not know what to make of the different signals initially, but it will find a way to interpret them.

It will figure out how to see this new wavelength of light as if it were any other light. Its not hard to think of many other examples of this type of sensor swapping, which gives you an idea of why Transhumanist are such evangelists for the movement.

The idea of cyborgs running around is the stuff of science fiction films from the 1980s, but it is going to become a reality sooner than most people think. Transhumanists are a remarkably diverse group, with DIY biohackers and the US Department of Defense being two of the most prominent examples.

Piercings and tattoos are as old as civilization, but a Biohacker is willing to put their body in service of the movementand not necessarily with medical approval or even assistance. Biohacking can range from something as simple as implanting yourself with an RF tag that you can use to open electronic locks when you come to work to more extreme augments like inserting a tiny magnet under the skin of your finger to detect magnetic fields.

Likewise, its no surprise that armies around the world are eager to lead the way into the new frontier of transhumanism, generals and war leaders have always sought any means to give their army the upper hand over an opponent.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has come right out and said that humans [were] the weakest link in defense systems. Some examples of DARPAs research into transhumanist technologies include allowing humans to convert plant matter to glucose, threat detection through optical implants, and even a way for humans to cling to the surface of a flat wall the way lizards do.

As computer technologies advance alongside biotechnologies, there is a growing convergence between the two in the form of neural interfaces that in the future can open the door to linking your mind directly to an AI in order to facilitate greater learning, overcome neurological conditions, or just to use the internet.

In the coming decades, as more advanced computer technologies continue to shrink in size, its not out of the question that brain implants, linked to an AI, might be possible. In fact, DARPA has already started research along these lines.

Without question, these examples of transhumanism point to one of the essential questions every student or teacher of philosophy has grappled with: what does it mean to be human?

Evolution gave us the brain which has given us technologies such as flint tools, the wheel, and clothing that enabled us to extend ourselves past our biological limitations. Is an artificial eye any different? Are we any less human for using an arrow to kill a deer rather than our bare hands? Who gets to decide?

Some critics argue that the two positions transhumanists propose, rejecting human enhancement through augmentation and implants entirely or wholeheartedly embracing everything the transhumanist movement represents is a false dichotomy.

Writing in Psychology Today, Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of New York-Lehman College, believes that there is a necessary discussion society must have before we introduceor even think of developingsuch technologies: it is perfectly acceptable indeed necessary for individuals and society to have a thorough discussion about what limits are or are not acceptable when it comes to the ethical issues raised by the use of technologies.

Whats more, observers and economists note the movement towards a transhumanist society will exacerbating the gulf between the rich and the poor. Transhumanist technologies are expensive and will be for the foreseeable future, which inevitably means that the elites might pull even further ahead of the rest of the world, much of which is too poor for even basic healthcare.

The most essential thing that our society must do as these technologies advance is to have an open conversation about where we want humanity to go as a species. These technologies are being rapidly developed with no signs of slowing down, so it is up to us to decide how far down this road we want transhumanism to go. Unless we do, the transhuman future we will get may not necessarily be the one that we want.

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The Transhuman Revolution: What it is and How to Prepare ...

Human fascination with robots has long been fused with fear. The first widespread use of the term came a century ago in a Czech play about robots manufactured to serve and work for people. The catch? The bots turn on their masters.

That plot has played out in fiction countless times since. Meanwhile, the real world has created ever more advanced versions of mechanical servants. Todays artificial intelligence (AI) is more sophisticated than anyone could have imagined decades ago, and its already influencing our lives in incredible ways even if the robot masses have not (yet) revolted. Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently said AI is more profound than fire or electricity in its impact on humanity.

But like fire, AI can burn us too. Todays Sunday magazine takes stock of where we are, where the technology is headed and the pitfalls that lie ahead with AI. There is much to celebrate, loads to fear and even more to question about a future in which machines join humans in striving for a better world.

Friends With Benefits. Imagine robots did all the cooking, cleaning and dog-walking around your house. They ferry you around town, care for a sick parent, teach kindergarten to your child, deliver packages, perform your favorite hit songs and have sex with you. Guess what? Many of those kinds of robots are already available, and will only get better at human-like tasks in the coming years.

What About My Job?We should not necessarily be thinking of AI and robotic technology as an adversary in the workplace. For manual labor, think wearable exoskeletons that can improve efficiency and reduce injury. For knowledge work, it can be a powerful assistant that helps us do our jobs better, one that reduces our own cognitive load and frees us to work on higher-order tasks and more interesting and creative things. Plus, some jobs that we dont think of being that creative today, like project manager, could get a major human makeover. The project managers of the future will have to make sophisticated decisions to get the best out of both humans and machines. Hear more on OZYs Future of X podcast.

Product Enhancement. Transhumanists cyborg is so pass explore the symbiosis of man and machine, going so far as to upgrade parts of their bodies. Think supercharged ears or a bionic arm to replace an amputated one. And then theres professional mad genius Elon Musk, who wants to fuse human brains with computers to create super-intelligent beings, and has dedicated his company Neuralink to the task. But at what point do we cease being human? Were a long way from drawing that line.

When Do I Get My Self-Driving Car?In many areas, AI has not yet lived up to the hype. Despite overly optimistic predictions, fully autonomous cars are still only in use in certain trial programs. It often can exacerbate racial bias. And the technology has not yet made a dent in complex fields such as accounting, law, engineering and health care. These disappointments are breeding the technologys many doubters. Read more on OZY.

COVID-Accelerated. Some AI trends are getting a boost amid the pandemic and economic turbulence. Fast food chain White Castle is hiring Flippy, a burger-flipping robot, later this year to reduce human contact with the food. AI is being pressed into service to identify the next pandemic. But the crisis has also exposed AIs limits: When our behavior went haywire in response to the virus, machine-learning systems for inventory management, streaming recommendations and other areas couldnt keep up.

Arms Race. By 2030, a third of the combat capacity of Russia is expected to be driven by AI including AI-guided missiles with the ability to change their target mid-flight. Israel has adopted a targeting network to aid the Israel Defense Forces in remotely patrolling the many contentious regions under their control. The U.S. is building a robotic submarine system that will detect underwater mines and other anti-submarine enemy action. But its China that appears to be one robotic step ahead, with its massive domestic surveillance program and military drones that can ferry passengers. Read more on OZY https://www.ozy.com/the-new-and-the-next/which-military-has-the-edge-in-the-a-i-arms-race/358014/

Global Gears.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has received a prototype, developed by Boeing Australia, of a jet-powered drone to flank and protect its manned combat aircraft. Brazil and India have set up panels for their militaries to work with cutting-edge labs on developing AI. The U.K.s Ministry of Defence has launched its own AI lab, as has the South Korean army, which has also used a sentry robot in the demilitarized zone along the border with North Korea.

Quiz: Which country has touted its work on mini-robots that can slide under enemy tanks? The answer is at the bottom of this story.

Do Killer Robots Dream?There are corners of the internet that scream about bloodthirsty bots already enacting takeovers. But an increasing number of serious people are expressing concern about malicious AI. From the U.S. and other major militaries refusing to sign a treaty against fully autonomous weapons to the time Facebook had to shut down its chatbots because they created their own language, runaway robots should concern us all. Read more on OZY.

Sins of the Flesh. As with many technological advances, the sex industry is on it. Functional sex robots are hitting the market (if you can afford to pay up to $10,000), but experts are raising the alarm about moral questions, with reports that the bots can be programmed to reenact a rape scenario or resemble children. But would child sex dolls actually prevent pedophilia?

You Tell Us. Would you ever have sex with a robot? If not, why not? If so, whom would you design your robot to resemble? Take our Twitter poll.

L Is for the Way You Look at Me. These robotic relationships may well become about more than sex. Many experts believe that humans will fall in love with robot companions as they advance, in part because our brains are not equipped to parse those emotions. In fact, a growing number of people identify as digisexuals attracted to androids.

Algorithmic Soul Mate. AI is being put to use to make real-life connections as well. One service called AIMM promises to both find you a mate and then coach you through the courting process, with all sorts of questionable, at times sexist assumptions that remind us that AI is only as good as the people creating it. Read more on OZY.

Incredible Shrinking Surgeon.Robot-assisted surgery is becoming more widespread and affordable by the day. Eager for the next big leap? Watch out for Boston-based Vicarious Surgical, which recently won recognition from the Food and Drug Administration as a breakthrough device for using virtual reality and tiny robots to perform surgeries inside your body guided by the surgeon on the outside. Read more about robot-assisted surgery on OZY.

Diagnostic Test. Reports of the demise of the radiologist were greatly exaggerated, but AI is getting better at diagnosis. Google recently announced that its AI system often but not always matches or outperforms humans in diagnosing breast cancer. And machine diagnosis is another trend thats seeing a pandemic surge, as the need to swiftly identify coronavirus outbreaks is a matter of life and death.

Nursing Aide. Robots are already popping up at hospitals, performing tasks like delivering medication. And their capabilities are starting to get more complex, such as feeding patients who cannot feed themselves. Its just another example of how baby boomers not millennials are the target demographic for the next era of AI. Read more on OZY.

The Robot Is In.With chatbots getting more advanced, AI is increasingly becoming more involved in your mental health. Apps like Youper can engage with you on a human level with a friendly chat anytime, anywhere that can provide a critical mental lift. Read more on OZY.

Would you rather spill your guts to a bot or a real-life therapist? Tag us on Instagram and let us know.

Robot Prejudice.It may be easier than we thought for autonomous machines to develop one of humanitys less attractive features: prejudice. Why? New research using computational simulation models suggests that prejudice requires only limited intelligence and cognitive ability to develop and spread in populations of artificially intelligent machines. Are we consigned to a future of robot Archie Bunkers? What happens if the outsiders theyre biased against turn out to be us? Read more on OZY.

In Living Color. AI has a well-documented race problem: It struggles to recognize Black faces, among myriad other problems stemming from the fact that there are too few Black faces in the industry itself. Given the newfound enthusiasm for people investing in historically Black colleges and universities in the wake of racial justice protests, how about a woke Silicon Valley type offers up $50 million or so to seed AI research and development at Howard University to help offer balance.

All Rise for Chief Justice Robot!Judges are like umpires, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts declared at his 2005 confirmation hearings. But if being an appellate judge is really just a matter of calling balls and strikes, then isnt that a job that could be performed more thoroughly and precisely by a computer, and without political or personal bias, age or infirmity, or ugly confirmation battles? If justice is blind, does it still need to have eyes? Read more on OZY.

AI for the Defense. Overworked and underfunded public defenders in the U.S. have enormous caseloads, which makes competent legal representation difficult. But thanks to initiatives like the Tubman Project, AI is being deployed to help public defenders keep up by doing things like auto-filling forms and reviewing hours of police body-camera footage. How long before AI is also helping negotiate plea deals and more?

Electoral Disruption. Upstart political candidates are turning to AI tools to take on electoral machines and theyre winning. Companies on the left and right are using advanced tech to streamline fundraising and better scale targeted ads, or uncover granular details about how messaging campaigns can best influence voters based on their foundational beliefs. Can a bot make you change your vote? Read more on OZY.

Reining Them In. Part of the problem is that AI powers cant agree on the rules of the road. Last month, Chinese search giant Baidu left the Partnership on AI, an American-led consortium of tech companies, nonprofits, research groups and more, designed to develop ethical guidelines around AI. Baidu was the groups only Chinese member and its departure comes amid a worsening relationship with the U.S. For now, AI governance remains inconsistent across and even within countries: California, for example, has banned facial recognition technology for local law enforcement, while its commonplace in Florida.

Quiz Answer: Iran released images in October of miniature robots that can slide under enemy tanks.

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What No One Will Tell You About Robots - OZY

Marcus Scott is a New York Citybased playwright, musical writer, opera librettist and journalist. He has contributed to Elle, Essence, Out, American Theatre, Uptown, Trace, Madame Noire and Playbill, among other publications.Follow Marcus: Instagram, Twitter

Were in the chrysalis of a new age of theatrical storytelling, and Black queer voices have been at the center of this transformation. Stepping out of the margins of society to push against the status quo, Black LGBTQ+ artists have been actively engaged in fighting anti-blackness, racial disparities, disenfranchisement, homophobia and transphobia.

The success of Jeremy O. Harriss Slave Play, Donja R. Loves one in two and Jordan E. Coopers Aint No Monot to mention Michael R. Jacksons tour de force, the Pulitzer Prizewinning metamusical A Strange Loopmade that phenomenon especially visible last season. But these artists are far from alone. Because the intersection of queerness and Blackness is complexwith various gender expressions, sexual identifiers and communities taking shape in different spacesBlack LGBTQ+ artists are anything but a monolith. George C. Wolfe, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Robert OHara, Harrison David Rivers, Staceyann Chin, Colman Domingo, Tracey Scott Wilson, Tanya Barfield, Marcus Gardley and Daniel Alexander Jones are just some of the many Black queer writers who have already made marks.

With New York stages dark for the foreseeable future, we cant know when we will be able to see live works by these artists again. It is likely, however, that they will continue to play major roles in the direction American theater will take in the post-quarantine eraalong with many creators who are still flying mostly under the radar. Here are just a few of the Black queer artists you may not have encountered yet: vital new voices that are speaking to the Zeitgeist and turning up the volume.

Christina AndersonA protg of Paula Vogels, Christina Anderson has presented work at the Public Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Penumbra Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons and other theaters around the U.S. and Canada. She has degrees from the Yale School of Drama and Brown University, and is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and Epic Theatre Ensemble; she has received the inaugural Harper Lee Award for Playwriting and three Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominations, among other honors.Works include: How To Catch Creation (2019), Blacktop Sky (2013), Inked Baby (2009)Follow Christina: Website

Troy AnthonyFusing a mlange of quiet storm 90s-era Babyface R&B, 60s-style funk-soul and urban contemporary gospel, composer Troy Anthony has had a meteoric rise in musical theater in the past three years, receiving commissions and residencies from the Shed, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Atlantic Theater Company and the Civilians. When Anthony is not crafting ditties of his own, he is an active performer who has participated in the Public Theaters Public Works and Shakespeare In the Park.Works include: The River Is Me (2017), The Dark Girl Chronicles (in progress)Follow Troy: Instagram

Aziza BarnesAward-winning poet Aziza Barnes moved into playwriting with one of the great sex comedies of the 2010s: BLKS, which premiered at Chicagos Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2017 before it played at MCC Theatre in 2019 (where it earned a Lucille Lortel Award nomination). The NYU grads play about three twentysomethings probed the challenges and choices of Millennials with pathos and zest that hasnt been seen since Kenneth Lonergans Gen X love/hate letter This Is Our Youth. Barnes is the author of the full-length collection of poems the blind pig and i be but i aint, which won a Pamet River Prize.Works include: BLKS (2017)Follow Aziza: Twitter

Timothy DuWhiteAddressing controversial issues such as HIV, state-sanctioned violence and structural anti-blackness, poet and performance artist Timothy DuWhite unnerves audiences with a hip-hop driven gonzo style. DuWhites raison dtre is to shock and enrage, and his provocative Neptune was, along with Donja R. Loves one in two, one of the first plays by an openly black queer writer to address HIV openly and frankly. He has worked with the United Nations/UNICEF, the Apollo Theater, Dixon Place and La MaMa.Works include: Neptune (2018)Follow Timothy: Instagram

Jirh Breon HolderRaised in Memphis and educated at Morehouse College, Jirh Breon Holder solidified his voice at the Yale School of Drama under the direction of Sarah Ruhl. He has received the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award and the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, among other honors. His play Too Heavy for Your Pocket premiered at Roundabout Underground and has since been produced in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Des Moines and Houston; his next play, ...What The End Will Be, is slated to debut at the Roundabout Theatre Company.Works include: Too Heavy for Your Pocket (2017), What The End Will Be (2020)Follow Jirh: Twitter

C.A. JohnsonBorn in Louisiana, rising star C.A. Johnson writes with a southern hospitality and homespun charm that washes over audiences like a breath of fresh air. Making a debut at MCC Theater with her coming of age romcom All the Natalie Portmans, she drew praise for her empathic take on a black queer teenage womanchild with Hollywood dreams. A core writer at the Playwrights Center, she has had fellowships with the Dramatists Guild Fellow, Page 73, the Lark and the Sundance Theatre Lab.Works include: All the Natalie Portmans (2020)Follow C.A.: Twitter

Johnny G. LloydA New York-based playwright and producer, Johnny G. Lloyd has seen his work produced and developed at the Tank, 59E59, the Corkscrew Festival, the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and more. A member of the 2019-2020 Liberation Theatre Companys Writing Residency, this Columbia University graduate is also a producing director of InVersion Theatre.Works include: The Problem With Magic, Is (2020), Or, An Astronaut Play (2019), Patience (2018)Follow Johnny: Instagram

Patricia Ione LloydIn her luminous 2018 breakthrough Eves Song at the Public Theater, Patricia Ione Lloyd offered a meditation on the violence against black women in America that is often overlooked onstage. With a style saturated in both humor and melancholy and a poetic lyricism that evokes Ntozake Shanges, the former Tow Playwright in Residence has earned fellowships at New Georges, the Dramatist Guild, Playwrights Realm, New York Theater Workshop and Sundance.Works include: Eves Song (2018)Follow Patricia: Instagram

Maia MatsushitaThe half-Black, half-Japanese educator and playwright Maia Matsushita has sounded a silent alarm in downtown theater with an array of slow-burn, naturalistic coming-of-age dramas. She was a member of The Fire This Times 2017-18 New Works Lab and part of its inaugural Writers Group, and her work has been seen at Classical Theatre of Harlems Playwright Playground and the National Black Theatres Keeping Soul Alive Reading Series.Works include: House of Sticks (2019), White Mountains (2018)Follow Maia: Instagram

Daaimah MubashshirWhen Daaimah Mubashshirs kitchen-sink dramedy Room Enough (For Us All) debuted at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in 2019, the prolific writer began a dialogue around the contemporary African-American Muslim experience and black queer expression that made her a significant storyteller to watch. She is a core writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis as well as a member of Soho Reps Writer/Director Lab, Clubbed Thumbs Early Career Writers Group, and a MacDowell Colony Fellow. Her short-play collection The Immeasurable Want of Light was published in 2018.Works include: Room Enough (For Us All) (2019)Follow Daaimah: Twitter

Jonathan NortonHailing from Dallas, Texas, Jonathan Norton is a delightfully zany playwright who subverts notions of post-blackness by underlining Americas obscure historical atrocities with bloody red slashes. The stories he tells carry a profound horror, often viewed through the eyes of black children and young adults. Nortons work has been produced or developed by companies including the Actors Theatre of Louisville (at the 44th Humana Festival), PlayPenn and InterAct Theatre Company. He is the Playwright in Residence at Dallas Theater Center.Works include: Mississippi Goddamn (2015), My Tidy List of Terrors (2013), penny candy (2019)Follow Jonathan: Website

AriDy NoxCooking up piping hot gumbos of speculative fiction, transhumanism and radical womanist expression, AriDy Nox is a rising star with a larger-than-life vision. The Spellman alum earned an MFA from NYU TIschs Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and has been a staple of various theaters such as Town Stages. A member of the inaugural 2019 cohort of the Musical Theatre Factory Makers residency, they recently joined the Public Theaters 2020-2022 Emerging Writers Group cohort.Works include: Metropolis (in progress), Project Tiresias (2018)Follow AriDy: Instagram

Akin SalawuAkin Salawus nonlinear, hyperkinetic work combines heart-pounding suspense chills with Tarantino-esque thrills while excavating Black trauma and Pan-African history in America. With over two decades of experience as a writer, director and editor, the prize-winning playwright is a two-time Tribeca All Access Winner and a member of both the Public Theaters Emerging Writers Group and Ars Novas Uncharted Musical Theater residency. A graduate of Stanford, he is a founder of the Tanks LIT Council, a theater development center for male-identifying persons of color.Works include: bless your filthy lil heart (2019), The Real Whisperer (2017), I Stand Corrected (2008)Follow Akin: Twitter

Sheldon ShawA playwright, screenwriter and actor, Sheldon Shaw studied writing at the Labyrinth Theater Company and was part of Playwrights Intensive at the Kennedy Center. Shaw has since developed into a sort of renaissance man, operating as playwright, screenwriter and actor. His plays have been developed by Emerging Artist Theaters New Works Festival, Classical Theater of Harlem and the Rooted Theater Company. Shaw's Glen was the winner of the Black Screenplays Matter competition and a finalist in the New York Screenplay Contest.Works include: Jailbait (2018), Clair (2017), Baby Starbucks (2015)Follow Johnny: Twitter

Nia O. WitherspoonMultidisciplinary artist Nia Ostrow Witherspoons metaphysical explorations of black liberation and desire have made her an in-demand presence in theater circles. The recipient of multiple honorsinclude New York Theatre Workshops 2050 Fellowship, a Wurlitzer Foundation residency and the Lambda Literarys Emerging Playwriting Fellowshipshe is currently developing The Dark Girl Chronicles, a play cycle that, in her words, explores the criminalization of black cis and trans women via African diaspora sacred stories.Works include: The Dark Girl Chronicles (in progress)Follow Nia: Instagram

Brandon WebsterA Brooklyn-based musical theatre writer and dramaturg, Brandon Webster has been a familiar figure in the NYC theater scene, both onstage and behind the scenes. With an aesthetic that fuses Afrofuturist and Afrosurrealist storytelling, with a focus on Black liberation past and present, the composers work fuses psychedelic soul flourishes with alt-R&B nuances to create a sonic smorgasbord of seething rage and remorse. He is an alumnus of the 2013 class of BMI Musical Theater Workshop and a 2017 MCC Theater Artistic Fellow.Works include: Metropolis (in progress), Headlines (2017), Boogie Nights (2015)Follow Brandon: Instagram

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Black LGBTQ+ playwrights and musical-theater artists you need to know - Time Out New York

The family of the lateHarry Hains recently released the animated video for his first posthumous singleGood Enough transporting viewers into the world of ANTIBOY, one free of societal constraints and labels. Good Enough, released under Harrys artist nameANTIBOY, is the first track from his forthcoming concept albumA Glitch in Paradise, due out later this year. Check out the video below.

A multi-dimensional and compelling musician, actor(most noted forAmerican Horror StoryandThe OA,) artist, and model,Harry didnt define himself by the constructs surrounding us, and his concept ofANTIBOYoffers a portal into an age of existence where there is complete unparalleled freedom to live without preconceptions and societal labels. At a time when society is rising up to break down old systems and demanding equality for all (and on the heels of Pride), Harrys extraordinary perspective, found at the intersection of our conversations on sexuality, gender, race and self-expression, endures because of its cultural relevance as society focuses on conversations and more importantly actions surrounding racial injustice, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, systemic oppression, and equality.

In a digital utopia where there is no inequality, prejudice, or toxicity,Harry (as the genderless transhuman being ANTIBOY)imagines a world in which the human mind and the bionic body merge. Harry lived this through his own identity, which was gender fluid, shapeshifting and open to interpretation just like his music. The focus on the merger of the human consciousness with artificial intelligence, of non-binary existence opens up a conversation about what the future of our species should and could be. PRESS HEREto watch the ANTIBOY trailer. An amalgamation of rock, electronica and gothic pop,A Glitch In Paradiseexplores the virtual world of ANTIBOY as he re-lives his mistakes in order to try to correct them and find happiness. ButANTIBOYexperiences glitches and gets stuck in an endless loop of heartache, inspired by Harrys relationship with then partner Mike.Good Enough is the first tase of this heartache a song that questions being good enough for a partner.

Jason Price founded the mighty Icon Vs. Icon more than a decade ago. Along the way, hes assembled an amazing group of like-minded individuals to spread the word on some of the most unique people and projects on the pop culture landscape.

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ANTIBOY: The Family of Harry Hains Unveils Animated Video For Good Enough Single - Icon Vs. Icon

The aims of the transhumanist movement are summed up by Mark OConnell in his book To Be a Machine, which last week won the Wellcome Book prize. It is their belief that we can and should eradicate ageing as a cause of death; that we can and should use technology to augment our bodies and our minds; that we can and should merge with machines, remaking ourselves, finally, in the image of our own higher ideals.

The idea of technologically enhancing our bodies is not new. But the extent to which transhumanists take the concept is. In the past, we made devices such as wooden legs, hearing aids, spectacles and false teeth. In future, we might use implants to augment our senses so we can detect infrared or ultraviolet radiation directly or boost our cognitive processes by connecting ourselves to memory chips. Ultimately, by merging man and machine, science will produce humans who have vastly increased intelligence, strength, and lifespans; a near embodiment of gods.

Is that a desirable goal? Advocates of transhumanism believe there are spectacular rewards to be reaped from going beyond the natural barriers and limitations that constitute an ordinary human being. But to do so would raise a host of ethical problems and dilemmas. As OConnells book indicates, the ambitions of transhumanism are now rising up our intellectual agenda. But this is a debate that is only just beginning.

There is no doubt that human enhancement is becoming more and more sophisticated as will be demonstrated at the exhibition The Future Starts Here which opens at the V&A museum in London this week. Items on display will include powered clothing made by the US company Seismic. Worn under regular clothes, these suits mimic the biomechanics of the human body and give users typically older people discrete strength when getting out of a chair or climbing stairs, or standing for long periods.

In many cases these technological or medical advances are made to help the injured, sick or elderly but are then adopted by the healthy or young to boost their lifestyle or performance. The drug erythropoietin (EPO) increases red blood cell production in patients with severe anaemia but has also been taken up as an illicit performance booster by some athletes to improve their bloodstreams ability to carry oxygen to their muscles.

And that is just the start, say experts. We are now approaching the time when, for some kinds of track sports such as the 100-metre sprint, athletes who run on carbon-fibre blades will be able outperform those who run on natural legs, says Blay Whitby, an artificial intelligence expert at Sussex University.

The question is: when the technology reaches this level, will it be ethical to allow surgeons to replace someones limbs with carbon-fibre blades just so they can win gold medals? Whitby is sure many athletes will seek such surgery. However, if such an operation came before any ethics committee that I was involved with, I would have none of it. It is a repulsive idea to remove a healthy limb for transient gain.

Not everyone in the field agrees with this view, however. Cybernetics expert Kevin Warwick, of Coventry University, sees no problem in approving the removal of natural limbs and their replacement with artificial blades. What is wrong with replacing imperfect bits of your body with artificial parts that will allow you to perform better or which might allow you to live longer? he says.

Warwick is a cybernetics enthusiast who, over the years, has had several different electronic devices implanted into his body. One allowed me to experience ultrasonic inputs. It gave me a bat sense, as it were. I also interfaced my nervous system with my computer so that I could control a robot hand and experience what it was touching. I did that when I was in New York, but the hand was in a lab in England.

Such interventions enhance the human condition, Warwick insists, and indicate the kind of future humans might have when technology augments performance and the senses. Some might consider this unethical. But even doubters such as Whitby acknowledge the issues are complex. Is it ethical to take two girls under the age of five and train them to play tennis every day of their lives until they have the musculature and skeletons of world champions? he asks. From this perspective the use of implants or drugs to achieve the same goal does not look so deplorable.

This last point is a particular issue for those concerned with the transhumanist movement. They believe that modern technology ultimately offers humans the chance to live for aeons, unshackled as they would be from the frailties of the human body. Failing organs would be replaced by longer-lasting high-tech versions just as carbon-fibre blades could replace the flesh, blood and bone of natural limbs. Thus we would end humanitys reliance on our frail version 1.0 human bodies into a far more durable and capable 2.0 counterpart, as one group has put it.

However, the technology needed to achieve these goals relies on as yet unrealised developments in genetic engineering, nanotechnology and many other sciences and may take many decades to reach fruition. As a result, many advocates such as the US inventor and entrepreneur Ray Kurzweil, nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler and PayPal founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel have backed the idea of having their bodies stored in liquid nitrogen and cryogenically preserved until medical science has reached the stage when they can be revived and their resurrected bodies augmented and enhanced.

Four such cryogenic facilities have now been constructed: three in the US and one in Russia. The largest is the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona whose refrigerators store more than 100 bodies (nevertheless referred to as patients by staff) in the hope of their subsequent thawing and physiological resurrection. It is a place built to house the corpses of optimists, as OConnell says in To Be a Machine.

Not everyone is convinced about the feasibility of such technology or about its desirability. I was once interviewed by a group of cryonic enthusiasts based in California called the society for the abolition of involuntary death, recalls the Astronomer Royal Martin Rees. I told them Id rather end my days in an English churchyard than a Californian refrigerator. They derided me as a deathist really old-fashioned.

For his part, Rees believes that those who choose to freeze themselves in the hope of being eventually thawed out would be burdening future generations expected to care for these newly defrosted individuals. It is not clear how much consideration they would deserve, Rees adds.

Ultimately, adherents of transhumanism envisage a day when humans will free themselves of all corporeal restraints. Kurzweil and his followers believe this turning point will be reached around the year 2030, when biotechnology will enable a union between humans and genuinely intelligent computers and AI systems. The resulting human-machine mind will become free to roam a universe of its own creation, uploading itself at will on to a suitably powerful computational substrate. We will become gods, or more likely star children similar to the one at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

These are remote and, for many people, very fanciful goals. And the fact that much of the impetus for establishing such extreme forms of transhuman technology comes from California and Silicon Valley is not lost on critics. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the entrepreneur who wants to send the human race to Mars, also believes that to avoid becoming redundant in the face of the development of artificial intelligence, humans must merge with machines to enhance our own intellect.

This is a part of the world where the culture of youth is followed with fanatical intensity and where ageing is feared more acutely than anywhere else on the planet. Hence the overpowering urge to try to use technology to overcome its effects.

It is also one of the worlds richest regions, and many of those who question the values of the transhuman movement warn it risks creating technologies that will only create deeper gulfs in an already divided society where only some people will be able to afford to become enhanced while many other lose out.

The position is summed up by Whitby. History is littered with the evil consequences of one group of humans believing they are superior to another group of humans, he said. Unfortunately in the case of enhanced humans they will be genuinely superior. We need to think about the implications before it is too late.

For their part, transhumanists argue that the costs of enhancement will inevitably plummet and point to the example of the mobile phone, which was once so expensive only the very richest could afford one, but which today is a universal gadget owned by virtually every member of society. Such ubiquity will become a feature of technologies for augmenting men and women, advocates insist.

Many of these issues seem remote, but experts warn that the implications involved need to be debated as a matter of urgency. An example is provided by the artificial hand being developed by Newcastle University. Current prosthetic limbs are limited by their speed of response. But project leader Kianoush Nazarpour believes it will soon be possible to create bionic hands that can assess an object and instantly decide what kind of grip it should adopt.

It will be of enormous benefit, but its use raises all sorts of issues. Who will own it: the wearer or the NHS? And if it is used to carry a crime, who ultimately will be responsible for its control? We are not thinking about these concerns and that is a worry.

The position is summed up by bioethicist professor Andy Miah of Salford University.

Transhumanism is valuable and interesting philosophically because it gets us to think differently about the range of things that humans might be able to do but also because it gets us to think critically about some of those limitations that we think are there but can in fact be overcome, he says. We are talking about the future of our species, after all.

LimbsThe artificial limbs of Luke Skywalker and the Six Million Dollar Man are works of fiction. In reality, bionic limbs have suffered from multiple problems: becoming rigid mid-action, for example. But new generations of sensors are now making it possible for artificial legs and arms to behave in much more complex, human-like ways.

SensesThe light that is visible to humans excludes both infrared and ultra-violet radiation. However, researchers are working on ways of extending the wavelengths of radiation that we can detect, allowing us to see more of the world - and in a different light. Ideas like these are particularly popular with military researchers trying to create cyborg soldiers.

PowerPowered suits or exoskeletons are wearable mobile machines that allow people to move their limbs with increased strength and endurance. Several versions are being developed by the US army, while medical researchers are working on easy-to-wear versions that would be able to help people with severe medical conditions or who have lost limbs to move about naturally.

BrainsTranshumanists envisage the day when memory chips and neural pathways are actually embedded into peoples brains, thus bypassing the need to use external devices such as computers in order to access data and to make complicated calculations. The line between humanity and machines will become increasingly blurred.

The rest is here:

No death and an enhanced life: Is the future transhuman ...

Immortality or Bust follows the 2016 presidential candidacy of Zoltan Istvan from the Transhumanist Party. If someone believes that immortality is possible and wants to run for president, their name better be Zoltan.

Transhumanism is the belief or theory that the human race can evolve behind its current physical and mental limitations with the help of science and technology. Now, whether you believe in Transhumanism or not, it does not make this documentary in less interesting. Zoltans life story sounds like a sci-fi film.

In his twenties, Zoltan Istvan traveled the world on a sailboat by himself with five hundred books aboard. In his more recent years, he had the idea to drive across the country in a coffin bus (Yes, a coffin bus) to raise awareness of Transhumanism. While doing so, he also reveals that he was running for president in 2016. At this point, just about anyone run for president, except Kanye West, he was a bit late to the party.

During the documenting of his trip and candidacy, we are given information about how technology has evolved and how it relates to human life. At one point, Zoltan talks about a heart that runs on wifi and is meant to be a life-long replacement for a human heart. We are also taken into a facility that houses frozen human bodies in hopes of waking them up/bring them back to life when science has a way of doing so and curing whatever illnesses they may have.

Zoltan talks about a heart that runs on wifi and is meant to be a life-long replacement for a human heart.

This idea of wanting to extend life is one thing, but to be immortal is something I really question. Why would anyone want that? There are far too many ethical and moral issues that come with this idea. The documentary explores these issues a bit, but not enough. It is definitely a one-sided argument and an agenda-driven documentary. With that being side, it is still quite interesting. Zoltan (along with others) gives his reasons for wanting to look further into technology to help evolve the human lifespan. Although some might have decent reasons, some are just hilarious. Zoltan often uses sex as reasoning. He talks about being able to have a heart that can withstand sexual interactions when you are older and then talks about how technology can and has made way for people to experience sexual activities while being in completely separate locations.

There is somewhat of an uneasy moment in the film. The film opens with Zoltan and his mother crying, but it is not clear why. It is not until the end of the film. It is made clear. They are crying over Zoltans fathers dead body. I get that this can push his argument further, but its also something very personal that a normal human being would probably not want on camera.

Immortality or Bust could be a documentary that is meant to sway a persons view on Transhumanism, but it is also a story of an interesting man with interesting (or far-fetched) ideas. It is surprisingly a quick watch even though it is a little more than an hour and thirteen minutes in length. Much of the documentary will also make you think of classic sci-fi movies that show how technology can change the world. Its not a good thing when Zoltan keeps mentioning Jurassic Park in his argument. We all know what happens there.

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Immortality or Bust - Film Threat

In a recent podcast, John Lennox: False Assumptions in the hype over AI, Oxford mathematician John Lennox, author of 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity (2020) discussed common mistaken assumptions with Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks.

One of them seems to be that AI might prove there is no God, replace God, or become God. Things get interesting when these science fictions meet the world of fact.

From the transcript:

Robert J. Marks: In your book, you discussed Dan Browns novel entitled Origin. Now Dan Brown is famous for writing many, I dont know, kind of strange books. One was the Da Vinci Code, but his recent one deals with artificial intelligence and you discuss his novel as the springboard for your discussion about AI in the future. What did you find appealing or compelling about Browns novel that you commented on it so much?

John Lennox: Well, it was the actual story line. The main character in Origin is a billionaire computer scientist and AI expert whos called Edmond Kirsch, and he claims to have solved the fundamental big questions that everybody asks at some time, Where do we come from and where are we going? And he uses AI in the novel to answer these questions. But his intention is philosophical, and thats what caught my attention. In fact, somebody told me that this was in the book and thats why I read it.

His goal was to, I quote, employ the truth of science to destroy the myth of religions, in particular Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and he actually concentrates on Christianity. And so here is someone using AI to answer these big questions in such a way as to completely destroy, in his view, religions answers and hes using AI to do it. And the kind of AI involved is, of course, the more science fiction type. Its the advanced technological modification of human beings into transhuman beings or into super intelligences. And I was very interested in the kind of philosophy thats coming through. And that was one of my motives for writing this book.

Robert J. Marks: I see. Dan Brown has some presuppositions, doesnt he?

John Lennox: Oh, of course he has presuppositions. And its hard to really disentangle his own presuppositions from those of his main characters, except for the very interesting fact that the hero of many of his books is a professor of symbology, whatever that means, called Robert Langdon. And hes an expert at recognizing all sorts of mysterious and rare and hidden patterns in things.

But one of the astonishing things about the book was when Langdon is asked the question about the origin of the genetic code, which figures very largely in the book and theres great interest in developing exactly what this involves. And Landon says something like this, and it raises the questions of God. He says, The question of God, for me, lies in understanding the difference between codes and patterns. Patterns occur everywhere in nature, the spiraling seeds of a sunflower, the hexagonal cells of a honeycomb and so on. Codes are special. Codes by definition must carry information. Codes must transmit data and convey meaning.

And he ends up by saying, Codes are the deliberate inventions of intelligent consciousness. They dont appear organically, they must be created.

And one of the other female heroes in the book says, You think DNA was created by an intelligence?

And he just goes as far as saying, I feel as if Im seeing a living footprint, the shadow of some greater force that is just beyond our grasp.

And I thought, This is utterly fascinating. In a book by someone whos trying to bring down religion by the use of AI, what hes doing is actually heightening evidence for the existence of God by postulating an intelligent designer for DNA. So its a very complex thing.

Robert J. Marks: Very interesting. So Dan Brown, who is obviously agnostic, or certainly not religious in any sense, came to the logical conclusion that I think many theists or deists do, that there must be a creator behind some of these things. At least he was intellectually honest at the end.

Note: The full transcript is available as a download at the podcast page. Show Notes and Resources may be found below.

In an earlier podcast, Lennox and Marx discussed 2084 vs 1984the difference AI could make to Big Brother There, Lennox made the point that we need to seriously think about whether the surveillance AI technology enables is an advantage before were engulfed by it.

You may also enjoy:

John Lennox: How AI raises the stakes for all of us. AI could cause more serious problems than nuclear energy. You cannot build a bomb in your bedroom but you could hack your way around the world.

and

Exclusive!: John Lennox answers our questions about AI in 2084. In his new book, 2084, the Oxford mathematician doubts that AI, now or then, will out-think humans. Our real worry is how the tech will be used.

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In Dan Brown's AI Hype Novel, the Hero Stumbles Onto God - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

I will be expanding on this, but this point from a regular astute commenter is exactly one that I have touched upon here:

Heaven & Hell Stop You From Genuinely Morally Evaluating

But if you cant be bothered to read that, read(((J_Enigma32)))s recent comment:

Oh, theres a bunch of problems with heaven, but all of it anchors around the reward based-system that religion depends on. Youre never virtuous for your own sake; youre always acting according to your own idea of virtue because you know if you dont, you wont get into heaven. Therefore, one could argue that by your own standards, you arent a virtuous person if you believe in heaven and are motivated by heaven as a potential reward. And thats before we get into the issue of heaven dividing families and the suffering that will inevitably cause. Its what happens when your reward system is individually based rather than focused on something like a society as a whole.The very existence of heaven implies that morality is unimportant; if morality were important and satisfying, then that would be the end goal itself and morality and virtue would be seen as an atelic activity rather than a telic one.

Its a problem that results from all teleological narratives, actually, where they be religious ideas of realitys nature or the historical narratives of the orthodoxy, pushing their particular brand of nationalism, or some libertarian transhumanists, who think were moving closer to something they call a singularity by virtue of their historical narrative of the endless self-improving nature of technology. All of those are wrong, just like heaven is wrong, but theyre all wrong in an understandably human way, and one that fails to account for the hedonic treadmill, which is vital to a discussion like this.

To which marblesanswered:

This was a joy to read, thanks.

one could argue that by your own standards, you arent a virtuous person if you believe in heaven and are motivated by heaven as a potential reward

I actually asked my youth pastor about this when I was around 11 or 12. She laughed and told me not to overthink it, just be a good person for whatever reason I want to.

Addendum: as I see it, if youre only practicing virtue in the hopes of a reward, your true nature shows itself sooner or later. You can always rationalize why youre totally going to Heaven no matter how repulsive a human being you are.

So, can you ever be truly moral, truly alturistic? Its the classic question that I remember debating at school (even then, I surmised that you couldnt). Either way, its even harder with the twin ultimate conceptual blackmails of heaven and hell hanging over you.

Stay in touch! Like A Tippling Philosopher on Facebook:

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Quote of the Day on the Morality of Those Seeking Heaven - Patheos

Unrated is an alternative arts & music fundraiser concert hosted on a Real-Time Live 3D Virtual Events platform with a Mission for Raising INR 1 Million Funds for COVID-19 Warriors. Transhuman Collective, an award-winning immersive experience design consultancy and production company introduces its open to all Real-Time Live Virtual Event called UNRATED on 18th and 19th July, 2020 from 6:30 pm onwards. Transhuman Collective has been successfully creating and delivering some of the most spectacular events for brands and Govt bodies over the years. The aim behind UNRATED is to raise funds for the COVID-19 warriors. In association with GiveIndia, Transhuman Collective will be engaging the audience in a never seen before experience through UNRATED. The mission is to raise INR 1 Million in order to provide PPE Kits to COVID-19 warriors. In view of the ongoing circumstances, the minds behind Transhuman Collective thought of creating and providing a unique concept that will engage and motivate audiences across the globe. The event is sure to be one of the best campaigns as UNRATED is a festival by the artist and for the artists.

The concert will not only feature the most eclectic music artists but also visual and graffiti artists, like Ash Roy, Calm Chor, Artist Vinayak, Ox7gen, Zokhuma, Nate08, Helium Project and Nelsonto name a few. It will also feature Live visual artists and street artists like Cursorama, Vj Decoy, Samvida+Viktor, Daku, Arthat and Yantr.

The industry has been noticing various virtual events that have been hosted in India, but somewhere there was a lack of a never seen before concept. Transhuman Collective along with their team of enthusiasts conceptualised a multiple immersive technology like Realtime 3D technology, sound reactive lights, augmented reality, holographic, projection mapping etc to offer a one of a kind experience to their audience. Thereby, the organizers built their own Real Time LIVE 3D Virtual Events platform called TransSpace.

Read more here:

A music and arts festival for Mumbaikars - Times of India

MUMBAI: Are you set to travel a million miles away from the Earth?

Transhuman Collective, an award-winning immersive experience design consultancy and production company introduces its open to all Real-Time 3D Virtual Event called UNRATED on 18th and 19th July, 2020 from 6:30 pm onwards.

Transhuman Collective has been successfully creating and delivering some of the most spectacular events for brands and Govt bodies over the years. The aim behind UNRATED is to raise funds for the COVID-19 warriors. In association with GiveIndia, Transhuman Collective will be engaging the audiences in a never seen before experience through UNRATED. The mission is to raise INR 1 Million in order to provide PPE Kits to COVID-19 warriors.

In view of the ongoing circumstances, the minds behind Transhuman Collective thought of creating and providing a unique concept that will engage and motivate audiences across the globe. The event is sure to be one of the best experiences as UNRATED is a festival by the artist and for the artists. Some of the best Alternative Artists will be performing LIVE to enthral the audiences in their 3D Avatars. Ash Roy, Calm Chor, Vinayak^a, Ox7gen, Zokhuma, Nate08, Helium Project and Nelson, to name a few. The Real-time 3D event will also feature Live visual artists like Cursorama, Vj Decoy, Samvida+Viktor, Naveen Deshpande and public art artists like Daku, Arthat and Yantr.

The industry has been noticing various virtual events that have been hosted in India, but somewhere there was a lack of a never seen before concept. Transhuman Collective along with their team of enthusiasts conceptualised this event with multiple immersive technologies like Realtime 3D, sound reactive virtual lights, augmented reality, holographic, projection mapping etc to offer a one of a kind experience to their audience. Thereby, the organizers built their own Real-Time LIVE 3D Virtual Events platform called TransSpace.

TransSpace is a platform for the brands to create cinematic stories, immersive brand launches, video conferences, webinars, music festivals, among others. The aim is to create a spellbound portrayal of live events for the artists to explore the new virtual medium connecting with the audience. The aim is to enthral the audience to celebrate the indomitable spirit of COVID-19 warriors and the passion of the donors to make this journey endearing.

Looking at the nationwide lockdown scenario, I truly believe that each and every one needs to do their bit. Hence, we at Transhuman Collective along with our group of friends from the alternative music and arts community have come together actively to host UNRATED. We are glad to offer a space with a unique and never seen before concept. The event is open to all across the globe in a hope of raising INR 1 million to provide PPE kits for our medical health workers. Our ambition is to get this message out loud and far, says, Soham Sarcar, Co-Founder, Transhuman Collective.

Sidhraj Shah, Co-Founder, TransSpace, says, Given the prevalent times, the necessity for collaborations and standing united is the need of the hour. Through TransSpace we have created a platform for the brands to create cinematic stories, immersive brand launches, video conferences, webinars, music festivals, among others. We aim to augment the audiences experience of watching a LIVE event virtually with a strong narrative to support. The goal here is to create a gripping narrative which the audience connects to and create a canvas for the artists to explore the new virtual medium.

The event will be live on YouTube / Vimeo and Twitch

Social Media Links

TRANSHUMAN COLLECTIVEFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/transhumancollective/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/transhumancollective/

UNRATEDInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/unrated.live/

TRANSSPACEInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/transspace.india/

Donation Link: https://unrated.giveindia.org./

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Experience never seen before immersive music and art festival with transhuman collective 'UNRATED' - RadioandMusic.com

For any new parent, sleep is very important. Not just for themselves but even for their newborn. Studies suggest thata good nights sleepis extremely important for the cognitive growth of infants. And to get a good nights sleep, the mattress plays an important role.

To address this problem, Sameer Agarwal, Swapnil Rao, Aneesha Pillai, and Deepak Gupta founded NapNap in 2017. The Mumbai-based startup is an end-to-end consumer products company, focussed on the global mothercare and baby care segment.

The NapNap Team

According to the founders, its flagship product,NapNap Mat, is a portable baby mattress that mimics a mothers womb using a precise combination of vibrations and white noise to soothe infants and lull them to sleep within minutes.

Based on clinical trials conducted by Harvard Medical Center and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston, USA), NapNap Mat regularises infant breathing and treats apnea among preterm babies by 50 percent.

Sameer comes with over 12 years of experience in Sales and Business Development, Operations and Finance. Before founding NapNap Mat, he co-founded Art Should Tempt and ClassHopr. Swapnil has over 12 years of experience in product development, brand building, and marketing. Before founding NapNap Mat, Swapnil co-founded Mobizon Media and Transhuman Collective.

Deepak has over 12 years of experience in Quality and Systems Engineering. He earlier founded Future Foundry a product design firm. Aneesha brings over eight years in Engineering, Leadership, and General Management. She has an MBA from JBIMS and has previously worked with JP Morgan.

Sameer and Swapnil got the initial idea to start up in the space after one of their friend had a preterm baby. The baby was in distress due to lack of sleep.

Once they had the idea, they reached out to Deepak Gupta and Aneesha Pillai, who were their engineering classmates. The team had been dabbling with product design and they got together and decided to engineer the product based on the scientific data.

The four of us built the first few prototypes and did the initial round of testing in the market before hiring our first employee. Once we had the market acceptance and the product was flying off the shelf, we didn't need to try hard to attract great talent, says Sameer. They are now a team of 16.

While there are a number of mattress brands in the country, the concept of a vibration-therapy-based baby bed is new in the Indian ecosystem.

So, creating a new category and educating the masses about the benefits of using a NapNap Mat was one of the biggest hurdles faced by the team in the initial months.

Apart from this, consumer product companies require high capital infusion and its even higher when someone creates something totally new and deploys resources towards R&D as theres no reference point. So, managing capital initially to create an MVP in the market was quite a challenge and required lot of planning, says Sameer.

When the baby is still in the womb, it gets accustomed to the sounds and vibrations of the mothers body processes, and when the baby is born, it is suddenly in an unfamiliar territory.

Any little change in temperature, movement, and unfamiliar sound makes the infant feel extremely uncomfortable, and the baby reacts by crying due to distress, and hence finds it difficult to fall asleep.

The product works best for babies up to one year old. The startup claims the mat improves breathing, boosts sleep, reduces crying, reduces colic, it is travel friendly, and safe. It can be used in strollers, car seats, cribs, activity mats, bassinets, etc.

The NapNap mat

Indias mattress market is estimated to be worth Rs 10,000 crore, according to media reports. Startups like Cuddl,SleepyCat, Wink&Nod, and Sunday Mattress are all taking sleep seriously and are using advanced tech and raw materials to build their products. There is also The Sleep Company and Sequoia-backed Wakefit operating in the space.

Horizontal marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, and ShopClues also offer branded and unbranded mattresses.

With an ecosystem of smart, inter-connected products, NapNap is redefining how technology and data will enable parenting in the future. NapNap is leading this change by solving one parenting problem at a time. It works with single mothers and gives them a platform to generate wealth in all forms (not just money), says Sameer.

The NapNap Mat is ISO 9001-2015 certified and is also certified by a CPSC-approved lab, and considered safe for 0-2 year old babies. It also meets British safety standards for babies.

The startup claims to have scaled 10X in the first year of its launch. Its average order value is Rs 2,000, and its ARR is Rs 2 crore, with gross margin of 66 percent.

NapNap, which has six products in the pipeline, is available on all online marketplaces in India, including Amazon and FirstCry. It has also expanded its presence to markets outside India, such as Dubai and Australia, and soon plans to start operations in the UK.

Since we go direct-to-customer, we can manage to keep the MRP fairly lower and still deliver a very high quality product by offsetting channel margins, says Sameer.

NapNap has raised a pre seed round led by ThinQbate Ventures LLP and Hatcher Plus. It is currently looking to raise a seed round.

The team aims to become the biggest baby mattress company in the world in the next few years.It aims to pacify babies across the globe using technology, design, and innovation. It also aims to scale and consolidate the Indian market for NapNap Mat and NapNap Nursing cover.

We aim to push traction in the UAE, the UK, and Australia market, launch version 2.0 of the NapNap Mat, launch Shusher + (white noise device), and also launch peripheral products (swaddle, feeding bottle, and pacifier), says Sameer.

Want to make your startup journey smooth? YS Education brings a comprehensive Funding Course, where you also get a chance to pitch your business plan to top investors. Click here to know more.

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This startup is ensuring babies get a good nights sleep with its smart mattress - YourStory

If you dont pay much attention to the news until recently, then chances are youre a bit confused by Jeffrey Epstein and just what he did. Who is Jeffrey Epstein? Why do people not believe that he committed suicide? Why was Jeffrey Epstein in jail? While weve covered many, many, many aspects of Epstein and hes crimes, its time for some back to basics facts.

Who is Jeffrey Epstein exactly? The story is complicated, sordid, and terrible on so many levels. Jeffrey Epstein was a predator in life. While many people focus on his death, the actions that preceded it should be given your due attention. Heres everything you need to know, just the basic facts, about who Jeffrey Epstein was in life.

Jeffrey Epstein was an investment banker, who, specifically, had clientele with assets worth more than $1 billion. Epstein operated his business in the US Virgin Islands for tax reasons. Epstein himself was also quite wealthy, but the source of that wealth remains pretty unknown.

Still appearances matter, Epstein had cultivated an image with his townhouse, his large charitable donations, and worked with people such as Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Queen Elizabeths son Prince Andrew. Epstein, however, also had a criminal past and this is where things get dark.

Jeffrey Epstein was a registered sex offender. In 2008, Epstein pled guilty to felony charge of solicitation of prostitution involving a minor, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He served 13 and registered as a sex offender.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking in New Jersey after returning to the US from France. According to the indictment, Epstein sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations.

The indictment continued that Epstein paid certain of his victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused. The indictment also alleged that some of Epsteins victims were as young as 14. After Epsteins arrest, a search of his New York residence found nude photographs of underage girls.

He was denied bail.

If there is something youve heard about Jeffrey Epstein, then chances are it had to do around his suicide. On July 24, 2019, Epstein was found injured in his cell. In Aug. 2019, Epstein died of what was ruled a suicide. The Federal Bureau of Prisons released the following statement:

On Saturday, August 10, 2019, at approximately 6:30 a.m., inmate Jeffrey Edward Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell in the Special Housing Unit from an apparent suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York, New York. Life-saving measures were initiated immediately by responding staff.

Staff requested emergency medical services (EMS) and life-saving efforts continued. Mr. Epstein was transported by EMS to a local hospital for treatment of life-threatening injuries, and subsequently pronounced dead by hospital staff.

Conspiracy theories popped up pretty much immediately. People believed that Epsteins high profile social circle wanted him silenced forever. Others believed that it was due to Epsteins own thoughts regarding eugenics and transhumanism that led to his death. Or, as a good part of the population believed, Epstein killed himself rather than being convicted and sent to prison.

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Who exactly was Jeffrey Epstein? A history of the mogul and his crimes - Film Daily

On Wednesday, 24 June (7 pm - 8.30 pm, London Time), Luke Mason will be interviewing Steve Fuller about his latest book, Nietzschean Meditations: Untimely Thoughts at the Dawn of the Transhuman Era. The event, which is part of the FUTURES Podcast series, will be livestreamed but registration is required.

In Nietzschean Meditations, Fuller openly discusses the more transgressive elements of transhumanism, often in ways that transgress the norms of transhumanism itself. In particular, the book considers the nature and extent of the movements commitment to morphological freedom and asks whether the opportunity for immortality should be seized or resisted. In short, what is the new metaphysics of personal identity and the ethics of life and death in a transhumanist world? Those interested in dipping into the book, can do so here:

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Livestream event on Steve Fuller's Nietzschean Meditations - Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

"Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it. Extinction is approaching. Fight it."

Transhumans are people who have been artificially enhanced with mental and/or physical abilities beyond what is considered normal for the species from an evolutionary standpoint. Despite the name, species-wide artificial improvement is not actually limited to humans other species or entities that are enhanced count as well. The means used for this augmentation can be anything from magic to science.

Transhumanism as a movement and a philosophy implies that people can, and should, become transhuman en masse rather than be restricted to a select few who came across such abilities through extraordinary circumstances. By implying that scientific progress may grant superhuman powers to anyone with appropriate knowledge and resources, and without any regard for predestination, luck or hard work, transhumanism is notoriously opposed to narrative exceptionalism. A positive portrayal of transhumanism generally places a work on the Enlightenment side of the Romanticism Versus Enlightenment spectrum while a negative portrayal or conspicuous absence of it does the opposite.

Proponents argue that transhumanism is an essential part of our future lives, because...

The opponents also have many arguments to support their views.

Historically, media has not been kind to transhumanists. For a long time, desiring for human improvement has been the province of dictatorial dystopian societies or a Mad Scientist with a God complex. Anarcho-Cyber Punk writers focused on how cybernetic augmentation could be abused to the detriment of society. Religious Moral Guardians object to the idea on the ground of tampering with God's creation (though, ironically, many religions espouse a transhuman plane of existence free from the sinfulness of flesh). And, particularly with the rise of far right and Neo-Nazi movements in recent years, there is the concern that transhumanism can serve as a rebranding of the old Eugenics Movement designed to make it seem more palatable. In fiction, upgrading a human being through science was usually portrayed as a bad idea strictly due to the Squick factor, and even when it wasn't, it was either shown as a Deadly Upgrade with significant disadvantages or a part of an Utopia Justifies the Means plan objectionable on moral grounds.

Curiously enough, as augmentation-based medical therapies gain traction through both in-vivo genetic engineering and advanced prosthetics and improve human lives in ways thought impossible in the past, the criticism has gradually subsided. Today, many would agree that, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint, transhumanism has a great potential to be used for good, with the criticism being mainly aimed towards the implementation and its potential pitfalls and dangers rather than the idea itself.

The word "transhuman" is now found in legitimate scientific and political debates.

In spite of being seldom mentioned by name, transhumanism encompasses many of the science fiction staples with their distinct tropes:

For some of the abilities a Transhuman might have, see Stock Superpowers; related to How to Give a Character Superpowers. See also No Transhumanism Allowed. This may be used as an aspect of a Cyberpunk or Post-Cyberpunk setting.

Compare the bermensch,notemeaning "over-man" or "superman" in German whose transcendency is psychological and moral in nature rather than physical.

Subtrope of Trans Nature. Mutants and Human Subspecies may or may not be a result of this, and they may be crippled instead of "enhanced". Contrast Formerly Sapient Species. Not to be confused with Transgender people, though medically transitioning is a mild form of real life transhumanist modification.

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Transhuman - TV Tropes

Scientists at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology make artificial eye far better than anything current.

The biological eye is a highly complex organ, and people have spent decades trying to replicate this most delicate organ through technology. Existing prosthetic eyes fall short with low-resolutions and 2D flat image sensors.

Now, an international team of researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and the University of California, Berkley, have overcome this shortcoming by making, for the first time, a biomimetic prosthetic eye using a nanowire array that creates a hemispherical artifical retina. I.e., a 3D image sensor.

Publishing in Nature, (paywall) the team at HKUST showcase their Electrochemical Eye (EC-Eye). Whilst holding great promise in the field of robotics and for people with visual impairments, in perhaps more tantalizing future applications, the team believes their EC-Eye may actually offer sharper vision than a natural human eye, and include extra functions such as the ability to detect infrared radiation in darkness. This of course is stepping into the realm of transhumanism, and the ethical quagmire this entails. But apart from exciting fans of science fiction, the EC-Eye most certainly has more immediate promise for those whose natural vision is severely impaired.

The key to this new artificial eye is the nanowire array mentioned above. These nanowires are derived from perovskite solar cell technology, and are essentially individual nano-solar cells, and can therefore mimic biological photoreceptors found in the retina. These nanowires were then connected to a bundle of liquid-metal wires, serving as artificial nerves, which successfully channeled the light signals to a computer screen which showed what the nanowire array could see.

With electronic-to-nerve interfaces research already well under way, it is hoped that one day these nanowire retinas could be directly implanted and attached to the optic nerves of visually impaired patients. More astonishing still, is that this artificial retina is superior to a natural retina when it comes to the shortcomings that have arisen out of the evolution of the natural retina. All retinas have a blind spot, caused by the fact the bundles of optic nerves have to connect somewhere on the retina to transport information to the brain. This connection point on the retina has no space for photoreceptor cells, and is therefore a blind spot on the retina. Thankfully, your brain fills in the blanks of this blind spot so that people with healthy vision dont see it. However, the effects of this blind spot can be seen if you like to look up at the stars at night. Find a very dim star, and try to look at it directly; it becomes hard to see, but its easier to see if you instead look directly around it.

The EC-Eye does not have such a blind spot.

Furthermore, the nanowires are higher in density than the photoreceptor cells in the human retina. Therefore, in theory, the artificial retina can detect more light signals and therefore produce a higher image resolution than even the most healthy retinas of a human with twenty-twenty vision.

The advantages of an EC-Eye over a natural eye are also the fact that using different materials can enable the detection of a higher spectral range, potentially allowing people with such EC-Eye implants to see in the dark, if their artificial retina can detect infrared light.

However, the authors caution that this technology is still in its early stages.

I have always been a big fan of science fiction, said Prof. Zhiyong Fan of HKUST in a press release, and lead author of the study, and I believe many technologies featured in stories such as those of intergalactic travel, will one day become reality. However, regardless of image resolution, angle of views or user-friendliness, the current bionic eyes are still of no match to their natural human counterpart. A new technology to address these problems is in urgent need, and it gives me a strong motivation to start this unconventional project.

Originally posted here:

Artificial eye with 3D retina developed for the first time - Advanced Science News

Read: Your professional decline is coming (much) sooner than you think

The good news is that its possible to work on extinguishing the terror of this virtual death by borrowing from techniques used to vanquish the fear of physical death.

The fear of literal nonexistence through death is addressed by many philosophical and religious traditions. Many Buddhist monasteries in Southeast Asia, for example, display photos of corpses in various states of decomposition. This body, too, Buddhist monks learn in the Satipatthana Sutta to say about themselves as they look at the photos, such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate.

Some monks engage in a meditation called maranasati (mindfulness of death), which consists of imagining nine states of ones own dead body:

At first, this seems strange and morbid. The objective, however, is to make death vivid in the mind of the meditator, and, through repetition, familiar. Psychologists call this process desensitization, in which repeated exposure to something repellent or frightening makes it seem ordinary, prosaic, and less scary.

Read: How happiness changes with age

Western research has tested the idea of death desensitization. In 2017, a team of researchers recruited volunteers to imagine that they were terminally ill or on death row, and then to write about the feelings they imagined they would have. The researchers then compared these thoughts with writings by those who were actually terminally ill or facing execution. The results, published in Psychological Science under the title Dying Is Unexpectedly Positive, were astounding: People imagining their deaths were three times as negative as those actually facing it. Death, it seems, is scarier when it is theoretical than when it is real.

Contemplating death can also inspire courage. There is an ancient Japanese story about a band of lawless samurai warriors notorious for terrorizing the local people. Every place they went, they brought destruction. One day they come to a Zen Buddhist monastery, intent on violence and plunder. The monks ran away in fear for their lives--all except the abbot, a man who had completely mastered the fear of his own death. He sat quietly in the lotus position as the warriors burst in. Approaching the abbot with his sword drawn, the samurai leader said, Dont you see that I am the sort of man who could run you through without batting an eye? Calmly, the master answered, Dont you see that I am a man who could be run through without batting an eye?

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The Best Way to Handle Your Decline Is to Confront It Head On - The Atlantic

Jun 12th 2020

by MARK O'CONNELL

This piece is from 1843, our sister magazine of ideas, lifestyle and culture.

IN APRIL I was supposed to be in New York for the American launch of my new book, whose subject, you may be amused to learn, is apocalyptic anxiety. Obviously I didnt go to New York. But I did have a book launch of sorts, in the form of a Zoom webinar hosted by the bookstore where the irl event had been scheduled to take place.

So one evening I sat in my living room in Dublin, while an editor I work with at an American magazine sat in his living room in Brooklyn, and we both drank our beers while having as free-flowing a conversation as the situation permitted. The event was deemed a success, given the circumstances. But it was hard not to experience a Zoom webinar as a somewhat flat and dispiriting substitute for a real gathering, in just the same way that everything these days seems a flat and dispiriting substitute for real life.

After the live-stream ended, I was sitting in front of my laptop with most of a beer to finish. I felt a nervous energy coursing through me but had nowhere to go. So I went onto Google Maps and parachuted into the exact location I should have been that evening using the little yellow flailing man that summons up Street View, Googles immersive photographic panoramas of the worlds roads.

All of a sudden I was on Flatbush Avenue. It was a bright summers day and there was traffic on the street school buses and delivery trucks, vans and yellow cabs. I could almost feel the heat coming off the pavement as I drifted insubstantially northward towards Prospect Park, ghosting through oncoming cars and ups trucks, idly looking out for a bar where we might have gone for drinks once the launch wound down.

I opened another beer, and as the night deepened into early morning I found myself returning to places I remembered from previous trips to New York, places I would have revisited had I been there now. I wandered around the Meatpacking District, trying to find the spot where, on my first trip to the city 20 years ago, a friend and I, after leaving a party, happened across an abandoned sofa on a pier, which we sat on while smoking a joint and looking out over the Hudson river as the sun came up. I made my way towards Chelsea, but couldnt find the pier, and wasnt sure I would have recognised the place anyway, not without the abandoned sofa.

In the following days, I found myself returning to Google Street View, haunting the digitised landscape of my memory. It was an exercise in nostalgia, obviously, but it was something else too. I was entering a kind of crude, 3d rendering of the way the world used to be, open and accessible and alive. All those people out in their shirt sleeves, their faces algorithmically blurred but unmasked, all those cars and vans and trucks hustling people and goods from one place to another. In the next few days, when I should have been in New York, I kept returning at odd moments to the Street View version of the city, re-enacting walks I had once taken, exploring neighbourhoods I half-remembered from previous trips, wandering through the mists of memory.

It struck me that I was engaged in a pale online imitation of a habit I have cultivated when travelling. Whenever I return to somewhere I havent been to in years, it has long been my custom to return to places I have visited before and whose memory persists. Like all the best pleasures, my satisfaction is elevated by an element of shame. Isnt travel supposed to be about new things, new places, about annexing unexplored realms to the empire of personal experience? What a ridiculous thing to do, when you think about it, to return to Amsterdam or Los Angeles or Berlin or Milan and, instead of finding fresh parts of the city to encounter, to set a course straight for the one place you remember from the last time you were there.

YOU ARE NOT VISITING A PLACE YOU REMEMBER FROM YOUR PAST; YOU ARE VISITING THE PAST ITSELF AND A YOUNGER INCARNATION OF YOURSELF

When I was writing my first book, a non-fiction account of the transhumanist movement in Silicon Valley, I made a number of trips to San Francisco. I had spent some time there in my late teens and early 20s my grandmother was from there and I still had family in the city. Whenever I had time free from researching my book, I would hunt down the places I remembered from previous visits. Amoeba Records on Haight Street, the City Lights bookstore in Chinatown and the nearby Old Saint Marys Cathedral, which has a clock tower inscribed with a biblical quotation that had always haunted me: Son, Observe the Time and Fly from Evil.

The appeal of this has, in one sense, less to do with any special quality of the location per se than with the vertiginous thrill of time folding in on itself. You are not visiting a place you remember from your past; you are visiting the past itself and a younger incarnation of yourself. In another sense, though, the impulse to loiter in old haunts feeds off a tension inherent in travel between the desire to discover unpredictable and exciting things and the desire to take some ownership over a place to forge a connection between the foreign and the familiar.

One of the strangest aspects of life in our new viral reality is the relentless sameness of every day. Hardly a day goes by when I dont think at least once of Estragons line in Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot: Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, its awful! In life, as in theatre, things happen in the form of people coming and going, and one of the great pleasures of travel is that it creates a sense of plot. Right now, like most of us, I am going nowhere. Not only can I not go to New York, I cant even go to the other side of Dublin. There is no coming, no going, no event of any kind.

But there is a sense in which I have, in fact, been able to travel. Within the five-kilometre radius around my home, to which I was confined for a number of weeks, I began consciously to explore an area I have lived in for most of my life. Taking advantage of the reduced traffic on Dublins roads, I cycled around the quietened landscape of the city.

I live close to Phoenix Park, a huge inner-city park with long tree-lined avenues, large wooded areas, lakes and wild deer. Before the virus struck, I had never ventured very far into it. I had gone there mostly to visit the zoo or one of the playgrounds with my kids, or for a brief run on one of its peripheral pathways. Now, almost every day, I cycle around the park, discovering regions of its sprawling interior Id previously left untouched. There are ponds and streams I had never seen before, paths I never knew existed, a large but unremarkable house I had not known Winston Churchill lived in as a child.

Recently, having read in the Irish Times about a small dolmen, a stone tomb that had been hidden away on the far side of the park since the Bronze Age, my family and I went in search of it and eventually found it in an area whose existence we were previously unaware of. Granted, it wasnt exactly the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. It was small enough for my children to sit on like a bench, and unremarkable enough that we would have passed by without noticing it had we not been looking out for it. But it was worth seeing, and the pleasure, in any case, was in finding it.

This strikes me as a strange inversion of my old compulsion, when travelling, to return to places remembered from previous visits. I have become something like a tourist in my own neighbourhood, finding the unexpected in the familiar. The place I live in feels uncannily new, the streets and buildings different now, as though I am seeing them for the first time. Sometimes it feels as though I am in a city I remember from a dream I thought Id forgotten. Maybe Ill miss that strangeness too, when the bustle returns.

I do miss the world beyond my radius: the old world, where I could visit foreign cities and retrace my steps to familiar places. But I have learned, in the meantime, to look for the foreign in the familiar. And I have learned that you dont have to go very far in order to find it. You dont even have to leave your neighbourhood.

Mark O'Connellis the author of Notes from an Apocalypse

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How to go on holiday in a pandemic - The Economist

Transhumanists believe humans can and should use technology to artificially augment their capabilities.Natasha Vita-More is Executive Director of Humanity+, formerly the World Transhumanist Association, and is one of the co-authors of the 1998 Transhumanist Declaration.

Speaking toExpress.co.ukshe said: We certainly do need to upgrade our biology and Ive been speaking about this for 30-something years.

The fact that our biology is vulnerable. We exist on a daily basis with an incredible vulnerable vehicle, our bodies, that anything could go wrong at any time.

As far as genetic engineering goes weve seen great work done with certain diseases like Tay-Sachs and sickle-cell anemia, certain cancers, certain diseases that handicap us.

Other gene therapies are in the works and there still needs to be far more work in this area and I think most of us will be undergoing gene therapy as soon as it comes online as needed.

Say 50 years from now I think well be looking at alternative bodies and we can see that really growing in the field of prosthetics.

Transhumanists think human lifespans can be radically extended, with many believing ageing can be reversed and death from disease abolished.

Ms Vita-More argued future humans will look to backup the content of their brains as an insurance policy against death or injury.

She asserted: It is essential our memories be stored some place.

Currently our memories are stored in our brain but thats vulnerable. We have hackers all the time in our brains and those are called viruses and disease.

Disease is constantly hacking our neurons so in order to protect that we need to have copies of it, we need to back it up and you see certain industry leaders like Google looking at how to back up the brain.

I see uploading as a necessary technology for not only backing up the brain but as a means for us to go into different environments.

Were currently in this physical/material world, this biosphere, there are other worlds yet to be explored just as were looking at space exploration.

READ MORE:Oxford academic claims future humans could live for thousands of years

Another area is virtual reality, augmented reality, all these other systems even in games to go into games and participate as yourself taking on an avatar or maybe something else.

Asked about those who might object, on religious or moral grounds, to radical life extension Ms Vita-More expressed confidence their arguments would be overcome.

She commented: I think its largely religious but I think it is also innate.

I think the narrative is engrained in culturalization, it seems to be endemic across cultures.

Given that plus the largest percentage of people on our planet are religious that puts a damper on it too. However it doesnt prevent it.

It could be interesting if we see religious doctrines changing a little bit to include life extension and changing as weve seen with divorce.

If you believe an afterlife it doesnt have to happen at exactly a certain time. Maybe instead of 90 as a lifespan maybe 300 if you want to go that route.

So well see a realisation that religions have to keep up with the state of society and their members within that.

Ms Vita-More is also an advisor to the Singularity University and co-editor and contributing author to The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future.

Asked what most excites her about the future she replied: I would like to totally reengineer my body, its not available yet but Id like to have a whole new body thats smoothly integrated not only with narrow artificial intelligence (AI) but with artificial general intelligence and Id like to have a metabrain where Id have AI working with me like a best friend or cohort.

Excerpt from:

Humans will be able to replace their bodies within 50 years claims transhumanist writer - Express.co.uk

University of Oxford

Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Oxford and Cambridge, the oldest universities in Britain and two of the oldest in the world, are keeping a watchful eye on the buzzy field of artificial intelligence (AI), which has been hailed as a technology that will bring about a new industrial revolution and change the world as we know it.

Over the last few years, each of the centuries-old institutions have pumped millions of pounds into researching the possible risks associated with machines of the future.

Clever algorithms can already outperform humans at certain tasks. For example, they can beat the best human players in the world at incredibly complex games like chess and Go, and they're able to spot cancerous tumors in a mammogram far quicker than a human clinician can. Machines can also tell the difference between a cat and a dog, or determine a random person's identity just by looking at a photo of their face. They can also translate languages, drive cars, and keep your home at the right temperature. But generally speaking, they're still nowhere near as smart as the average 7-year-old.

The main issue is that AI can't multitask. For example, a game-playing AI can't yet paint a picture. In other words, AI today is very "narrow" in its intelligence. However, computer scientists at the the likes of Google and Facebook are aiming to make AI more "general" in the years ahead, and that's got some big thinkers deeply concerned.

Nick Bostrom, a 47-year-old Swedish born philosopher and polymath, founded the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) at the University of Oxford in 2005 to assess how dangerous AI and other potential threats might be to the human species.

In the main foyer of the institute, complex equations beyond most people's comprehension are scribbled on whiteboards next to words like "AI safety" and "AI governance." Pensive students from other departments pop in and out as they go about daily routines.

It's rare to get an interview with Bostrom, a transhumanist who believes that we can and should augment our bodies with technology to help eliminate ageing as a cause of death.

"I'm quite protective about research and thinking time so I'm kind of semi-allergic to scheduling too many meetings," he says.

Tall, skinny and clean shaven, Bostrom has riled some AI researchers with his openness to entertain the idea that one day in the not so distant future, machines will be the top dog on Earth. He doesn't go as far as to say when that day will be, but he thinks that it's potentially close enough for us to be worrying about it.

Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom is a polymath and the author of "Superintelligence."

The Future of Humanity Institute

If and when machines possess human-level artificial general intelligence, Bostrom thinks they could quickly go on to make themselves even smarter and become superintelligent. At this point, it's anyone's guess what happens next.

The optimist says the superintelligent machines will free up humans from work and allow them to live in some sort of utopia where there's an abundance of everything they could ever desire. The pessimist says they'll decide humans are no longer necessary and wipe them all out.Billionare Elon Musk, who has a complex relationship with AI researchers, recommended Bostrom's book "Superintelligence" on Twitter.

Bostrom's institute has been backed with roughly $20 million since its inception. Around $14 million of that coming from the Open Philanthropy Project, a San Francisco-headquartered research and grant-making foundation. The rest of the money has come from the likes of Musk and the European Research Council.

Located in an unassuming building down a winding road off Oxford's main shopping street, the institute is full of mathematicians, computer scientists, physicians, neuroscientists, philosophers, engineers and political scientists.

Eccentric thinkers from all over the world come here to have conversations over cups of tea about what might lie ahead. "A lot of people have some kind of polymath and they are often interested in more than one field," says Bostrom.

The FHI team has scaled from four people to about 60 people over the years. "In a year, or a year and a half, we will be approaching 100 (people)," says Bostrom. The culture at the institute is a blend of academia, start-up and NGO, according to Bostrom, who says it results in an "interesting creative space of possibilities" where there is "a sense of mission and urgency."

If AI somehow became much more powerful, there are three main ways in which it could end up causing harm, according to Bostrom. They are:

"Each of these categories is a plausible place where things could go wrong," says Bostrom.

With regards to machines turning against humans, Bostrom says that if AI becomes really powerful then "there's a potential risk from the AI itself that it does something different than anybody intended that could then be detrimental."

In terms of humans doing bad things to other humans with AI, there's already a precedent there as humans have used other technological discoveries for the purpose of war or oppression. Just look at the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example. Figuring out how to reduce the risk of this happening with AI is worthwhile, Bostrom says, adding that it's easier said than done.

I think there is now less need to emphasize primarily the downsides of AI.

Asked if he is more or less worried about the arrival of superintelligent machines than he was when his book was published in 2014, Bostrom says the timelines have contracted.

"I think progress has been faster than expected over the last six years with the whole deep learning revolution and everything," he says.

When Bostrom wrote the book, there weren't many people in the world seriously researching the potential dangers of AI. "Now there is this thriving small, but thriving field of AI safety work with a number of groups," he says.

While there's potential for things to go wrong, Bostrom says it's important to remember that there are exciting upsides to AI and he doesn't want to be viewed as the person predicting the end of the world.

"I think there is now less need to emphasize primarily the downsides of AI," he says, stressing that his views on AI are complex and multifaceted.

Bostrom says the aim of FHI is "to apply careful thinking to big picture questions for humanity." The institute is not just looking at the next year or the next 10 years, it's looking at everything in perpetuity.

"AI has been an interest since the beginning and for me, I mean, all the way back to the 90s," says Bostrom. "It is a big focus, you could say obsession almost."

The rise of technology is one of several plausible ways that could cause the "human condition" to change in Bostrom's view. AI is one of those technologies but there are groups at the FHI looking at biosecurity (viruses etc), molecular nanotechnology, surveillance tech, genetics, and biotech (human enhancement).

A scene from 'Ex Machina.'

Source: Universal Pictures | YouTube

When it comes to AI, the FHI has two groups; one does technical work on the AI alignment problem and the other looks at governance issuesthat will arise as machine intelligence becomes increasingly powerful.

The AI alignment group is developing algorithms and trying to figure out how to ensure complex intelligent systems behave as we intend them to behave. That involves aligning them with "human preferences," says Bostrom.

Roughly 66 miles away at the University of Cambridge, academics are also looking at threats to human existence, albeit through a slightly different lens.

Researchers at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) are assessing biological weapons, pandemics, and, of course, AI.

We are dedicated to the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction or civilization collapse.

Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER)

"One of the most active areas of activities has been on AI," said CSER co-founder Lord Martin Rees from his sizable quarters at Trinity College in an earlier interview.

Rees, a renowned cosmologist and astrophysicist who was the president of the prestigious Royal Society from 2005 to 2010, is retired so his CSER role is voluntary, but he remains highly involved.

It's important that any algorithm deciding the fate of human beings can be explained to human beings, according to Rees. "If you are put in prison or deprived of your credit by some algorithm then you are entitled to have an explanation so you can understand. Of course, that's the problem at the moment because the remarkable thing about these algorithms like AlphaGo (Google DeepMind's Go-playing algorithm) is that the creators of the program don't understand how it actually operates. This is a genuine dilemma and they're aware of this."

The idea for CSER was conceived in the summer of 2011 during a conversation in the back of a Copenhagen cab between Cambridge academic Huw Price and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, whose donations account for 7-8% of the center's overall funding and equate to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

"I shared a taxi with a man who thought his chance of dying in an artificial intelligence-related accident was as high as that of heart disease or cancer," Price wrote of his taxi ride with Tallinn. "I'd never met anyone who regarded it as such a pressing cause for concern let alone anyone with their feet so firmly on the ground in the software business."

University of Cambridge

Geography Photos/UIG via Getty Images

CSER is studying how AI could be used in warfare, as well as analyzing some of the longer term concerns that people like Bostrom have written about. It is also looking at how AI can turbocharge climate science and agricultural food supply chains.

"We try to look at both the positives and negatives of the technology because our real aim is making the world more secure," says Sen higeartaigh, executive director at CSER and a former colleague of Bostrom's. higeartaigh, who holds a PhD in genomics from Trinity College Dublin, says CSER currently has three joint projects on the go with FHI.

External advisors include Bostrom and Musk, as well as other AI experts like Stuart Russell and DeepMind's Murray Shanahan. The late Stephen Hawking was also an advisor when he was alive.

The Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) was opened at Cambridge in 2016 and today it sits in the same building as CSER, a stone's throw from the punting boats on the River Cam. The building isn't the only thing the centers share staff overlap too and there's a lot of research that spans both departments.

Backed with over 10 million from the grant-making Leverhulme Foundation, the center is designed to support "innovative blue skies thinking," according to higeartaigh, its co-developer.

Was there really a need for another one of these research centers? higeartaigh thinks so. "It was becoming clear that there would be, as well as the technical opportunities and challenges, legal topics to explore, economic topics, social science topics," he says.

"How do we make sure that artificial intelligence benefits everyone in a global society? You look at issues like who's involved in the development process? Who is consulted? How does the governance work? How do we make sure that marginalized communities have a voice?"

The aim of CFI is to get computer scientists and machine-learning experts working hand in hand with people from policy, social science, risk and governance, ethics, culture, critical theory and so on. As a result, the center should be able to take a broad view of the range of opportunities and challenges that AI poses to societies.

"By bringing together people who think about these things from different angles, we're able to figure out what might be properly plausible scenarios that are worth trying to mitigate against," said higeartaigh.

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How Britain's oldest universities are trying to protect humanity from risky A.I. - CNBC

HBO Max launches May 27 with a whole lot of content ready to stream immediately. But throughout the nascent streamers first month, even more titles will be added, from HBO Max originals like Adventure Time: Distant Lands BMO, to old favorites like Amelie, Black Beauty and The Bucket List.

Other brand-new HBO Max originals include the third season of comedy Search Party, and the second seasons of Doom Patrol, and Esme & Roy, all coming June 25, and on June 18, the second season of Summer Camp Island and the series premiere kids competition series Karma.

For a list of everything that will be available on launch day, look here.

Below is the full list of everything new coming to HBO Max in June.

Also Read: Chelsea Handler Sets First Standup Comedy Special in 6 Years at HBO Max

June 14th & Forever: Muck City, Season OneAdventures In Babysitting, 1987 (HBO)Amelie, 2001 (HBO)An American Werewolf in London, 1981 (HBO)The American, 2010 (HBO)Another Cinderella Story, 2008Beautiful Girls, 1996 (HBO)Black Beauty, 1994Bridget Joness Baby, 2016The Bucket List, 2007Cabaret, 1972The Champ, 1979Chicago, 2002A Cinderella Story, 2004A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song, 2011Clash Of The Titans, 2010Cradle 2 the Grave, 2003Crash, 2005 (Directors Cut) (HBO)Doubt, 2008 (HBO)Dreaming Of Joseph Lees, 1999 (HBO)Drop Dead Gorgeous, 1999Dune, 1984 (HBO)Elf, 2003Enter The Dragon, 1973Far and Away, 1992 (HBO)Final Destination, 2000Final Destination 2, 2003Final Destination 3, 2006The Final Destination, 2009Firewall, 2006Flipped, 2010Forces of Nature, 1999 (HBO)The Fountain, 2006 (HBO)Frantic, 1988From Dusk Til Dawn, 1996Full Metal Jacket, 1987Gente De Zona: En Letra De Otro, 2018 (HBO)The Good Son, 1993 (HBO)The Goonies, 1985Hanna, 2011 (HBO)Havana, 1990 (HBO)He Got Game, 1998 (HBO)Heaven Can Wait, 1978Heidi, 2006Hello Again, 1987 (HBO)The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, 2012The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, 2013The Hunger, 1983In Her Shoes, 2005 (HBO)In Like Flint, 1967 (HBO)The Iron Giant, 1999It Takes Two, 1995Juice, 1992The Last Mimzy, 2007License To Wed, 2007Life, 1999 (HBO)Lifeforce, 1985 (HBO)Lights Out, 2016 (HBO)Like Water For Chocolate, 1993 (HBO)Looney Tunes: Back in Action, 2003The Losers, 2010Love Jones, 1997Lucy, 2020 (HBO)Magic Mike, 2012McCabe and Mrs. Miller, 1971Misery, 1990Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, 2008 (HBO)A Monster Calls, 2016 (HBO)Mr. Wonderful, 1993 (HBO)Must Love Dogs, 2005My Dog Skip, 2000Mystic River, 2003The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter, 1991The Neverending Story, 1984New York Minute, 2004Nights In Rodanthe, 2008No Reservations, 2007Ordinary People, 1980Our Man Flint, 1966 (HBO)The Parallax View, 1974Patch Adams, 1998 (HBO)A Perfect World, 1993Pedro Capo: En Letra Otro, 2017 (HBO)Personal Best, 1982Presumed Innocent, 1990Ray, 2004 (HBO)Richie Rich (Movie), 1994Rosewood, 1997Rugrats Go Wild, 2003Running on Empty, 1988Secondhand Lions, 2003Shes The Man, 2006 (HBO)Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, 2011 (HBO)Space Cowboys, 2000Speed Racer, 2008Splendor in the Grass, 1961The Stepfather, 1987 (HBO)Summer Catch, 2001Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1990Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, 1991Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3, 1993Tess, 1980 (HBO)Tim Burtons Corpse Bride, 2005The Time Travelers Wife, 2009Titanic, 1997TMNT, 2007Torch Song Trilogy, 1988Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, 1997 (HBO)Tweetys High-Flying Adventures, 2000U-571, 2000 (HBO)U.S. Marshals, 1998Unaccompanied Minors, 2006Uncle Buck, 1989 (HBO)Veronica Mars, 2014Walking and Talking, 1996 (HBO)We Are Marshall, 2006Weird Science, 1985 (HBO)When Harry Met Sally, 1989Wild Wild West, 1999Wonder, 2019 (HBO)X-Men: First Class, 2011 (HBO)Youve Got Mail, 1998

Also Read: Here's How You Can Get HBO Max if You Already Pay for HBO

June 2Inside Carbonaro, Season One (TruTV)

June 4HBO First Look: The King of Staten Island (HBO)Were Here, Season Finale (HBO)

June 5Betty, Season Finale (HBO)

June 6Ad Astra, 2019 (HBO)Yvonne Orji: Momma, I Made It! (HBO)

June 7I May Destroy You, Series Premiere (HBO)

June 10Infinity Train, Season 2 Premiere

June 12El asesino de los caprichos (AKA The Goya Murders), 2020 (HBO)

June 13The Good Liar, 2019 (HBO)

June 14I Know This Much Is True, Limited Series Finale (HBO)Insecure, Season 4 Finale (HBO)

June 16#GeorgeWashington, 2017Age of Big Cats, Season OneAncient Earth, Season OneApocalypse: WWI, Season OneBig World in A Small Garden, 2016The Celts: Blood, Iron & Sacrifice, Season OneCornfield Shipwreck, 2019The Daunting Fortress of Richard the Lionheart, 2019David Attenboroughs Ant Mountain, 2016David Attenbouroughs Light on Earth, 2016DeBugged, 2018Digits, Season OneDragons & Damsels, 2019Ebony: The Last Years of The Atlantic Slave Trade, 2016Expedition: Black Sea Wrecks, Season OneFirst Man, 2017Going Nuts: Tales from Squirrel World, 2019Hack the Moon: Unsung Heroes of Apollo, 2019The History of Food, Season OneHurricane the Anatomy, Season One, 2018Into the Lost Crystal Caves, 2016Jason Silva: Transhumanism, 2016King: A Filmed Record Montgomery to Memphis (Part 1 & Part 2), Season OneKnuckleball!, 2019Leonardo: The Mystery of The Lost Portrait, 2018Looney Tunes (Batch 2) (6/22), Season OneMans First Friend, 2018Penguin Central, 2019Pompeii: Disaster Street, 2020Popeye (Batch 2) (6/22), Season OnePyramids Builders: New Clues, 2019Realm of the Volga, Season OneSacred Spaces, Season OneScandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer, Documentary Premiere (CNN)

Scanning the Pyramids, 2018Science vs. Terrorism, Season OneThe Secret Lives of Big Cats, Season OneSecret Life of Lakes, Season OneSecret Life Underground, Season OneSecrets of the Solar System, Season OneSpace Probes!, Season OneSpeed, Season OneSpies of War , Season OneTales of Nature, Season OneTsunamis: Facing a Global Threat, 2020Versailles Rediscovered: The Sun Kings Vanished Palace, 2019Viking Women, Season OneVitamania, 2018Whale Wisdom, 2019The Woodstock Bus, 2019

Also Read: Here Are the TV Shows and Movies That Will Be Available on HBO Max at Launch

June 18Summer Camp Island, Season 2 PremiereKarma, Series Premiere

June 19Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn, Documentary Premiere (HBO)Entre Nos: The Winners (HBO)Bajo el mismo techo (AKA Under the Same Roof), 2020 (HBO)

June 20Ford V. Ferrari, 2020 (HBO)

June 21Perry Mason, Limited Series Premiere (HBO)

June 22Hard, Series Finale (HBO)

June 24South Park, Seasons 1-23Transhood, Documentary Premiere (HBO)

June 25Adventure Time Distant Lands: BMO, Special Premiere

Doom Patrol, Season 2 PremiereEsme & Roy, Season 2A PremiereSearch Party, Season 3 Premiere

June 26Hormigas (AKA The Awakening of the Ants), 2020

June 27Doctor Sleep (Directors Cut), 2020 (HBO)

June 28Ill Be Gone in the Dark, Docuseries Premiere (HBO)

June 30Welcome to Chechnya, Documentary Premiere (HBO)

Summer is less than a month away and with everyone staying at home as much as possible to prevent the spread of COVID-19, were imagining your plans for June, July and August have more to do with TV listings than usual. Luckily, dozens of new and returning shows are premiering this summer, even though there are fewer than usual due to pandemic-forced production shutdowns. But the list still includes some big titles like The Twilight Zone and The Umbrella Academy, plus original shows for upcoming streaming services HBO Max and Peacock. Click through TheWraps gallery to see which series will be premiering this summer and when.

Also Read: Fall TV 2020: Every Broadcast Show Canceled, Renewed and Ordered So Far (Updating)

Series:NOS4A2 Net: AMC/BBC America Premiere Date: Sunday, June 21 Time: 9 p.m.

Series: Perry Mason Net: HBO Premiere Date: Sunday, June 21 Time: 9 p.m.

Series:Yellowstone Net: Paramount Network Premiere Date: Sunday, June 21 Time: 9 p.m.

Series: Greenleaf Net: OWN Premiere Date: Tuesday, June 23 Time: 9 p.m.

Series: Doom Patrol Net: HBO Max/DC Universe Premiere Date: Thursday, June 25 Time: N/A

Series: Search Party Net: HBO Max Premiere Date: Thursday, June 25 Time: N/A

Series: The Twilight Zone Net: CBS All Access Premiere Date: Thursday, June 25 Time: N/A

Series: Black Monday Net: Showtime Premiere Date: Sunday, June 28 Time: 8 p.m.

Series: Ill Be Gone in the Dark Net: HBO Premiere Date: Sunday, June 28 Time: 10 p.m.

Series: Marriage Boot Camp Net: We TV Premiere Date: Thursday, July 2 Time: 9 p.m.

Series: The Baby-Sitters Club Net: Netflix Premiere Date: Friday, July 3 Time: N/A

Series: Hanna Net: Amazon Prime Video Premiere Date: Friday, July 3 Time: N/A

Series: Outcry Net: Showtime Premiere Date: Sunday, July 5 Time: 10 p.m.

Series: Tough as Nails Net: CBS Premiere Date: Wednesday, July 8 Time: 9 p.m.

Series: Close Enough Net: HBO Max Premiere Date: Thursday, July 9 Time: N/A

Series: Expecting Amy Net: HBO Max Premiere Date: Thursday, July 9 Time: N/A

Series: Greatness Code Net: Apple TV+ Premiere Date: Friday, July 10 Time: N/A

Series: "Little Voice" Net: Apple TV+ Premiere Date: Friday, July 10 Time: N/A

Series: P-Valley Net: Starz Premiere Date: Sunday, July 12 Time: 8 p.m.

Series: Brave New World Net: Peacock Premiere Date: Wednesday, July 15 Time: N/A

Series: The Capture Net: Peacock Premiere Date: Wednesday, July 15 Time: N/A

Series: In Deep With Ryan Lochte Net: Peacock Premiere Date: Wednesday, July 15 Time: N/A

Series: Intelligence Net: Peacock Premiere Date: Wednesday, July 15 Time: N/A

Series: The House of Ho Net: HBO Max Premiere Date: Thursday, July 16 Time: N/A

Series: Room 104 Net: HBO Premiere Date: Friday, July 24 Time: 11 p.m.

Series: "The Alienist: Angel of Darkness" Net: TNT Premiere Date: Sunday, July 26 Time: 9 p.m.

Series: The Dog House" Net: HBO Max Premiere Date: Thursday, July 30 Time: N/A

Series: The Frayed Net: HBO Max Premiere Date: Thursday, July 30 Time: N/A

Series: Muppets Now Net: Disney+ Premiere Date: Friday, July 31 Time: N/A

Series: The Umbrella Academy Net: Netflix Premiere Date: Friday, July 31 Time: N/A

Series: "Selling Sunset" Net: Netflix Premiere Date: Friday, Aug. 7 Time: N/A

Series: The Good Lord Bird Net: Showtime Premiere Date: Sunday, Aug. 9 Time: 10 p.m.

Series: Love Fraud Net: Showtime Premiere Date: Sunday, Aug. 30 Time: 9 p.m.

Heres when 34 broadcast, cable and streaming series debut and come back

Summer is less than a month away and with everyone staying at home as much as possible to prevent the spread of COVID-19, were imagining your plans for June, July and August have more to do with TV listings than usual. Luckily, dozens of new and returning shows are premiering this summer, even though there are fewer than usual due to pandemic-forced production shutdowns. But the list still includes some big titles like The Twilight Zone and The Umbrella Academy, plus original shows for upcoming streaming services HBO Max and Peacock. Click through TheWraps gallery to see which series will be premiering this summer and when.

Also Read: Fall TV 2020: Every Broadcast Show Canceled, Renewed and Ordered So Far (Updating)

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Heres Everything Coming to HBO Max in June - TheWrap