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the, of, and, in, ethics, is, bostrom, world, for, from, 2008, nick, utopia, 2005, 2003, what, future, to, 2024, life, digital, minds, 2022, human, letter, enhancement, technological, 2006, vulnerable, 2021, are, 2011, humanity, listen, most, important, writing, read, by, professional, narrators, who, latest, episodes, 29, ai, creation, cosmic, host, 28, deep, meaning, solved, 27, unilateralist, curse, case, principle, conformity, 2016, 26, defense, posthuman, dignity, 25, primer, on, doomsday, argument, 1999, 24, propositions, concerning, society, 23, base, camp, mount, 22, transhumanist, faq, 21, evolution, 2004, 20, predictions, philosophy, 1997, 19, french, translation, 18, singleton, 17, embryo, selection, cognitive, curiosity, or, game, changer, 16, 15, revolutions, policy, dark, 14, state, debate, 13, how, 12, crucial, considerations, wise, philanthropy, 2014, 11, astronomical, waste, opportunity, cost, delayed, development, 10, you, living, computer, simulation, artificial, intelligence, information, hazards, typology, potential, harms, knowledge, evolutionary, optimality, challenge, where, they, why, hope, search, extraterrestrial, finds, nothing, reversal, test, eliminating, status, quo, bias, applied, existential, risk, prevention, as, global, priority, 2012, fable, dragon, tyrant, sharing, with, 2020, hypothesis, 2019, support, our, work, an, introduction, radio,

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Text of the page (random words):
y that is inclusive enough to also apply to many possible posthuman beings recognizing the possibility of posthuman dignity undercuts an important objection against human enhancement and removes a distortive double standard from our field of moral vision br br b listen 36 mins links further reading 25 a primer on the doomsday argument 1999 august 25 2022 b br rarely does philosophy produce empirical predictions the doomsday argument is an important exception from seemingly trivial premises it seeks to show that the risk that humankind will go extinct soon has been systematically underestimated nearly everybody apos s first reaction is that there must be something wrong with such an argument yet despite being subjected to intense scrutiny by a growing number of philosophers no simple flaw in the argument has been identified br br b listen 13 mins links further reading 24 propositions concerning digital minds and society 2022 august 24 2022 b br ais with moral status and political rights we apos ll need a em modus vivendi em and it s becoming urgent to figure out the parameters for that this paper makes a load of specific claims that begin to stake out a position br br b listen 72 mins links further reading 23 base camp for mount ethics 2022 august 23 2022 b br new theoretical ideas for a big expedition in metaethics br br b listen 59 mins links further reading 22 the transhumanist faq 2003 august 22 2022 b br transhumanism is a way of thinking about the future that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase we formally define it as follows br br 1 the intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual physical and psychological capacities br br 2 the study of the ramifications promises and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies br br transhumanism can be viewed as an extension of humanism from which it is partially derived humanists believe that humans matter that individuals matter we might not be perfect but we can make things better by promoting rational thinking freedom tolerance democracy and concern for our fellow human beings transhumanists agree with this but also emphasize what we have the potential to become just as we use rational means to improve the human condition and the external world we can also use such means to improve ourselves the human organism in doing so we are not limited to traditional humanistic methods such as education and cultural development we can also use technological means that will eventually enable us to move beyond what some would think of as human br br b listen 183 mins links further reading 21 the future of human evolution 2004 august 21 2022 b br evolutionary development is sometimes thought of as exhibiting an inexorable trend towards higher more complex and normatively worthwhile forms of life this paper explores some dystopian scenarios where freewheeling evolutionary developments while continuing to produce complex and intelligent forms of organization lead to the gradual elimination of all forms of being that we care about we then consider how such catastrophic outcomes could be avoided and argue that under certain conditions the only possible remedy would be a globally coordinated policy to control human evolution by modifying the fitness function of future intelligent life forms br br b listen 64 mins links further reading 20 predictions from philosophy 1997 august 20 2022 br b the purpose of this paper boldly stated is to propose a new type of philosophy a philosophy whose aim is prediction the pace of technological progress is increasing very rapidly it looks as if we are witnessing an exponential growth the growth rate being proportional to the size already obtained with scientific knowledge doubling every 10 to 20 years since the second world war and with computer processor speed doubling every 18 months or so it is argued that this technological development makes urgent many empirical questions which a philosopher could be well suited to help answering i try to cover a broad range of interesting problems and approaches which means that i won apos t go at all deeply into any of them i only try to say enough to show what some of the problems are how one can begin to work with them and why philosophy is relevant my hope is that this will whet your appetite to deal with these questions or at least increase general awareness that they worthy tasks for first class intellects including ones which might belong to philosophers br br b listen 104 mins links further reading 19 french translation letter from utopia 2008 august 19 2022 b br the good life just how good could it be a vision of the future from the future br br b listen 20 mins links further reading 18 what is a singleton 2005 august 18 2022 br b this note introduces the concept of a singleton and suggests that this concept is useful for formulating and analyzing possible scenarios for the future of humanity p p b listen 14 mins links further reading 17 embryo selection for cognitive enhancement curiosity or game changer august 17 2022 b br human capital is an important determinant of individual and aggregate economic outcomes and a major input to scientific progress it has been suggested that advances in genomics may open up new avenues to enhance human intellectual abilities genetically complementing environmental interventions such as education and nutrition one way to do this would be via embryo selection in the context of in vitro fertilization ivf in this article we analyze the feasibility timescale and possible societal impacts of embryo selection for cognitive enhancement we find that embryo selection on its own may have significant but likely not drastic impacts over the next 50 years though large effects could accumulate over multiple generations however there is a complementary technology stem cell derived gametes which has been making rapid progress and which could amplify the impact of embryo selection enabling very large changes if successfully applied to humans br br b listen 42 mins links further reading 16 letter from utopia 2008 august 16 2022 b br the good life just how good could it be a vision of the future from the future br br b listen 20 mins links further reading 15 technological revolutions ethics and policy in the dark 2006 august 15 2022 b br technological revolutions are among the most important things that happen to humanity ethical assessment in the incipient stages of a potential technological revolution faces several difficulties including the unpredictability of their long term impacts the problematic role of human agency in bringing them about and the fact that technological revolutions rewrite not only the material conditions of our existence but also reshape culture and even perhaps human nature this essay explores some of these difficulties and the challenges they pose for a rational assessment of the ethical and policy issues associated with anticipated technological revolutions br br b listen 85 mins links further reading 14 human enhancement ethics the state of the debate 2008 august 14 2022 br b are we good enough if not how may we improve ourselves must we restrict ourselves to traditional methods like study and training or should we also use science to enhance some of our mental and physical capacities more directly br br over the last decade human enhancement has grown into a major topic of debate in applied ethics interest has been stimulated by advances in the biomedical sciences advances which to many suggest that it will become increasingly feasible to use medicine and technology to reshape manipulate and enhance many aspects of human biology even in healthy individuals to the extent that such interventions are on the horizon or already available there is an obvious practical dimension to these debates this practical dimension is underscored by an outcrop of think tanks and activist organizations devoted to the biopolitics of enhancement br br b listen 56 mins links further reading 13 how vulnerable is the world 2021 august 13 2022 b br sooner or later a technology capable of wiping out human civilisation might be invented how far would we go to stop it br br b listen 24 mins links further reading 12 crucial considerations and wise philanthropy 2014 august 12 2022 b br within a utilitarian context one can perhaps try to explicate crucial considerations as follows a crucial consideration is a consideration that radically changes the expected value of pursuing some high level subgoal the idea here is that you have some evaluation standard that is fixed and you form some overall plan to achieve some high level subgoal this is your idea of how to maximize this evaluation standard a crucial consideration then would be a consideration that radically changes the expected value of achieving this subgoal and we will see some examples of this now if you stop limiting your view to some utilitarian context then you might want to retreat to these earlier more informal formulations because one of the things that could be questioned is utilitarianism itself but for most of this talk we will be thinking about that component br br b listen 36 mins links further reading 11 astronomical waste the opportunity cost of delayed technological development 2003 august 11 2022 b br with very advanced technology a very large population of people living happy lives could be sustained in the accessible region of the universe for every year that development of such technologies and colonization of the universe is delayed there is therefore an opportunity cost a potential good lives worth living is not being realized given some plausible assumptions this cost is extremely large however the lesson for utilitarians is not that we ought to maximize the pace of technological development but rather that we ought to maximize its em safety em i e the probability that colonization will eventually occur br br b listen 21 mins links further reading 10 are you living in a computer simulation 2003 august 10 2022 b br this paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true 1 the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage 2 any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history or variations thereof 3 we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation it follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor simulations is false unless we are currently living in a simulation a number of other consequences of this result are also discussed br br b listen 38 mins links further reading 9 the ethics of artificial intelligence 2011 august 9 2022 b br the possibility of creating thinking machines raises a host of ethical issues these questions relate both to ensuring that such machines do not harm humans and other morally relevant beings and to the moral status of the machines themselves the first section discusses issues that may arise in the near future of ai the second section outlines challenges for ensuring that ai operates safely as it approaches humans in its intelligence the third section outlines how we might assess whether and in what circumstances ais themselves have moral status in the fourth section we consider how ais might differ from humans in certain basic respects relevant to our ethical assessment of them the final section addresses the issues of creating ais more intelligent than human and ensuring that they use their advanced intelligence for good rather than ill br br b listen 60 mins links further reading 8 information hazards a typology of potential harms from knowledge 2011 august 8 2022 b br information hazards are risks that arise from the dissemination or the potential dissemination of true information that may cause harm or enable some agent to cause harm such hazards are often subtler than direct physical threats and as a consequence are easily overlooked they can however be important this paper surveys the terrain and proposes a taxonomy br br b listen 109 mins links further reading 7 the evolutionary optimality challenge 2021 august 7 2022 b br human beings are a marvel of evolved complexity when we try to enhance poorly understood complex evolved systems our interventions often fail or backfire it can appear as if there is a wisdom of nature which we ignore at our peril a recognition of this reality can manifest as a vaguely normative intuition to the effect that it is hubristic to try to improve on nature or that biomedical therapy is ok while enhancement is morally suspect we suggest that one root of these moral intuitions may be fundamentally prudential rather than ethical more importantly we develop a practical heuristic the evolutionary optimality challenge for evaluating the plausibility that specific candidate biomedical interventions would be safe and effective this heuristic recognizes the grain of truth contained in nature knows best attitudes while providing criteria for identifying the special cases where it may be feasible with present or near future technology to enhance human nature br b br listen 71 mins links further reading 6 where are they why i hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing 2008 august 6 2022 b br when water was discovered on mars people got very excited where there is water there may be life scientists are planning new missions to study the planet up close nasa s next mars rover is scheduled to arrive in 2010 in the decade following a mars sample return mission might be launched which would use robotic systems to collect samples of martian rocks soils and atmosphere and return them to earth we could then analyze the sample to see if it contains any traces of life whether extinct or still active such a discovery would be of tremendous scientific significance what could be more fascinating than discovering life that had evolved entirely independently of life here on earth many people would also find it heartening to learn that we are not entirely alone in this vast cold cosmos br br but i hope that our mars probes will discover nothing it would be good news if we find mars to be completely sterile dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit br br conversely if we discovered traces of some simple extinct life form some bacteria some algae it would be bad news if we found fossils of something more advanced perhaps something looking like the remnants of a trilobite or eve...