Thousands of women have had to get their breast implants removed after a French company, Poly Implant Prothese (PIP), admitted that they had used industrial grade silicone in the implants. Not only was this class of silicone not approved for medical use, but some of it also contained fuel additives. Basically, PIP pumped some plastic bags full of silicone intended for use with fuels and food products - and then sold them as implants. Not surprisingly, the implants had a high breakage rate and many women had to get them removed even before news of the company’s misdeeds was made public in 2010.
In January, IEET Executive Director J. Hughes and IEET Fellow Wendell Wallach met with representatives of the Japanese Consortium on Applied Neuroscience (Japanese, English). They visited Trinity College as part of a national tour to meet with American neuroethicists.
I had the pleasure of testifying as a Fellow of the IEET Tuesday afternoon in front of the General and Plastic Devices of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee about long term follow up safety studies and informed consent on silicone breast implants.
Imagine you know everything on Wikipedia, in the Oxford English Dictionary, and the contents of every book in digital form. When someone asks you what you did 20 years ago, on demand you recall with perfect accuracy every sensation and thought from that moment.
I was recently interviewed by Christian Nesheim of the I Look Forward To blog, who asked: “What will be the single most significant technological development of the next 20 years?”
I recently had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Jason Beard, a 25 year old man that received a cochlear implant in May of 2009. Jason was hearing impaired from birth but was able to hear some sounds with the help of a hearing aid however he was not able to carry on conversations. With the help of a CI his life has changed.
The FAB Congress in Singapore looks at the global aging population and feminization of it, which includes issues of migrant women elder care workers in a global economy, notions of ecological citizenship and human and nonhuman interdependency.
Respondents to a recently concluded IEET reader poll chose Dolphin as the animal whose consciousness they would most like to briefly inhabit. Given a dozen animals to choose from, Fish ranked dead last.
Understanding human-technology relations is a project of significant import, both for transhumanists aiming to overcome our limitations through technological means and for ethicists interested in questions concerning technology’s influence on the human condition.
Transhumanism spans a huge swath of intellectual territory, straddling bioethics, philosophy, science fiction, engineering, and computer science. Throw in conspiracy theories and cyberpunk nihilism and you have all the ingredients for Deus Ex.
What properties of consciousness and mind will remain the same in a posthuman world? Will enhanced minds look at themselves and reality like we do? What can we learn from cognitive science and consciousness studies to help answer these questions? What are some ethical consequences of enhancing the brain/mind?
An upgraded version of You might incorporate—literally incorporate—access to augmented reality overlays, a direct brain to Internet connection, and LED (light-emitting diode) tattoos.
Cyberconsciousness implies techno-immortality. Immortality means living forever. This has never happened in the real world, so we think of immortality as a spiritual existence (as in heaven) or as a non-personal existence (as in ‘Bach’s music will live forever’). With cyberconsciousness it will be possible, for the first time, for a person to live forever in the real world. This unique, technologically empowered form of living forever is called techno-immortality.
On this lazy Sunday afternoon (or evening in Europe—or Monday morning in Asia), we offer four new Links Of Required Clicking for your mandatory perusal.
How critical are you of transhumanist assumptions? Are you convinced that uploading human personalities to computers is possible? Do you believe that some people currently preserved cryonically will be successfully revived? Is a technological singularity inevitable?
Many people, including me, are now used to being always online. With my smartphone powered by Google’s Android operating system, I am used to sending and receiving email and IMs anytime, from anywhere. It is easy to see how this trend will evolve: most routine computing applications will migrate to smartphones, the coverage and bandwidth of wireless networks will go up, and their price will go down. In only a few years, we will be used to being permanently plugged in the global Internet, and of course the user interfaces will improve. For example, as described by the visionary science fiction author Charlie Stross in his novel Halting State, augmented reality technology based on smart glasses will soon permit overcoming the limitations due to the small size of phones. A first generation of suitable smart glasses is already available, but there is something much better on the horizon: instant telepathic communication.
As our various electronic devices gain more and more sensory awareness, we open up the potential for entirely new forms of interaction. Not just new interfaces—tapping and shaking and whatnot—but a shift in presence. With few exceptions, we use these new technologies in rather familiar ways. We might speak instead of type, or tap instead of click, or wave a control wand instead of mash a control pad, but these are essentially the same kinds of direct input processes we’ve done for years, just dressed up in a new look.
A tiny telescope, already approved for use in Europe, can be implanted in one eye to help people with an advanced form of macular degeneration. The device takes the place of the natural lens.
Imagine these hypothetical situations; you are injured and lying on the battlefield or are involved in a serious automobile accident and require a blood transfusion. What are the medical treatment options in these scenarios?
We are on the brink of technological breakthroughs that could augment our mental powers beyond recognition. It will soon be possible to boost human brainpower with electronic “plug-ins” or even by genetic enhancement. What will this mean for the future of humanity?
A stone age hunter-gatherer, coming upon a conflict where danger was present, didn’t have time to carefully analyze the situation, look for nuances, or seek points of commonality between combatants. Instead, driven by adrenalin, heart pumping, thoughts racing, pupils dilated—within seconds a choice was made: pick a side and join the fray, or turn and run away.
“If it was possible to become free of negative emotions by a riskless implementation of an electrode—without impairing intelligence and the critical mind—I would be the first patient.” - The Dalai Lama
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The IEET is a 501(c)3 non-profit, tax-exempt organization registered in the State of Connecticut in the United States.
Contact: Executive Director, Dr. James J. Hughes,
Williams 119, Trinity College, 300 Summit St., Hartford CT
06106 USA
Email: director @ ieet.org phone:
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