Outline of Transhumanism - Transhumanist Technologies

Transhumanist Technologies

Transhumanists believe that humans can and should use technologies to become more than human. Examples of the types of technologies and potential technologies that have become the focus of transhumanism include:

• Anti-aging – another term for "life extension".
• Artificial intelligence – intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents", where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956, defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines."
  • Friendly artificial intelligence – artificial intelligence (AI) that has a positive rather than negative effect on humanity. Friendly AI also refers to the field of knowledge required to build such an AI. AIs may be harmful to humans if steps are not taken to specifically design them to be benevolent. Doing so effectively is the primary goal of Friendly AI.
• Augmented reality – live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one.
• Biomedical engineering – application of engineering principles and design concepts to biology and medicine, to improve healthcare diagnosis, monitoring and therapy. Applications include the development of biocompatible prostheses, clinical equipment, micro-implants, imaging equipment such as MRIs and EEGs, regenerative tissue growth, pharmaceutical drugs and therapeutic biologicals.
  • Neural engineering – discipline that uses engineering techniques to understand, repair, replace, enhance, or otherwise exploit the properties of neural systems. Neural engineers are uniquely qualified to solve design problems at the interface of living neural tissue and non-living constructs. Also known as "neuroengineering".
    • Neurohacking – colloquial term encompassing all methods of manipulating or interfering with the structure and/or function of neurons for improvement or repair.
• Biotechnology – field of applied biology that uses living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine, and manufacturing, among other fields. It encompasses a wide range of procedures for modifying living organisms for human purposes. Early examples of biotechnology include domestication of animals, cultivation of plants, and breeding through artificial selection and hybridization.
  • Bionics – in medicine, this refers to the replacement or enhancement of organs or other body parts by mechanical versions. Bionic implants differ from mere prostheses by mimicking the original function very closely, or even surpassing it.
    • Cyborg – being with both biological and artificial (e.g. electronic, mechanical or robotic) parts.
  • Brain-computer interface – direct communication pathway between the brain and an external device. BCIs are under development to assist, augment, or repair human cognitive and sensory-motor functions. Sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain–machine interface (BMI).
  • Cloning – in biotechnology, this refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments (molecular cloning), cells (cell cloning), or organisms.
    • Human cloning – creation of a genetically identical copy of a human. It does not usually refer to monozygotic multiple births nor the reproduction of human cells or tissue. The term is generally used to refer to artificial human cloning; human clones in the form of identical twins are commonplace, with their cloning occurring during the natural process of reproduction.
    • Therapeutic cloning – application of somatic-cell nuclear transfer (a laboratory technique for creating a clonal embryo using an ovum with a donor nucleus) in regenerative medicine.
• Cognitive science – interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed (in faculties such as perception, language, memory, reasoning, and emotion), represented, and transformed in behaviour, (human or other animal) nervous system or machine (e.g., computer). It includes research on artificial intelligence.
• Computer-mediated reality – ability to add to, subtract information from, or otherwise manipulate one's perception of reality through the use of a wearable computer or hand-held device such as a smart phone.
• Converging technologies –
• Cryonics – low-temperature preservation of humans and animals who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology.
• Cyberware – hardware or machine parts implanted in the human body and acting as an interface between the central nervous system and the computers or machinery connected to it. Research in this area is a protoscience.
• Designer baby – baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilisation to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics.
• Emerging technologies – contemporary advances and innovation in various fields of technology, prior to or early in their diffusion. They are typically in the form of progressive developments intended to achieve a competitive advantage.
  • List of emerging technologies
• Human enhancement technologies (HET) – techniques used to treat illness or disability, or to enhance human characteristics and capacities.
• Human genetic engineering – alteration of an individual's genotype with the aim of choosing the phenotype of a newborn or changing the existing phenotype of a child or adult.
• Human-machine interface – the part of a machine that handles its human-machine interaction.
• Information technology – acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications.
• Head-mounted display (HMD) – display device, worn on the head or as part of a helmet, that has a small display optic in front of one (monocular HMD) or each eye (binocular HMD).
• Life extension – study of slowing down or reversing the processes of aging to extend both the maximum and average lifespan. Some researchers in this area, and persons who wish to achieve longer lives for themselves (called "life extensionists" or "longevists"), expect that future breakthroughs in tissue rejuvenation with stem cells, molecular repair, and organ replacement (such as with artificial organs or xenotransplantations) will eventually enable humans to live indefinitely (agerasia) through complete rejuvenation to a healthy youthful condition. Also known as anti-aging medicine, experimental gerontology, and biomedical gerontology.
• Mind uploading – hypothetical process of transferring or copying a conscious mind from a brain to a non-biological substrate by scanning and mapping a biological brain in detail and copying its state into a computer system or another computational device. The computer would have to run a simulation model so faithful to the original that it would behave in essentially the same way as the original brain, or for all practical purposes, indistinguishably.
• Nanotechnology – study of physical phenomena on the nanoscale, dealing with things measured in nanometres, billionths of a meter. The development of microscopic or molecular machines.
  • Molecular nanotechnology – technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis.
    • Molecular assemblers – as defined by K. Eric Drexler, is a "proposed device able to guide chemical reactions by positioning reactive molecules with atomic precision". Some biological molecules such as ribosomes fit this definition, because they receive instructions from messenger RNA and then assemble specific sequences of amino acids to construct protein molecules. However, the term "molecular assembler" usually refers to theoretical human-made devices.
• Nootropics – drugs, supplements, nutraceuticals, and functional foods that improve mental functions such as cognition, memory, intelligence, motivation, attention, and concentration. Also referred to as "smart drugs", "brain steroids", "memory enhancers", "cognitive enhancers", "brain boosters", and "intelligence enhancers".
• Organ transplants – moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be re-grown from the patient's own cells (stem cells, or cells extracted from the failing organs).
  • Autograft – organs and/or tissues that are transplanted within the same person's body.
  • Allograft – transplants that are performed between two subjects of the same species.
  • Xenograft – living cells, tissues or organs transplanted from one species to another.
• Personal communicators – Around 1990 the next generation digital mobile phones were called digital personal communicators. Another definition, coined in 1991, is for a category of handheld devices that provide personal information manager functions and packet switched wireless data communications capabilities over wireless wide area networks such as cellular networks. These devices are now commonly referred to as smartphones or wireless PDA's.
• Personal development – includes activities that improve awareness and identity, develop talents and potential, build human capital and facilitates employability, enhance quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations. The concept is not limited to self-help, but includes formal and informal activities for developing others, in roles such as teacher, guide, counselor, manager, coach, or mentor. Finally, as personal development takes place in the context of institutions, it refers to the methods, programs, tools, techniques, and assessment systems that support human development at the individual level in organizations.
• Powered exoskeleton – powered mobile machine consisting primarily of an exoskeleton-like framework worn by a person and a power supply that supplies at least part of the activation-energy for limb movement. Also known as "powered armor", or "exoframe".
• Prosthetics – artificial device extensions that replace missing body parts.
• Rejuvenation – reversal of aging, which entails the repair of the damage associated with aging, or replacement of damaged tissue with new tissue. Rejuvenation can be a means of life extension, but most life extension strategies do not involve rejuvenation.
• Robotics – design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots. It draws heavily upon electronics, engineering, mechanics mechatronics, and software engineering.
  • Self-replicating machine – artificial construct that is theoretically capable of autonomously manufacturing a copy of itself using raw materials taken from its environment, thus exhibiting self-replication in a way analogous to that found in nature.
• Reprogenetics – merging of reproductive and genetic technologies expected to happen in the near future as techniques like germinal choice technology become more available and more powerful.
• Simulated reality –
• Space colonization – concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony. It is a long-term goal of some national space programs. Also called "space settlement", "space humanization", and "space habitation".
• Suspended animation – slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold can be used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions. For example, Laina Beasley was kept in suspended animation as a two-celled embryo for 13 years.
• Virtual retinal display – display technology that draws a raster display (like a television) directly onto the retina of the eye. Users see what appears to be a conventional display floating in space in front of them.