h+ Magazine

Telling individuals how their credit score was calculated does not only provide transparency that might deflect a backlash by rejected consumers. It also makes some consumers subscribe to the credit bureau’s service and work on improving their score. Volunteering detailed information on your last six places of residence, for example, improves your credit score. So I wondered: Would I volunteer my genetic information to improve my credit score?

The idea of producing artificial or synthetic life has long fascinated mankind and from ancient times many human and animal-imitating “automata” or self-operating machines have been created for entertainment, instructional, and sometimes religious purposes. The creation of actual synthetic biological life only became possible with the discovery of the structure of DNA, the genetic code, and the development of the basic tools of molecular biology, such as the ability to isolate, sequence, and join different DNA sequences.

Ben Goertzel interviews Adam Ford about the upcoming Humanity+ @Melbourne (May 5-6 2012), which will feature Aubrey de Grey, Natasha Vita-More, Stelarc and many more inspiring speakers.

Our structures could become living objects, responding to the environment. Instead of our buildings remaining inert, they could adapt to or respond to the seasons, like parks and gardens, with living coatings responding to the availability of more or less wind, sunlight and water.

Very small embryonic like stem cells (VSELs) are purified from adult tissues and are potential sources of stem cells for application in regenerative medicine and stem cell therapies. In contrast to embryonic stem cells (ESCs) their derivation does not require destruction of embryos and thus are non-controversial from an ethical point of view.

A transcript of a YouTube interview with biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey. Subjects covered include LysoSENS, WILT, and more.

Not only will the desire to enhance sexuality fund research into understanding gender at the most basic levels in order to enable further enhancements, there’s going to be a significant fraction of the human race funding research into changing the human body in nearly every way, from adding points on your ears, to giving us tails, to making changes that would make a simple gender change seem minor. Increase in funding equals increase in resources dedicated to funding, more people researching, more advanced tools being developed, and thus, an overall reduction in the prediction time frame.

Are Bill Clinton and George W. Bush sociopaths? Probably not, but since both men’s presidencies gave them control over thousands of nuclear weapons it would’ve been nice to have some hard data on the question before they each took office. Thankfully, in the near future presidential contenders’ DNA will likely be scrutinized for signs of sociopathy.

With each passing year, the ability to alter our minds and bodies through technology grows. Advances in biotechnology, neuroengineering, robotics and myriad other fields are steadily changing the human condition. Many of these changes will be for the better, but there will be a downside too. In the course of augmenting our physical and mental abilities, we’re also introducing new vulnerabilities, opening ourselves up to invasive attacks that could threaten our finances, our identities, even our lives. In short, we’re quickly approaching a time when we’ll have to protect against the hacking of Human 2.0.

My purpose in this article is not to try to surmise who — or what — is correct about this particular scenario or about any of the dozens of other disaster scenarios that seem to confront us. My purpose is to examine how people deal with the intrusion of “scientific” information that may not only disrupt their models of reality but their projects-already-in-progress.

Ben Goertzel converses with Hugo de Garis on his transhumanist argument for the reality of a Creator.