Transhumans Technology Powered Superhumans @2013,
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Transhumanism is the belief or
theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations by means of science and technology.

History

Transhumanist Technologies @2013, ICE, All
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Cryonics is the high-fidelity preservation
of a human body, particularly the brain after death, in anticipation of possible future revival. Cryonics is an important Transhumanist technology not only because it is available today, but also the technology is relatively mature where we can reliably stop cells from decaying.

Virtual Reality is a computer
simulated environment where reality simulations become so immersive in high-resolution that they are indistinguishable from the real thing. Simulations become the preferred environments for work and play. The main obstacle to truly immersive virtual reality is not the visuals but the haptics, i.e., our sense of touch.

Gene Therapy is replacing bad
genes with good genes, and RNA Interference can selectively knock out gene expression. Together, they give an unprecedented ability to manipulate one’s own genetic code. Like many Transhumanist technologies, gene therapy is exciting because it’s just beginning. No scientist has yet performed gene therapy on germ line cells (sexual cells) due to the ethical controversy of producing genetic changes which are heritable, but, as with many of these things, it’s only a matter of time.

Space colonization is closely related
to Transhumanism through the mutual association of futurist philosophy. It is believed that embrace of transhumanism will be necessary to colonize space. Human beings aren’t designed to live in space as our physiological issues with it are manifold. E.g., we could melt on the surface of Venus or could freeze on the surface of Mars. The only reasonable solution is to upgrade our bodies.

Cyborg is a cybernetic organism,
constructed of mechanized and organic material. The trend of Cyborgs started with mechanized body part implants for the handicapped, e.g. Prosthetic mechanized body parts, but many human beings have embraced voluntary infusion of technology with their physical bodies. Many Cyborgs today have capabilities beyond human beings which include hearing and vision enhancement, metabolic enhancement, artificial bones, organs, and even brain-computer interfaces that can be implanted beneath the skin, invisible to the casual observer.

Self Replication in Robots According
to a NASA study for Advanced Automation for Space Missions, self replication in robots is a matter of engineering and no fundamental theoretical breakthroughs are needed. By creating autonomous replicating procedures, colonization in space also is possible.

Molecular Nanotechnology is the ability
to build structures to complex atomic specifications from distinct materials. This leads to a concept called Nanofactory. In practical terms, the creation of Nanofactory would mean that practically everything could be made out of Diamond. Motors would become so powerful that a cubic centimeter would provide enough torque to propel a car. Medical Nanodevices could heal wounds and repair organs without the need for surgery, and air-suspended Nanodevices could be configured to simulate practically any desired object on demand.

Megascale Engineering refers to building
structures at least 1,000 km in length in one dimension, e.g., A Space Elevator or Green Skyscrapers. The production of such large structures could be done with emerging technologies like Self Replicating Robots and Autonomous Drones . Megascale Engineering goes hand-in-hand with the grandiose Transhumanist vision: intelligent beings spreading across the cosmos, and eventually shaping the very structure of the universe itself.

Mind Uploading is the process
of copying or transferring a conscious mind from a brain to a non-biological substrate by scanning and mapping a biological brain in detail and copying its information and computational state into a computer system or another computational device. By incrementally replacing each neuron with a synthetic neuronequivalent, the whole process of uploading the data from a brain can go down painlessly and seamlessly. The transfer could be as slow or as fast as we want; from the information-processing perspective of the brain itself, nothing ever changes.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a
technology that studies and develops intelligent machines and software. The AI field, a branch of computer science, was founded on the claim that a central ability of humans can be so precisely described that it can be simulated by a machine. It encompasses a system’s thinking, feeling, imagination, creation, communication, and thoughtful synthetic intelligences with conscious experiences.

Singularity is a future period
during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. Proponents of Singularity postulate an intelligence explosion, where super intelligence and successive generations of increasingly powerful minds might occur very quickly and might not stop until the cognitive abilities greatly surpass that of any human being.

Neuro-hacking is the colloquial term
for (usually personal or “DIY”) Neuro-engineering. It is a form of bio-hacking that is focused on the brain and central nervous system. It is any method of manipulating or interfering with the structure and/or function of neurons for improvement or repair. The reasons for Neuro-hacking can be improving mental health, information retrieval and addition of information.

Notable Transhumanism Thinkers @2013, ICE,
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Ray Kurzweil Raymond "Ray" Kurzweil
(born February 12, 1948) is an American author, inventor, futurist and a director of engineering at Google. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and Transhumanist movements, as has been displayed in his vast collection of public talks, wherein he has shared his primarily optimistic outlooks on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.

Hans Moravec Hans Moravec (born
November 30, 1948, Kautzen, Austria) is an adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology. Moravec is also a futurist with many of his publications and predictions focusing on transhumanism. Moravec developed techniques in computer vision for determining the region of interest (ROI) in a scene. The Region of Interest in a 4D dataset is the outline of an object at or during a particular time interval.

Natasha Vita More Natasha Vita-More
(born February 23, 1950 as Nancie Clark) is an American designer and theorist. She is designer and author of "Primo Posthuman,” a future whole body prototype. VitaMore is an adjunct professor at the for-profit University of Advancing Technology (2012-current), and a Fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. She is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of Humanity+.

Max More Max More (born
Max T. O'Connor, January 1964) is a philosopher and futurist who writes, speaks, and consults on advanced decision-making about emerging technologies. In a 1990 essay “Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy,” he introduced the term “Transhumanism” in its modern sense. More is also noted for his writings about the impact of new and emerging technologies on businesses and other organizations.

Ben Goertzel Ben Goertzel (born
December 8, 1966, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is an American author and researcher in the field of artificial intelligence. Goertzel stated that he is a founding member of the Transhumanist Order of Cosmic Engineers and that he has signed up with Alcor to have his body frozen after his death, and that he expects to live essentially indefinitely barring some catastrophic accident. He also promoted the OpenCog project which aims at building an open source general artificial intelligence engine.

Nick Bostrom (born Niklas Boström
on 10 March 1973) is a Swedish philosopher at St. Cross College, University of Oxford, and is known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He is currently the director of both The Future of Humanity Institute and the Program on the Impacts of Future Technology as part of the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University.

Andres Sanberg Anders Sandberg (born
July 11, 1972, in Solna, Sweden) is a researcher, science debater, futurist, Transhumanist, and author and currently a James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. Sandberg's research centers on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as on assessing the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies.

Notable Transhumanist Organizations @2013, ICE,
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Singularity University is a benefit
corporation (a for-profit entity that wants to consider society and the environment in addition to profit) and learning institution located inside NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley. Its stated aim is to “educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.” Singularity University is not an accredited university but is instead intended to supplement traditional educational institutions. Its programs range from an annual 10-week summer course intended for graduate and postgraduate students to seven-day programs for senior corporate executives and senior government leaders. Other programs include global outreach and conferences.

Humanity+ is an international nonprofit
membership organization that advocates the ethical use of technology to expand human capacities. Approximately 6000 people belong to Humanity+ from more than 100 countries. One of the major initiatives is the Humanity+ magazine which covers technological, scientific, and cultural trends that are changing and will change human beings in fundamental ways. Humanity+ published two articles by Institute of Customer Experience (ICE)on Future of Entertainment. The articles can be accessed here: 1. Ghosts, Resurrections & Fantasy in the Entertainment Industry (Part I) 2. Future of Entertainment – Global Community Scenario Gallery (Part II)

Transhumans among Us @2013, ICE,
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Jesse Sullivan Jesse Sullivan, hailed
as the world's first "Bionic Man," lost his arms as a result of an accident during his work as an electrical linesman. The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago gave him the opportunity to replace his arms with robotic prosthetics, which, thanks to a procedure that connects his nervous system to the artificial arms, allowed him to lift objects by just thinking about doing so. Sullivan was the first to receive this treatment during a 2005 procedure at RIC's Centre for Bionic Medicine.

Kevin Warwick Kevin Warwick, a
professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading is, by his own admission, the world's first cyborg. His first experiment on himself was to implant an RFID chip under the skin of his forearm, in August 1998. His goal was to be able to control lights, heaters and computer equipment without having to physically touch such devices in his vicinity. The room detected he was inside, and it responded accordingly. The second experiment saw Warwick connect the nerve fibers under his wrist to an array of electrodes. These electrodes ran up his forearm and out of his arm near the elbow, allowing him to connect them -- and by extension his nervous system -- to various computer devices.

Cameron Clapp was a normal,
partyloving, beach hugging teen who loved to have a good time. One night when he was fourteen, he got so drunk that he nodded off on some train tracks and was run over by a train! In that instant, his life changed for ever. Luckily for Cameron, he had insurance that covered his accident and provided him with two state-of-the-art legs, costing a $45,000 each. These are controlled with a microprocessor chip behind the knee which is connected to his muscle sensors and adjust and move according to his brain’s commands.

Oscar Pistorius Oscar Leonard Carl
Pistorius is a South African sprint runner. Although both of Pistorius' legs were amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old, he competes in events for single below-knee amputees and for able-bodied athletes. He runs with Jshaped fiber prosthetics called the "Flex-Foot Cheetah" developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips and manufactured by Össur.

Rob Spence Rob Spence lost
his right eye. Rather than simply settling for a glass replacement, he went for high-end technology. With the help from friends he crafted a video camera replacement for his right eye. Now his eye records video everywhere he goes, in an attempt for Rob to become the first lifecaster.

Micheal Chorost Michael Chorost (born
December 26, 1964) is an American author, essayist, and public speaker. Born with severe loss of hearing due to rubella, his hearing was partially restored with a cochlear implant in 2001 and he had his other ear implanted in 2007. He wrote a memoir of the experience, titled Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human. Its paperback version has a different subtitle, Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World.

Jerry Jalava In 2009, Finnish
programmer Jerry Jalava replaced part of one of his fingers with a 2GB USB stick, taking the term "thumb drive" to literal new levels. Jalava lost part of his original digit (the fourth finger on his left hand) in a motorcycle accident.

Jens Newmann Jens Newmann became
the first person worldwide to get an artificial vision system. His electronic eye connects directly to his visual cortex through brain implants. Although he can only vaguely see lines and shapes, his vision has technically been restored.

Stelarc (born Stelios Arcadiou in
Limassol in 1946, but legally changed his name in 1972) is a Cypriot-Australian performance artist whose works focuses heavily on extending the capabilities of the human body. As such, most of his pieces are centered around his concept that the human body is obsolete. To prove this, he’s had an artificially-created ear surgically attached to his left arm. In another show, he hooked up electrodes to his body to allow people to control his muscles through the Web. @2013, ICE, All rights reserved

Steve Haworth Body Modders are
people who deliberately modify the human anatomy. They experiment with the idea by putting rare earth magnets in their fingertips. Their initial idea was to use the magnets to help them carry stuff, but it turns out that using a magnet in your hand to carry things around kills the skin between the magnet and the object.

Todd Huffman Todd Huffman can
sense electric fields after implanting a magnet into one of his fingers. Since the implant, he's had sensory experiences at the local library with the walk-in scanner, and could sense the position of the motor inside an electric can opener.

Transhumanism in Pop Culture @2013,
ICE, All rights reserved

@2013, ICE, All rights reserved

References • • • •
• • • • • http://lifeboat.com/ex/transhumanist.technologies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Transhumanism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularitarianism http://gizmodo.com/5402421/tales-of-human-upgrades-magneticfingertips http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/04/cyborgs http://www.trutv.com/conspiracy/phenomena/cyborgs/gallery.html?c urPhoto=6 http://hplusmagazine.com/about-us/ http://humanityplus.org/ http://singularityu.org/ @2013, ICE, All rights reserved

Image Sources • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • Slide 1: – http://tomisaksen.deviantart.com/art/Robot-Endoskeleton-1-333350375 – http://kristyvictoria.deviantart.com/art/Robot-Girl-Headshot-Stock-11342945 Slide 2: – http://www.deviantart.com/art/Duqoole-Profile-194371492 – http://chamberstock.deviantart.com/art/Darrick-Stock-30-200021166 – http://chamberstock.deviantart.com/art/Darrick-Stock-29-200021041 – http://sanfranguy.deviantart.com/art/The-Return-332971919 Slide 6: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/img/cryonics.jpg Slide 7: – http://payload143.cargocollective.com/1/8/270925/5160128/The%20Cave.jpg – http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4048/4345239257_d363e35b0b_b.jpg Slide 8: http://www.deviantart.com/art/DNA-365232457 Slide 9: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Mooncolony.jpg Slide 10: http://dailynoise.blogspot.in/2011/10/what-is-cyborg-anthropology.html Slide 11: http://sanberg.deviantart.com/art/Spidey-bot-38818810 Slide 12: – http://themillerminute.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/nanotechnology-nanobots-and-computer-manufacturing/ – http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A1jl:SEM_chamber1.JPG Slide 13: – http://farm1.staticflickr.com/189/471698669_2ebb5a4df7_o.jpg – http://freshome.com/2011/11/14/stefano-boeris-urban-vertical-forest-bosco-verticale/ Slide 14: – http://deathandtaxesmag.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/brain-hack.jpeg – http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18kxdi8an8yyzjpg/original.jpg Slide 15: http://bruceleeeowe.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/artificial_intelligence.jpg Slide 16: http://tomisaksen.deviantart.com/art/Cyborg-Bust-182740472 Slide 17: http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/25/82/63482379881536/0/brain-hacking-and-thought-controlled-quadcoptersgood-and-bad-future-mind-reading-devices.1280x600.jpg @2013, ICE, All rights reserved

Image Source (Continued) • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Slide 19: http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/1604/ff_kurzweil1_f.jpg Slide 20: http://www.kurzweilai.net/images/HansMoravec.jpg Slide 21: http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4017/4699165536_c73d8827b7_b.jpg Slide 22: http://humanityplus.org/conferences/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Max-More-2010-11-28-1b_small.jpg Slide 23: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/142/401455127_0509b9f216_o.jpg Slide 24: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WBd5pNC5FGA/TSnispYXaBI/AAAAAAAAACM/w99tMs1PdlI/s320/bostrom_02.jpg Slide 25: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4028/4459572267_ffe8e27657.jpg Slide 27: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3524/3788113082_41fc98cd4e_o.jpg Slide 28: http://hplusmagazine.com/wpcontent/themes/hplusmag_theme/timthumb.php?src=/sites/default/files/images/magazine/cover-winter-2009.jpg&w=150&h=150&zc=1 Slide 30: http://hackedgadgets.com/wp-content/Jesse%20demonstrating%20bionic%20arms%202.jpg Slide 31: http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR-4yOjMl-hDJKfQaQMjhttba5clLiZOpNW_9uYz-vd4hZyW0U_ng Slide 32: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1958492 Slide 33: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02480/oscar-pistorius-6_2480644b.jpg Slide 34: http://futurepredictions.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/eyeborg.jpg Slide 35: http://lh5.ggpht.com/-zdolO6QfRYs/TjHzAH63EmI/AAAAAAAACKA/uLCecRSZE1U/michaelchorost_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800 Slide 36: http://news.cnet.com/i/bto/20090313/2823985839_2d1029eb0a.jpg Slide 37: http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQZB_HG4zDdmzjVlr6pkJGcjvbnzKGSI0ZcJt_GtbQU9msSqdMY Slide 38: http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/10_02/earweirdNNP1110_468x335.jpg Slide 39: http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2013-01-05-steve_haworth_extreme_body_mods_subdermals.jpg Slide 40: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Todd_Huffman_at_the_Zoo.jpg Slide 42: – http://www.wallbeam.com/Elysium/elysium-movie-2013-poster-widescreen-wide-wallpapers_2936.html – http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=54367 – http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/robocop/27277/new-poster-for-robocop-2014 – http://www.martialartsactionmovies.com/the-matrix-reloaded/ @2013, ICE, All rights reserved

Thank You! This report has
been prepared by the team at Institute of Customer Experience, a not-for-profit initiative by Human Factors International (HFI): Ankush Samant & Prashant Vutha. With contributions from: Apala Lahiri Chavan Ashish Mistry & Rasika Wadodkar. Address: No. 184, Mission Street, Puducherry - 605001 India. Tel : +91 413 4210583/4/5 +91 413 4210583 / 4 / 5 ice.humanfactors.com/ facebook.com/uxtrendspotting @UXTrendspotting Contact ice@humanfactors.com for any further queries and feedback. @2013, ICE, All rights reserved 11/17/2013 46