Transhumanism  

Anders Sandberg of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute recently gave a lecture, taking us on a dizzying tour of transhumanism and human enhancement, which covered why chimpanzees are confused, why the Euro would be in better shape if the politicians put out bowls of stimulants at the next emergency summit, and how some of his friends are experimenting with do it yourself brain hacking.

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SOURCE  The Register

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 Cryonics  

A recent London Futurists Hangout on Air featured a discussion between an international panel of people with practical experience of the world of cryonics: Max More, Anders Sandberg, Natasha Vita-More, and Garret Smyth.

What lies in the future for cryonics - the practice of low-temperature suspended animation of people who have died of an incurable disease, in the hope of a future cure?

This London Futurists Hangout on Air features a discussion between an international panel of people with practical experience of the world of cryonics: Max More, Anders Sandberg, Natasha Vita-More, and Garret Smyth.

The discussion with David Wood covers:

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• Recent developments in the world of cryonics, and anticipated future improvements;
• Why has the take-up of cryonics been comparatively low so far, and what steps might change that state of affairs?
• Objections to cryonics - and responses to the objections;
• Cryonics in context - new attitudes towards death and technology.

The Mores and Sandberg are involved with Alcor, the long-running cryonics foundation in Arizona.  According to Alcor, today brain tissue preserved with a modern vitrification solution shows virtually no freezing damage. Whole neurons are visible with intact membranes and well defined structure. This brain preservation which Alcor claims it can now achieve in human patients. Many who complain about damage caused by cryonics procedures are unaware that such preservation is now possible.


SOURCE  David Wood

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 Ideas  

During a talk a last year's Alcor Conference, Future of Humanity Institute researcher and futurist Anders Sandberg presented a high level talk on the problems of futurist thinking and what some of the implications might be for the pursuit of cryonics.

Researcher, science debater, futurist, transhumanist, and author Anders Sandberg presented and interesting talk on the possibilities of cryonics and other futurist topics at last year's Alcor conference.  He defines his presentation as a 'theoretic and meta talk," on the future.

Uncertainty, for Sandberg, is especially prevalent when we extend outside of our animal needs.  The solutions therefore are to approach such problems with rationality.  However as he points out, decision theory is hard and rationality is hard, so approximation is always necessary.  These problems affect multiple areas including economics and artificial intelligence.

Moreover for humans, our cognitive biases affect our decision-making.  During his talk, Sandberg discusses how these factors affect the pursuit of cryonics.

Sandberg also points out that certain tools of futurism, like trend lines, can affect accuracy.  He warns that technological tracking, like Moore's Law, or the graphs used by Ray Kurzweil to predict the Singularity, do not really take into account uncertainty and, as a consequence, the models may not reflect what is actually going to happen.  For Sandberg, the Singularity also represents a potential area of uncertainty.

Looking at cryonics Sandberg comments, "Cryonics is actually fun, because we have so much uncertainty in it."  There is uncertainty about the future situation(s), uncertainty about storage, uncertainty about the future of medical advances, uncertainty about the reanimation situation and uncertainty about identity recovery (especially considering how little we know about what defines identity now).  Statistically, for Sandberg, "not getting suspended poses the greatest risk of all."

Sandberg model of cryonics - Image Source: Anders Sandberg

Also for Sandberg, "The Singularity is a wildcard you may or may not believe in.  It amounts to a serious chunk of the positive futures, but is likely to also contribute significant existential risk."

Sandberg holds a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, and is currently a James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University.

Sandberg's research centres on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as on assessing the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies. His recent contributions include work on cognitive enhancement (methods, impacts, and policy analysis); a technical roadmap on whole brain emulation; on neuroethics; and on global catastrophic risks, particularly on the question of how to take into account the subjective uncertainty in risk estimates of low-likelihood, high-consequence risk.

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He has worked on this within the EU project ENHANCE, where he also was responsible for public outreach and online presence. Besides scientific publications in neuroscience, ethics, and future studies, he has also participated in the public debate about human enhancement internationally. Anders also holds an AXA Research Fellowship.

Sandberg has a background in computer science, neuroscience and medical engineering. He obtained his Ph.D in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, Sweden, for work on neural network modelling of human memory. He has also been the scientific produce for the major neuroscience exhibition “Se Hjärnan!” (“Behold the Brain!”), organized by Swedish Travelling Exhibitions, the Swedish Research Council and the Knowledge Foundation that toured Sweden 2005–2007. He is co-founder and writer for the think tank Eudoxa.


SOURCE  Alcor

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 Fermi Paradox

At a recent TEDx event, Anders Sandberg energetically discussed the Fermi Paradox, which questions why we cannot see evidence of alien life or intelligence given our own situation on earth and the billions of potential worlds for life to arise. He also touches on what this may represent for the future of humanity.

Anders Sandberg's research centres on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as on assessing the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies. His recent contributions include work on cognitive enhancement (methods, impacts, and policy analysis); a technical roadmap on whole brain emulation; on neuroethics; and on global existential risks, particularly on the question of how to take into account the subjective uncertainty in risk estimates of low-likelihood, high-consequence risk.

Sandberg explores the long term, and how much change in the universe can a civilization possibly cause?

Sandberg is James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, as well as associated with the Oxford Neuroethics Centre, the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology.

Sandberg's diverse interests also extend to the far reaches of outer space.  At a recent TEDx event, he energetically discussed the Fermi Paradox, which questions why we cannot see evidence of alien life or intelligence given our own situation on earth and the billions of potential worlds for life to arise.  He also touches on what this may represent for the future of humanity.



SOURCE  TEDx Talks

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