Transhumanism: The Proper Guide to a Posthuman Condition or a Dangerous Idea?

Mind uploading is the hypothetical future technology of transferring human minds to computer hardware using whole-brain emulation. After a brief review of the technological prospects for mind uploading, a range of philosophical and ethical aspects of the technology are reviewed. These include questions about whether uploads will have consciousness and whether uploading will preserve personal identity, as well as what impact on society a working uploading technology is likely to have and whether these impacts are desirable. The issue of whether we ought to move forward towards uploading technology remains as unclear as ever.

According to some proponents, artificial intelligence seems to be a presupposition for machine autonomy, wheras autonomy and conscious machines are the presupposition for singularity (Cf. Logan, Information 8: 161, 2017); further on, singularity is a presupposition for transhumanism. The chapter analyses the different forms of transhumanism and its underlying philosophical anthropology, which is reductionist as well as naturalistic. Nevertheless, it can be shown that transhumanism has some (pseudo-)religious borderlines. Besides this, massive interests behind the arguments of the proponents can be figured out. Due to these hidden business models, it would be a good idea to discuss objection and rules to hedge an uncontrolled shape of these technologies.

At first glance, transhumanism may seem to be a proper framework for interpreting technological advancement, because of its positive attitude towards innovation, and especially when opposed to “technophobic” movements. Nevertheless, in the first part of this chapter it is demonstrated how the transhumanist premises are wrong, and how the movement itself represents, just as much as technophobic approaches, an extreme derivative of the Modern Western tradition. Specifically, the criticism is focused on the propensity of transhumanism to read the technological otherness from a utilitarian perspective, as a way to emancipate our species from the realm of nature. Instead, the aim of the second part is to offer a radical revision of the traditionally dichotomous relationship between “nature” and “culture”, from which the transhumanist positions stem. In doing so, the chapter draws on different and more ontologically inclusive conceptual perspectives, namely the ones on which critical posthumanism is grounded. As a result, technology comes to play a new active role in the process of “shaping the human”. Eventually, rather than being just a tool at our disposal, technology and technique are read as being a “species peculiar” pillar, and thus part of our very nature.

This chapter analyses the hidden presuppositions of the transhumanist movement and asks if transhumanism can contribute to the revelation and broadening of the sense of the world. It uses the Arendtian perspective of three human activities (labour, work, action) and places transhumanism into their context. In order to do that the concept of intentionality is applied to show the difference between man and machine and the deficiencies of machines in terms of sense constitution.

The chapter shows how Western art history has been dominated by dualistic ontological premises since dualistic thinking was created with Plato’s philosophy in ancient Greece. With Darwin’s research and Nietzsche’s reflections, the dualistic Western cultural tradition has undergone a twist. Since then, various non-dualistic ways of thinking together with this artistic creations have been realized. In recent times, the various posthuman philosophies, among which critical post- and transhumanism are the most widely received approaches, have led to new artistic modes, and corresponding challenges. On the basis of these reflections, I develop elements of a posthuman philosophy of art, whereby a specific focus is given to bioart which deals with aspects of both critical post- and transhumanist reflections. Both approaches generate new ways of thinking about the world which imply a fundamental parading shift. Many posthuman art works fulfil the demands of a total work of art, but one without totalitarian implications, i.e. a non-totalitarian total work of art.

For the military–industrial complex (MIC), transhumanism represents a temptation in various ways: its expectations for the future of technology imply there is a prospect of overcoming hitherto given barriers to the expansion of military power, particularly in terms of the linkage of humans and machines (and above all computers), while its characteristic concept of liberation, the aim of which is to transcend natural limitations, offers the possibility of weaving hopes for progress in the field of military research into an (at least superficially) emancipatory future narrative. In return, the MIC represents a temptation for transhumanism (as a societal movement) insofar as research and technology development projects that are (still) of little interest for civilian purposes can be driven ahead in a military setting. Ethical and political analyses of the relationships between military research and transhumanism may be enriched by historical and cultural perspectives. This is true for both, the fascinating pre- and early history of transhumanism before 1945 and the post-war history of this techno-visionary worldview. The transhumanism of our current times appears to have emerged from the intersections of military research, the new IT industry (for parts of which it has become an ersatz religion) and the counterculture of the 1970s.

Newly discovered tools for gene editing such as CRISPR allow direct modification of the DNA of organisms. This could not only make new therapeutic applications possible. In theory, gene editing could also be used to enhance human beings or even to modify the human germline, i.e. inducing changes that could be inherited by future generations. Considering these possibilities, it comes as no surprise that the discovery of CRISPR was greeted with euphoria in transhumanist circles. Germline interventions are seen as a possible key for a posthuman future. As it will be argued here, this popular perception is based on an overly simplistic understanding of genetics and exaggerated expectations of the potential of gene editing technologies. In addition, fantasies about human enhancement also resemble emerging speculations about “super soldiers” for future warfare. While it will be maintained that genetically upgraded combatants ought to be relegated to the realm of science fiction, applications of gene editing technologies in the military should still cause concerns about biosecurity risks.

This chapter argues that, although transhumanism depicts itself as following the footsteps of the tradition of humanism, i.e. as seeking for a better world for all human beings, it is realizing ambiguous trajectories. Despite officially proclaimed integrative intentions and goals of some of its most prominent leaders, it seems that transhumanism tends to push forward social innovations that are a double-edged sword. Indeed, we face an era of military rearmament also due to achievements that have emerged in the converging fields of AI, robotics and human enhancement. Some of the most controversial views concerning these achievements and their possible impacts on modern warfare are discussed. Moreover, we outline how these developments in the military sector are symptomatic for a broader technological trend that seems to become a major transformative driver in the twenty-first century—a world where inequality is on the rise both in the social, the technological and the military spheres.

We argue that the dream of the supporters of the technological singularity, the notion that computers will one day be smarter than their human creators will never be realized. The notion of intelligence that advocates of the technological singularity promote does not take into account the full dimension of human intelligence. Human intelligence as we will show is not based solely on logical operations and computation, but rather includes a long list of other characteristics that are unique to humans that the supporters of the singularity ignore. The list includes curiosity, imagination, intuition, emotions, passion, desires, pleasure, aesthetics, joy, purpose, objectives, goals, telos, values, morality, experience, wisdom, judgement and even humour.

Within a few decades, autonomous robotic devices, computing machines, autonomous cars, drones and alike will be among us in numbers, forms and roles unimaginable only 20 or 30 years ago. How can we be sure that those machines will not under any circumstances harm us? We need a verification criterion: a test that would verify the autonomous machine’s aptitude to make “good” rather than “bad” decisions. This chapter discusses what such a test would consist of. We will call this test the ethical machine safety test or machine safety test (MST) for short. Making “good” or “bad” choices is associated with ethics. By analogy, an ability of the autonomous machines to make such choices is often interpreted as machine’s ethical ability, which is not strictly correct. The MST is not intended to prove that machines have reached the level of moral standing people have or reached the level of autonomy that endows them with “moral personality” and makes them responsible for what they do. The MST is intended to verify that autonomous machines are safe to be around us.

In all areas of science communication, metaphors are a very important tool for explaining complex matters in everyday language. While in mathematics or physics, the domain language is visible as such, the notions used in the interdisciplinary field of artificial intelligence (AI) already seem like everyday language and therefore hide their inner complexity. AI vocabulary comprises many anthropomorphisms to describe seemingly cognitive-like computer functions. Considering terms such as “learning”, “deciding”, “recognizing” or even “intelligence” itself, purely descriptive conversations about the field are nearly impossible. Difficulties now arise when such charged vocabulary as in the field of AI is being directly transferred into other domains or back into everyday language used in political or public debates. Confusion expands even more, when such assumed capabilities hit the discourse concerning transhumanism, who wants to “enhance” humans technologically. However, “enhancement” is usually meant in a masculine and capitalist regime of enhancement: think faster, jump higher, live longer, be more productive.

This chapter makes the claim that present debates around AI and transhumanism are characterized by a general lack of sensitivity and critical distance to the various levels and contexts of metaphors used. As a consequence, questions regarding responsibility and potential use cases are greatly distorted. The chapter proves its claim by critically analysing core notions of the AI and transhumanism debates and is a conceptual work at the intersection of computer science/machine learning and the philosophy of language.

Transhumanism is interrogated from critical race theoretical and decolonial perspectives with a view to establishing its “algorithmic” relationship to historical processes of race formation (or racialization) within Euro-American historical experience. Although the transhumanist project is overdetermined vis-à-vis its raison d’être, it is argued that a useful way of thinking about this project is in terms of its relationship to the shifting phenomenon of whiteness. It is suggested that transhumanism constitutes a techno-scientific response to the phenomenon of “White Crisis” at least partly prompted by contestation of Eurocentrically universal humanism.

In this chapter, imaginaries of the future with respect to cyber technologies will be analysed. The question is whether or not the relationship between humans and machines shall be designed, modelled and framed such that the distinction between the human and the artificial is blurred. Answers that enact conflating (reductive or projective) or disjoining ways of thinking give evidence of different combinations of hubris and humiliation. For philosopher Günther Anders, in the 1950s, “Promethean shame”, that is, hubristic self-humiliation, was the “climax of all possible dehumanization”. Today, this anti-humanism comes in trans- and posthumanist disguises. Only integrative answers without hubris and without humiliation can provide humanist imaginaries.

Imaginations and desires of self-creation and infinite life have been known ever since humans are conscious about their knowledge about death. Such ideas are found in philosophies, literature or religious beliefs, and they are picked up and driven forward by today’s notions, technologies and scientific investigations in transhumanism. In this article, questions of the genesis of such ideas are investigated, as well as the most different actual occurrences between biological survival and computational stamping detached from human physical life. The text will move between their feasibility and their desirability. After an introduction, the second section deals with the historical figures of infinite life, as there are golem, homunculus, the Russian movement of cosmism or the Czech invented concept of robots and their religious meanings. In fact, a deeper analysis of the transhumanistic ideas reveals a close linkage to the seemingly agnostic technocratic movement, or even a new technological religious meaning. In the third section, some less well-known stories of prolonged or infinite life in literature and opera are presented, showing both expectable economic and population developmental consequences, but also possible boredom of repeated experiences and other frictions. The fourth and last section will discuss some reflections stemming from Science Technology Studies (STS) and in particular from gender studies. The feminist concept of posthumanism criticizing some humanistic ideas is turned constructive with the feminist concept of cyborgism. And the very revealing discussion of gender in elite sports shows again how to elude gender dualism. This all leads to an end about posthumanism and the materialist theory of agential realism as argument and contention with transhumanism.

This contribution investigates co-creative system design in transhuman settings based on a reflective learning approach. Transhuman settings can be understood as systems of co-creation and co-evolution, laying the groundwork for development processes informed by educational reflection principles. A communication framework and system architecture utilizing explanation facilities of machine learning systems allows for co-constructive intervention and stepwise alignment of objectives, capabilities and interaction, and thereby, induces transformation processes, both for the actors involved and the transhuman setting they are part of. (This chapter is based on the presentation at the IS4SI 2017 Summit Digitalisation for a Sustainable Society in Gothenburg—see also Stary (Multidiscip Digit Publish Inst Proc 1(3):236, 2017).)