The ethics of transhumanism

Will this create a new class divide, where an elite class emerges through both physical and mental upgrades?

One ofthe proposed solutions to achieve immortality comes from Ray Kurzweil, who believes that we can transfer our consciousness to machines to achieve digital immortality within three decades.

However, by the time it is predicted we achieve digital immortality, it is also likely that we would have developed human-like artificial intelligence. Elon Musk believes that humans need to add digital implants in the form of a neural lace to their brains to be able to compete with artificial intelligence.

For those who wish to start with something simpler than brain implants, you can order a DIY kit to implant RFID or NFC chips in your hand. The founder ofthe site has completely stopped using keys and passwords, and states that implants like these should be considered a natural next step of human evolution. Earlier this year Andreas Sjöström got some attention through a YouTube video, showing how he boarded a flight by tapping his left hand on an NFC reader.

While implants are one form of augmentation for thetranshuman age, prosthetics are becoming more advanced and there are already projects in development that enable limbs to be controlled by the mind and linked directly to the nervous system.

Advances in 3D printing are also entering the world of prosthetics and organ transplants. We will soon be able to create custom replacement parts for both limbs and organs. Imagine a future where you will be able to replace different limbs to suit different tasks, with bionic body parts specifically engineered to perform specialized tasks much better than our own arms and legs that are generally good at most things.

For those who wish to start with something simpler than brain implants, you can order a DIY kit to implant RFID or NFC chips in your hand.

There are even those who claim that in a transhuman world, the disabled will be the ones without prosthetic limbsor other forms of bionic enhancements. This opens up another ethical debate. When is it OK to replace healthy human limbs with artificial (and in the future, superior) ones?

For those who prefer to stay biological, but still look to enhance performance, biohacking is another field within the transhumanist movement. For $199, you can get your DNA analyzed by the company 23andMe to test various health conditions based on genetic and hereditary conditions. Researchers are even browsing DNA data to look for clues that let us understand depression. The most well-known initiative in this field is the Human Genome Project, which from the very beginning foresaw that human genomic research would raise ethical, legal and social issues. Indeed, there are already cases of genetic discrimination in the insurance industry.

However, understanding genetics is only the first step. CRISPR is a technology that allows scientists to edit genomes with unprecedented precision, efficiency and flexibility. Chinese scientists will become thefirst in the world to inject people with cells modified using gene-editing technology CRISPR Cas9 in an attempt to cure cancer.

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Genome editing raises some complex issues, and critics warn about thesocial dangers of creating genetically modified humans, and also state that gene editing challenges the view of what it means to be human.

Whether superhuman performance, longevity or even immortality is achieved through ridding ourselves of our biological body, augmentations or biohacking, an important question arises: Who gets to be transhuman?Will this create a new class divide, where an elite class emerges through both physical and mental upgrades? A robotic heart for instance, currently costs around $200,000.

While many ofthe ideas oftranshumanism are noble, the field is accused of sharing traits with eugenics. I am not even going to try to answer the many ethical, moral and existential questions raised by transhumanism. The only thing I know is that it is inevitable that advances in robotics, bionics, artificial intelligence and genetics will affect the next phase of human evolution, and we should not underestimate theethical and social implications.