At an UnHerd event last night, columnist Mary Harrington and Oxford University AI ethicist Elise Bohan, author of Future Superhuman, came together to discuss transhumanism — the idea that human limits such as longevity and cognition can be pushed back using technology. Is this a utopian vision of a better future or a dystopian nightmare? Below, Mary’s opening remarks are republished in full:
I hope Elise would agree, broadly speaking, with my working definition of transhumanism. A worldview in which ‘human nature’ has no special cultural or political status. And in which it’s not just legitimate but morally necessary to use technology — especially biotechnology — to improve on that nature.
When we talk about transhumanism, the temptation is to depict this as an exciting (or frightening) possible future, but in any case one that hasn’t really happened yet.
Another point on which I hope Elise and I would agree is that this is the wrong way to look at it. Transhumanism is already here. In fact it’s so well-established that there’s arguably no point in debating its pros and cons. So: congratulations, Elise. Your side already won. End of debate, we can all go and have a drink.
I’m joking, of course. There’s lots to talk about! Not least, what we can infer from how the transhumanist era is going so far.
This era began in the mid-twentieth century, with a biomedical innovation that radically changed what it is to be a human, in the human social order: reproductive technology.
The Pill was the first transhumanist technology: it set out not to fix something that was wrong with ‘normal’ human physiology — in the ameliorative sense of medicine up to that point — but instead it introduced a whole new paradigm. It set out to interrupt normal in the interests of individual freedom.
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