The July & August 2015 issue of Foreign Affairs, published by the Council on Foreign Relations.

As robotic prosthetics enter the mainstream, they will house sensors and cloud connected software that will exceed the human body’s ability to sense, store, and process information.

The first step in what futurists such as Hans Moravec, PhD and Ray Kurzweil have dubbed “transhumanism” — a post-evolutionary transformation that will replace humans with a hybrid of man and machine. It is merely a matter of time before human-robot couplings outperform biological systems.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning might produce the “technological singularity” — computer systems that invent new tech surpassing their original human creators.

Daily life will involve interacting with machines without knowing how much another person is involved in the machine’s response. There will be no room in human-robot systems for us to treat robots one way and humans another, each style of interaction will infect the other.

Moravec sees a post-evolutionary Homo sapiens that will usher in a leisure age of comfort and prosperity. Others envision robotic vessels able to upload human consciousness. Kurzweil explains the singularity will offer people a software based immortality. […]

related reading:
Council on Foreign Relations | main
Council on Foreign Relations | YouTube channel

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Council on Foreign Relations | talk by Ray Kurzweil: Exponentially expanding future from exponentially shrinking tech

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Council on Foreign Relations: Foreign Affairs | The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil review

Carnegie Mellon University | Hans Moravec, PhD
Wikipedia | Hans Moravec, PhD

related viewing from the Council on Foreign Relations:

Council on Foreign Relations | Joel Garreau of the Garreau Group and Michael Rogers of Practical Futurist join Hyper Vocal’s Lee Brenner to discuss the latest advances in information technology and biotechnology and their implications for public policy.

The panelists note that though government support for basic research has been crucial to the development of many advanced technologies, the proper level of governmental involvement in the regulation of those technologies is contested. They also discuss the economic challenges that are created as technology alters the demand for particular skills in labor force.

speakers:
Joel Garreau, principal, The Garreau Group
Author of Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies, and What It Means to Be Human

Michael Rogers, founder, Practical Futurist
Futurist-in-Residence, New York Times Company