Re: MEDIA: Professor cyborg

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Wed, 20 Oct 1999 20:18:47 -0500

James Ganong wrote:
>
> A report fromSalon ezine on Kevin Warwick, who, last year, became known
> as the recipient of the first known nonmedical implant. He's going a
> step further...
>
> http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/10/20/cyborg/index.html

>From my Salon post in "Table Talk":

==
I, of course, strongly approve of Warwick's high-tech playfulness; now <i>that</i> is the spirit of <i>neurohacking,</i> and it's exactly the attitude we need to face the future without panicking. If you're going to take on the job of navigating humanity into a future full of nanotechnological weapons and neurosilicate interfaces and enhancive neurosurgery and artificial intelligence, then the real test of your spirit is whether you can have fun doing it. Stick an implant in your arm, smoke-test the first direct interface... hack up an AI, wire up the amygdala and half the limbic system like Christmas trees...

A great and transcendent birth is about to take place. Maybe we don't know who will be born - humanity, or something else - but something will be born on this planet, and screaming and trying to swim back into the womb isn't going to help. Why be afraid? Being afraid isn't going to help. If you're going to walk along the edge of the abyss, you may as well dance. If all of humanity could face the creation of transhuman intelligence with Warwick's sense of enthusiasm, I would not fear the outcome.

-- 

           sentience@pobox.com          Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
        http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
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