Hill mentioned the transhuman movement in his paper to highlight the perpetuation of these naive tendencies of mankind today. Transhumanism is an ideology dedicated to the harmony and integration of technology and human life with the goal of transcending the natural human life into something greater with more power and abilities.
This ideology has birthed a plethora of platforms for transhuman advocation, one example being the Cyborg Foundation, created in 2010. According to their website, their mission is to "help people become cyborgs, promote cyborg art and defend cyborg rights." They have even devised a "Cyborg Bill of Rights" in which they listed out different civil rights and liberties that a cyborg should have.
This is exactly the type of selfish human behavior that Wiener had anticipated would be the cause of machines to break free of our control. One major thing that divides human from machine is the ability to consciously think and make decisions for ones own self-defined interests. Machinery is much stronger, powerful, and computationally capable than any average human being, so the minute that machines gain the ability to think for themselves, mankind has lost complete control over machines. In order to preserve the safety of the future of humanity, we need to be more wary about how we utilize technology for the advancement of the human race, or else the once fictional world of killer robots may become our reality.
Great hook, grabbing viewer's attention with contemporary examples and pop culture. You make a defined argument, that transhumanism is dangerous because it blurs the lines of what it means to be human. The problem is in how you back up this argument. Norbert Weiner is a very compelling figure because his ideas around cybernetics are the first to bring together biology and computing. He was against the wrongful use and exploitation of technology, not just any outright use of it. Your example regarding cyborgs doesn't explain how this is selfish or unethical, and I think it may be missing Weiner's point in his quote. Maybe cyborgs are exploiting technology in an unethical way, but you don't elaborate in your article.
ReplyDeleteYour introductory paragraph was very captivating. I appreciated how you used modern references to hook your reader. However, the evidence to back up your claims was often weak. Weiner is a great source to use, but your post does not touch on how blurring the line between human and machine is unethical. Maybe include a brief section where a proponent of transhumanism rationalizes their argument and then refute it to make your argument even stronger.
ReplyDelete