Transumanar

Kevin Warwick’s talk in Second Life

Prof. Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, gave a presentation in Second Life on Monday, April 23, 2007. The event was organized by the Second Life Chapter of the World Transhumanist Association. When we look towards the capabilities of intelligent machines (AI) we can see that these hold some distinct advantages over human intelligence. Mathematical speed, memory, sensing range, multi-dimensional operation and respectable communication being examples. It seems sensible therefore for humans, if they wish, to benefit by directly linking their brain with that of an intelligent machine network. In this presentation Kevin looked at the possibilities, considered some of the experimental work presently going on around the world and described the practical experimentation he has already carried out.

Please see this page for pictures and technical details. The page will be updated with pointers to the press and media coverage, transcripts, audio track and videoclips in a few days. I gave a short introduction saying “we talk the talk, but Kevin walks the walk”. Of all the the transhumanist events we organized in Second Life so far, this was by far the most popular: the available space filled very soon and I was getting IM messages like “I cannot come because uvvy island is full, please do something”. So I had to raise the occupancy limit of the sim risking a crash (that did not happen). 70 persons in total attended the talk. The success of the event is certainly due to the fact that Kevin Warwick is a well known expert in a hot field, but also to the very professional preparation work done by Prof. Warwick’s staff and the Second Life Chapter of the World Transhumanist Association, in particular VR Manoj.

Prof. Warwick gave a very good talk on current technology and its likely evolution. He stayed mostly on the practical side, but I am sure most people in the audience got the radical, transhumanist implications of Kevin’s cutting edge research in interface technologies.

The next event organized by the Second Life Chapter of the World Transhumanist Association will be the Seminar on Transhumanism and Religion on April 29.

Posted by on 04/25 at 03:51 AM