Transhumanism Branded a 'Demise Cult' as Thinkers Conflict Over Humanity's Future – Decrypt

Briefly
Transhumanism was labeled a “loss of life cult” by critics who argued it misunderstood what it means to be human.
Advocate Zoltan Istvan defended the motion as a humanitarian effort to finish struggling, ageing, and loss of life via know-how.
Philosophers and AI researchers warned that guarantees of digital immortality had been flawed and raised unresolved moral dangers.
Transhumanism, a motion that seeks to defeat ageing and loss of life via know-how, was sharply criticized throughout a current debate between philosophers, scientists, and transhumanist advocates, who rejected the accusation as misguided and reactionary.The trade passed off Dec. 4 on the UK-based Institute of Artwork and Concepts’ “World’s Most Harmful Concept” occasion, the place neuroscientist and thinker Àlex Gómez-Marín argued that the motion features as a pseudo-religion—one which goals to remove the human situation moderately than protect it.“I believe transhumanism is a loss of life cult,” Gómez-Marín mentioned. “I believe transhumanism is a pseudo-religion wearing techno-scientific language whose objective is to extinct the human situation and inform everybody that we should always cheer and clap as this occurs.”The talk has circulated amongst technologists, philosophers, and ethicists for many years, however has taken on renewed urgency as synthetic intelligence, biotechnology, and longevity analysis advance. Whereas advocates argue know-how can save humanity from loss of life, critics warn the motion is predicated on fantasies of immortality.Extra not too long ago, a report by the Galileo Fee warned that transhumanist efforts to merge people and machines might scale back human life to a technical system and sideline questions of that means, identification, and company.The time period “transhumanism” was coined within the mid-Twentieth century and later developed by thinkers together with Julian Huxley, Max Extra, Natasha Vita-Extra, Ben Goertzel, Nick Bostrom, and Ray Kurzweil. Supporters similar to biohacker Bryan Johnson and tech billionaire Peter Thiel have argued that know-how may very well be used to transcend organic limits similar to ageing and illness. Critics have countered that the motion’s goals would solely profit the ultra-wealthy, and blur the road between science and faith.
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First, right here’s what’s going to occur:+ Don’t Die turns into historical past's fastest-growing ideology.+ It saves the human race.+ And ushers in… pic.twitter.com/MJcrU9uXNf
— Bryan Johnson (@bryan_johnson) March 7, 2025Joining Gómez-Marín within the dialogue had been thinker Susan Schneider, AI researcher Adam Goldstein, and Zoltan Istvan, a transhumanist creator and political candidate who's at present operating for governor of California, rejected Gómez-Marín’s characterization and described transhumanism as an effort to scale back struggling rooted in biology.The individuals provided competing visions of whether or not transhumanist concepts represented humanitarian progress, philosophical confusion, or an moral misstep.“Most transhumanists similar to myself imagine that ageing is a illness, and we want to overcome that illness so that you simply don’t must die, and that the family members you may have don’t must die,” Istvan mentioned, tying the view to non-public loss.“I misplaced my father about seven years in the past,” he mentioned. “Demise we've all accepted as a pure lifestyle, however transhumanists don’t settle for that.”Gómez-Marín mentioned the larger danger lay not in particular applied sciences however within the worldview guiding their improvement, notably amongst know-how leaders who, he argued, find out about know-how however don’t know humanity.“They know quite a bit about know-how, however they know little or no about anthropology,” he mentioned.For her half, thinker Susan Schneider informed the viewers that she as soon as recognized as a transhumanist, and drew a distinction between utilizing know-how to enhance well being and endorsing extra radical claims similar to importing consciousness to the cloud.“There’s this declare that we'll add the mind,” Schneider mentioned. “I don’t assume you or I will obtain digital immortality, even when the know-how is there—since you can be killing your self, and one other digital copy of you'd be created.”Schneider additionally warned that transhumanist language was more and more used to deflect consideration from speedy coverage questions, together with information privateness, regulation, and entry to rising applied sciences.Adam Goldstein, an AI researcher, informed the viewers that the talk ought to focus much less on predictions of salvation or disaster and extra on decisions already being made about how know-how is designed and ruled.“I believe if we need to be constructive, we want to consider which of those futures we really need to construct,” he mentioned. “As a substitute of taking it as a on condition that the long run goes to be like this or like that, we will ask what can be a great future.”The central challenge, Goldstein mentioned, was whether or not people selected to design a cooperative future with synthetic intelligence or approached it from concern and management, which might form the way forward for humanity as soon as AI techniques surpassed human intelligence.“I believe we've good proof for what a great future is from the methods we’ve navigated variations with different human beings,” he mentioned. “We’ve discovered political techniques, at the very least a few of the time, that work to assist us bridge variations and obtain a peaceable settlement of our wants. And there’s no motive I can see why the long run can’t be like that with AI additionally.”Typically Clever NewsletterA weekly AI journey narrated by Gen, a generative AI mannequin.