Humanity+, UK 2011: Making a human difference

The Humanity+ UK 2011 conference is an opportunity to meet some of the most interesting futurist thinkers in the UK - to listen to their ideas, hear about the progress of their projects, ask them questions, and debate with them.

The principal theme of the conference is “Making a human difference”.

The speakers will be as follows (listed in alphabetical order by first name):

Ajit Jaokar – Meditation as a transhumanist technology;
Dr Amnon Eden – Scientific notions of Technological Singularity;
Dr Anders Sandberg – The future of ideas on machine intelligence;
Anna Salamon - Survival in the margins of the singularity?
Dr Aubrey de Grey – Approaching the human longevity escape velocity;
David Pearce – What is empathetic superintelligence?
David Wood – Five key questions for futurists;
Dean Bubley – Session chairman;
Professor Kevin Warwick – Human Enhancement: A Practical Guide;
Luke Robert Mason – Traversing the Transhuman: Bridging the Gap Between Biology and Technology Through Art;
Dr Marios Kyriazis – Achieving human biological immortality;
Michael A. Woodley – How clever-sillies might thwart the singularity;
Pieter Bonte – Estranging ourselves from nature: from existential principle to transhuman practice;
Rachel Armstrong – Living megacities: the forthcoming habitat of synthetic biologies;
Richard Osborne – The next steps to the solar system;
Tom Michael – Evidence based cognitive enhancement: a neuropsychological perspective.

See here (https://humanityplus.org.uk/speakers/) for more details of the speakers, and here (https://humanityplus.org.uk/agenda/) for the agenda for the day.

To cover costs of hiring the main rooms in Conway Hall for an entire day, there will be a small entry fee for attendees. This is described here (https://humanityplus.org.uk/registration/) – which links in turn to an EventBrite page. (Sorry, an RSVP on this Meetup page is, by itself, NOT sufficient to gain entry to this event.)

Examples of the kinds of questions that will be explored during the day:

Setting aside hype, what are the realistic scenarios for progress with emerging technologies that have the potential to make us all smarter, stronger, healthier, longer-lived, kinder, more fulfilled, and more sociable?
What are the most serious risks (“existential risks”) facing humanity over the next few decades, and what is the role of technology in addressing these risks?
What are the implications of rapidly changing technology for what it means to be human?
What are the pros and cons of aspiring to a “Humanity+” phase of evolution, with powers and experiences as far above those of present humans as human experience exceeds that of pre-human apes?
If people want to become involved in activism supporting Humanity+, what are the best steps they can take?