The US Transhumanist Party drafted a proposed "bill of rights" in response to the scientific and medical challanges anticipated technologies represent and delivered them to the US Capitol in December 2015.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/zoltan-ist...-transhumanist-bill-rights-us-capitol-1534388
This is part of a much larger debate regarding the future consequences of technologies that could enhance human beings mental and physical powers as well as more general threats and changes.
http://europe.newsweek.com/transhumanism-zoltan-istvan-civil-rights-21st-century-453884?rm=eu
(Both of the above sources are not neutral but for the purpose of introducing the subject they'll do.)
The draft had 6 articles, which included:
1. Recognising the rights of cyborgs, sentiment artifical intelligences and other advanced sapient life forms.
2. Preventing religious, cultural or ethnic perspectives from imeding scientufic efforts towards life extension and the health of tge public.
3. A right to morphological freedom- the right to do with ones physical attributes or intelligence (dead, alive, conscious or unconscious) whatever one wants as long as it does no harm to others.
4. Taking reasonsble precautions against existential risks such as rouge artificial intelligences, asteroids, plagues, weapons of mass destruction, bioterrorism, war, global warming among others.
5. Measures to embrace and fund space travel, as an ultimate safeguard to preserving humanity in the event the earth is destroyed or becomes uninhabitable.
6. Classify involuntary aging as a disease and direct the government to fund scientific research in life-extension technologies.
Full text here:
http://www.transhumanistparty.org/TranshumanistBillofRights.html
At a glance, this looks like a publicity stunt to raise awareness but it is none the less food for thought. Do you think in principle we need such a bill of rights to respond to these challanges or is this "pie in the sky" technological utopianism?
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/zoltan-ist...-transhumanist-bill-rights-us-capitol-1534388
This is part of a much larger debate regarding the future consequences of technologies that could enhance human beings mental and physical powers as well as more general threats and changes.
http://europe.newsweek.com/transhumanism-zoltan-istvan-civil-rights-21st-century-453884?rm=eu
(Both of the above sources are not neutral but for the purpose of introducing the subject they'll do.)
The draft had 6 articles, which included:
1. Recognising the rights of cyborgs, sentiment artifical intelligences and other advanced sapient life forms.
2. Preventing religious, cultural or ethnic perspectives from imeding scientufic efforts towards life extension and the health of tge public.
3. A right to morphological freedom- the right to do with ones physical attributes or intelligence (dead, alive, conscious or unconscious) whatever one wants as long as it does no harm to others.
4. Taking reasonsble precautions against existential risks such as rouge artificial intelligences, asteroids, plagues, weapons of mass destruction, bioterrorism, war, global warming among others.
5. Measures to embrace and fund space travel, as an ultimate safeguard to preserving humanity in the event the earth is destroyed or becomes uninhabitable.
6. Classify involuntary aging as a disease and direct the government to fund scientific research in life-extension technologies.
Full text here:
http://www.transhumanistparty.org/TranshumanistBillofRights.html
At a glance, this looks like a publicity stunt to raise awareness but it is none the less food for thought. Do you think in principle we need such a bill of rights to respond to these challanges or is this "pie in the sky" technological utopianism?
