Going by physicist and AI researcher Hugo de Garis's terms, I'm a "Cosmist Cyborgist." I want to build human++ cyborgs, but I don't want to be "left in the dust."
If you don't understand the first sentence, then you probably aren't familiar with Physicist, Computer Scientist, and AGI researcher Hugo de Garis. De Garis has posited that humanity will differentiate into two warring groups: "cosmists" and "terrans." He defines "cosmists" as humans who favor building superintelligences ("artilects" = "ARTIficial"+"inteLLECT") and thereby expanding out into the cosmos rather quickly and efficiently. He defines "terrans" as humans who fear the cosmists, fear superhuman AGI, and intend to wage war against them to prevent the human species from being displaced by superhuman intelligences. (Ted Kaczynski is one such "terran.")
Of course, you may be more familiar with these ideas labeled as a "Singularity." Here is the basic concept, first defined intelligently in the 1950s by Isadore Jakob Gudak (who Americanized his name to "I. J. Good"):
"Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as
a machine that can far surpass all the
intellectual activities of any man however
clever. Since the design of machines is one
of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent
machine could design even better machines;
there would then unquestionably be an
'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence
of man would be left far behind. Thus the first
ultraintelligent machine is the last invention
that man need ever make."
—I. J. Good
Professor of cybernetics Kevin Warwick at the University of Reading, UK, posits a third group: "cyborgists," who favor mixing machinery into the human body to gradually increase human intelligence and physicality to superhuman levels. Here is a speech by Kevin Warwick advocating cyborgism:
Ray Kurzweil also believes this will happen, and also advocates for its happening, but believes the transition will be very gradual. Marshall Brain, the creator of "How Stuff Works," is another (among many) who has weighed in with a significantly interesting speculative fiction view on this subject (linked to his name, prior). Interestingly, Brain is a something like a collectivist voluntaryist who favors a Hayekian "basic income" as a means of avoiding species differentiation (ie: "We should become gods ourselves."
In replies, please first identify yourself as 1 of 3 identities (Terran, Cosmist, Cyborgist), and refrain from commenting if you have not watched the first video by Hugo de Garis, or do not understand the terms.
