The Embellishing

Smart contact lenses

have been a popular concept in films for many years and may now finally have arrived in reality. Mojo Vision has revealed its new lenses which can display statistics like health tracking and other data feeds using augmented reality. The lenses project light in front of the user’s eye - meaning it can still be seen when their eyes are shut.

Cosmetics seem to go as far back in time as we can tell.

Some peoples traditionally modify their bodies, sometimes embedding natural objects (like shells in African tribal piercing) or artefacts (like jewels). Cosmetics have become quite sophisticated, leveraging on advanced technologies like carbon nanotubes and contact lenses (to alter the iris colour).

More recently the availability of flexible electronics and graphene has led researchers to experiment various forms of electronic tattoos to provide new forms of embellishment.

Plastic surgery is now able to modify many “physical” aspects of our body, enlarging, reducing, modifying the colour … We even have Apps that allows you to virtually experiment plastic surgery!

By 2040 one can expect technology to provide a variety of ways to “change” the human body to satisfy the fancy of advanced cosmetics. Would you like longer, thinner fingers? What about a luminous fluorescent cheek? By tweaking genes we might be able to define several aspects of our child body and with genome modification using viral carriers we can even modify our current genome. I am not, personally, looking forward to this. At the same time I know that if something can be done, someone will do it….

Our body is a system of sub-systems. Sometimes a sub-system fails resulting in a disability (losing a limb) or death (heart failure). Over the past fifty years scientists have managed to replace some organs, using transplant and prosthetics. Technological progress will increase our capabilities of replacing body parts. Researchears are progressing in growing organs: 3D printers using person’s cells are already printing skin, bones and windpipe (trachea) and in the labs bladder, liver and muscle are experimented. A growing understanding of the genes and their regulators will open the way to self re-generation. At the same time artificial organs are being studied. In a few decades we can expect organ replacement to become as common as today is the replacement of the eye lens or teeth.

Since failing organs represent a significant cause of death we might expect an increase in the average life time once organ transplant becomes routine.

Notice that replacement in the future may also lead to an increase in performance of the replaced organ.

We are already adding capabilities to our body when using some sort of prosthetics like the special glasses used by surgeons (and dentists) to get a better view of the operating field. In the future there will be more and more opportunities to use technology in a seamless way to augment our body capabilities, for sure in the area of increasing our senses, like seeing in the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum, hearing beyond the range of normally perceived frequencies…

We can also expect, according the the Imperial College Foresight study the advent of embedded chip that will expand our capabilities. Brain Computer Interfaces are already being studied with the aim of becoming seamless. Brain chip implants is already reality to control epileptic crises. DARPA has launched a project in 2017 to create a chip that can be implanted in the human brain to help curing some forms of mental disabilities. Whether this will become a reality or not is still an open question but questions on possible drawback are already being voiced.

Take a look at the clip to see how venture capitals are funding new companies aiming at increasing our brain capabilities to create super-humans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgFzmE2fGXA

The Augmenting

standard, generic appearance and a permanent smile

We are not in search of an illusory « perfection », or of a standard model of ”the new man » forcefully imposed on all. On the contrary, we think that the human being can « become more »:

Live much longer in good health

Become more intelligent, aware, creative, empathetic …

Extend the breadth and reach of individual possibility thanks to new technologies (virtual reality, control by thought …)

We believe that the human is not something fixed, but can constantly evolve. How much? No one knows precisely. But if we consider that it is better to be a human than an earthworm, why halt our fruitful ongoing journey?

We have become « human » after a long process of natural evolution. We believe that this evolution can continue with technology. We want to further the richness and diversity of human life. We have enormous potential for continued evolution: it would be a shame not to realize it

Modern transhumanism aims to extend life by

aims to extend life by:

replacing biological organs with artificial ones (or assisting natural organs with technology, as is already happening: pacemakers, endoprostheses),

interference with the human genome

exoskeletons (which would perform a protective role whilst boosting strength and speed),

the use of nanorobots.

Th

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-51137379

https://cmte.ieee.org/futuredirections/2018/05/02/u/

https://transhumanistes.com/the-augmented-human/

https://apagroup.pl/apalab/en/how-close-are-we-to-transhumanism-en-translation/