Insights January 17th, 2017
Each Tuesday Nikolas Badminton, Futurist, summarizes 3 to 5 future looking developments in the realm of transhuman and cyborg-related technologies.
In Transhuman Tuesday – Being and Becoming More we look at Jason Silva’s idea of where we are going and how the U.S. National Intelligence Council predicts a Transhuman future.
To be Human is to be Transhuman
U.S. spy agency predicts a very transhuman future by 2030
The National Intelligence Council has just released its much anticipated forecasting report, a 140-page document that outlines major trends and technological developments we should expect in the next 20 years. Among their many predictions, the NIC foresees the end of U.S. global dominance, the rising power of individuals against states, a growing middle class that will increasingly challenge governments, and ongoing shortages in water, food and energy. But they also envision a future in which humans have been significantly modified by their technologies — what will herald the dawn of the transhuman era.
This work brings to mind the National Science Foundation’s groundbreaking 2003 report, Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance — a relatively early attempt to understand and predict how advanced biotechnologies would impact on the human experience. The NIC’s new report, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, follows in the same tradition — namely one that doesn’t ignore the potential for enhancement technologies.
Read more at I09
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Nikolas Badminton is a world-respected futurist speaker that researches, speaks, and writes about the future of work, how technology is affecting the workplace, how workers are adapting, the sharing economy, and how the world is evolving. He appears at conferences in Canada, USA, UK, and Europe. Email him to book him for your radio, TV show, or conference.