Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
Morality Foresight And Human Flourishing
Download Morality Foresight And Human Flourishing full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Morality Foresight And Human Flourishing ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Book Synopsis Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing by : Phil Torres
Download or read book Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing written by Phil Torres and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Existential risk studies is a growing field that attempts to understand the greatest dangers to humanity from a scientific perspective. This book offers the first scholarly survey of existential risks, from asteroid impacts and climate change to molecular nanotechnology and machine superintelligence. It argues that avoiding an existential catastrophe should be among our highest moral priorities and analyzes a number of risk mitigation strategies to reduce the probability of a worst-case scenario. The dangers facing humanity this century are real and immense, but the future course of civilization is ultimately up to us.
Book Synopsis Morality, foresight, and human flourishing : an introduction to existential risks by : Phil [VNV] Torres
Download or read book Morality, foresight, and human flourishing : an introduction to existential risks written by Phil [VNV] Torres and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Anticipatory Ethics and The Use of CRISPR in Humans by : Michael W. Nestor
Download or read book Anticipatory Ethics and The Use of CRISPR in Humans written by Michael W. Nestor and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-05-20 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The future of gene editing in humans will involve the use of CRISPR. How we think about the combination of the scientific, ethical, and moral aspects of this technology is paramount to the success or failure of CRISPR in humans. Unfortunately, the current scientific discussion around CRISPR in humans has left ethics trailing behind due to the rapid pace of innovation. New modes of ethics and stakeholder participation are needed to keep pace with rapid scientific advances and provide the necessary policy and ethical frameworks necessary to help CRISPR flourish as an important health care tool to treat human disease. This requires intense interdisciplinary collaboration and discussion between scientists and philosophers, policymakers and legal scholars, and the public. Dr. Michael W. Nestor (a neuroscientist who actively uses CRISPR in pre-clinical research) and Professor Richard Wilson (a philosopher who focuses on anticipatory ethics) set out to develop a new ethical approach considering the use of CRISPR in human targeted therapies. The field of anticipatory ethics is uniquely poised to tackle questions in fast-evolving technical areas where the pace of innovation outstrips traditional philosophical approaches. Furthermore, because of its “anticipatory” nature, this type of analysis provides the opportunity to look ahead and into the future concerning potential uses of CRISPR in humans, uses that are not currently possible. Nestor and Wilson collaborate both scientifically and philosophically in this book to forecast potential outcomes as the scientific and medical community goes beyond using CRISPR to correct genes that underlie diseases where a single gene is involved. Instead, Nestor and Wilson envision CRISPR in complex, multigenic disorders with a specific focus on the use of CRISPR to edit genes involved in mental traits like IQ or other cognitive characteristics. They argue that the use of CRISPR to modify genes that are potentially important for mental traits represents a particular category for special consideration from scientists, policymakers, the public, and other stakeholders. Nestor and Wilson explain why using CRISPR to alter mental states is very different from treating a disease like cancer by combining the latest scientific advancements with anticipatory ethics and philosophical phenomenology. Their analysis considers the role that mental states play in personhood and the lived experience-as genes that can change mental/cognitive attributes like IQ have wide-ranging effects on the lived experience in ways that are categorically different from other attributes. This book was written to set a non-exhaustive framework for shared understanding and discussion across disciplines and appeal to scientists and non-scientists alike. This appeal is made inclusively, inviting all stakeholders to engage in active dialogue about the appropriate context for using CRISPR and other gene-editing technologies in humans. It provides policy analysis and recommendations for assuring the most inclusive, equitable, and ethically sound use of CRISPR in humans, concerning its positive potential to treat mental conditions like depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, and the potential to induce other cognitive enhancements.
Book Synopsis Human Extinction by : Émile P. Torres
Download or read book Human Extinction written by Émile P. Torres and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume traces the origins and evolution of the idea of human extinction, from the ancient Presocratics through contemporary work on "existential risks." Many leading intellectuals agree that the risk of human extinction this century may be higher than at any point in our 300,000-year history as a species. This book provides insight on the key questions that inform this discussion, including when humans began to worry about their own extinction and how the debate has changed over time. It establishes a new theoretical foundation for thinking about the ethics of our extinction, arguing that extinction would be very bad under most circumstances, although the outcome might be, on balance, good. Throughout the book, graphs, tables, and images further illustrate how human choices and attitudes about extinction have evolved in Western history. In its thorough examination of humanity’s past, this book also provides a starting point for understanding our future. Although accessible enough to be read by undergraduates, Human Extinction contains new and thought-provoking research that will benefit even established academic philosophers and historians.
Book Synopsis Films from the Future by : Andrew Maynard
Download or read book Films from the Future written by Andrew Maynard and published by Mango Media Inc.. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Deftly shows how a seemingly frivolous film genre can guide us in shaping tomorrow’s world.” —Seth Shostak, senior astronomer, SETI Institute Artificial intelligence, gene manipulation, cloning, and interplanetary travel are all ideas that seemed like fairy tales but a few years ago. And now their possibilities are very much here. But are we ready to handle these advances? This book, by a physicist and expert on responsible technology development, reveals how science fiction movies can help us think about and prepare for the social consequences of technologies we don’t yet have, but that are coming faster than we imagine. Films from the Future looks at twelve movies that take us on a journey through the worlds of biological and genetic manipulation, human enhancement, cyber technologies, and nanotechnology. Readers will gain a broader understanding of the complex relationship between science and society. The movies mix old and new, and the familiar and unfamiliar, to provide a unique, entertaining, and ultimately transformative take on the power of emerging technologies, and the responsibilities they come with.
Book Synopsis Automation and Utopia by : John Danaher
Download or read book Automation and Utopia written by John Danaher and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Automating technologies threaten to usher in a workless future, but John Danaher argues that this can be a good thing. A world without work may be a kind of utopia, free of the misery of the job and full of opportunities for creativity and exploration. If we play our cards right, automation could be the path to idealized forms of human flourishing.
Book Synopsis Transforming Nations after the COVID-19 Pandemic by : Denis H. J. Caro
Download or read book Transforming Nations after the COVID-19 Pandemic written by Denis H. J. Caro and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-23 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2020, the world is in the throes of the COVID-19 global pandemic—an epidemic the likes of which humankind has not experienced for decades. This book speaks to common and fundamental underlying issues that national communities face from a humanitarian and planetary systems perspective. From the globalization initiatives of the last decades, a dynamic and interconnected new planetary system order is emerging. This book underscores the need for decent, ethical, healthy, and just societies that enable individuals to reach full human potential. It explores the future directions of 12 Key Strategic Influencer (KSI) nations through 18 systemic factors that will shape the contours of future planetary governance this century. Finally, it proposes a nonconventional systems paradigm to humanitarian challenges.
Book Synopsis Technology and Anarchy by : Simona Chiodo
Download or read book Technology and Anarchy written by Simona Chiodo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-12-04 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Technology and Anarchy: A Reading of Our Era, Simona Chiodo argues that our technological era can be read as the most radical form of anarchism ever experienced. People are not only removing the role of the expert as a mediator, but also trying, for the first time in history, to replace the role of a transcendent god itself by creating, especially through information technology, a totally immanent technological entity characterized by the typical ontological prerogatives of the divine: omnipresence (by being everywhere), omniscience (by knowing everything, especially about us), omnipotence (by having power, especially over us), and inscrutability. Chiodo proposes a novel view of our technological era by reading it as the last step of a precise trajectory of Western thought, i.e. as the most radical form of anarchism we have ever experienced, due to the crisis of the founding epistemological relationship between ideality and reality. By doing this, Chiodo helps fill the gap between technological innovation and the humanities, which is becoming an emerging research goal that is more and more urgent in order to face the greatest challenges of our present and future.
Book Synopsis Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security by : Roman V. Yampolskiy
Download or read book Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security written by Roman V. Yampolskiy and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-07-27 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of robotics and artificial intelligence in many ways is also the history of humanity’s attempts to control such technologies. From the Golem of Prague to the military robots of modernity, the debate continues as to what degree of independence such entities should have and how to make sure that they do not turn on us, its inventors. Numerous recent advancements in all aspects of research, development and deployment of intelligent systems are well publicized but safety and security issues related to AI are rarely addressed. This book is proposed to mitigate this fundamental problem. It is comprised of chapters from leading AI Safety researchers addressing different aspects of the AI control problem as it relates to the development of safe and secure artificial intelligence. The book is the first edited volume dedicated to addressing challenges of constructing safe and secure advanced machine intelligence. The chapters vary in length and technical content from broad interest opinion essays to highly formalized algorithmic approaches to specific problems. All chapters are self-contained and could be read in any order or skipped without a loss of comprehension.
Book Synopsis Transhumanism: The Proper Guide to a Posthuman Condition or a Dangerous Idea? by : Wolfgang Hofkirchner
Download or read book Transhumanism: The Proper Guide to a Posthuman Condition or a Dangerous Idea? written by Wolfgang Hofkirchner and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the contributions of the transhumanism approach to technology, in particular the contributed chapters are wary of the implications of this popular idea. The volume is organized into four parts concerning philosophical, military, technological and sociological aspects of transhumanism, but the reader is free to choose various reading patterns. Topics discussed include gene editing, the singularity, ethical machines, metaphors in AI, mind uploading, and the philosophy of art, and some perspectives taken or discussed examine transhumanism within the context of the philosophy of technology, transhumanism as a derailed anthropology, and critical sociological aspects that consider transhumanism in the context of topical concerns such as whiteness, maleness, and masculinity. The book will be of value to researchers engaged with artificial intelligence, and the ethical, societal, and philosophical impacts of science and technology.
Download or read book On the Future written by Martin Rees and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative and inspiring look at the future of humanity and science from world-renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes—good and bad—are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and bestselling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow. The future of humanity is bound to the future of science and hinges on how successfully we harness technological advances to address our challenges. If we are to use science to solve our problems while avoiding its dystopian risks, we must think rationally, globally, collectively, and optimistically about the long term. Advances in biotechnology, cybertechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence—if pursued and applied wisely—could empower us to boost the developing and developed world and overcome the threats humanity faces on Earth, from climate change to nuclear war. At the same time, further advances in space science will allow humans to explore the solar system and beyond with robots and AI. But there is no “Plan B” for Earth—no viable alternative within reach if we do not care for our home planet. Rich with fascinating insights into cutting-edge science and technology, this accessible book will captivate anyone who wants to understand the critical issues that will define the future of humanity on Earth and beyond.
Download or read book Futures written by Carine Dartiguepeyrou and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2023-07-12 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the same way as there are many futures, not just one, there are many ways to conceive and practice foresight. The challenge of the great turning point of our civilization is to free ourselves from our prejudices in order to imagine and build desirable futures. The process is, by nature, ethical and prospective. In a complex, uncertain and geopolitically transforming world, we must be open to the diversity of cultures and the different perceptions of the future. This requires us to reflect on the purpose and means of our societies. Futures proposes different cultural and ethical views on civilizational transformation by offering a rare, transnational panorama of the visions of the future in a European, American and Chinese context. Through numerous examples, this book illustrates how foresight is practiced and what this can achieve in strategic terms.
Download or read book X-Risk written by Thomas Moynihan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How humanity came to contemplate its possible extinction. From forecasts of disastrous climate change to prophecies of evil AI superintelligences and the impending perils of genome editing, our species is increasingly concerned with the prospects of its own extinction. With humanity's future on this planet seeming more insecure by the day, in the twenty-first century, existential risk has become the object of a growing field of serious scientific inquiry. But, as Thomas Moynihan shows in X-Risk, this preoccupation is not exclusive to the post-atomic age of global warming and synthetic biology. Our growing concern with human extinction itself has a history. Tracing this untold story, Moynihan revisits the pioneers who first contemplated the possibility of human extinction and stages the historical drama of this momentous discovery. He shows how, far from being a secular reprise of religious prophecies of apocalypse, existential risk is a thoroughly modern idea, made possible by the burgeoning sciences and philosophical tumult of the Enlightenment era. In recollecting how we first came to care for our extinction, Moynihan reveals how today's attempts to measure and mitigate existential threats are the continuation of a project initiated over two centuries ago, which concerns the very vocation of the human as a rational, responsible, and future-oriented being.
Download or read book Dark Skies written by Daniel Deudney and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-02 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Space is again in the headlines. E-billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are planning to colonize Mars. President Trump wants a "Space Force" to achieve "space dominance" with expensive high-tech weapons. The space and nuclear arms control regimes are threadbare and disintegrating. Would-be asteroid collision diverters, space solar energy collectors, asteroid miners, and space geo-engineers insistently promote their Earth-changing mega-projects. Given our many looming planetary catastrophes (from extreme climate change to runaway artificial superintelligence), looking beyond the earth for solutions might seem like a sound strategy for humanity. And indeed, bolstered by a global network of fervent space advocates-and seemingly rendered plausible, even inevitable, by oceans of science fiction and the wizardly of modern cinema-space beckons as a fully hopeful path for human survival and flourishing, a positive future in increasingly dark times. But despite even basic questions of feasibility, will these many space ventures really have desirable effects, as their advocates insist? In the first book to critically assess the major consequences of space activities from their origins in the 1940s to the present and beyond, Daniel Deudney argues in Dark Skies that the major result of the "Space Age" has been to increase the likelihood of global nuclear war, a fact conveniently obscured by the failure of recognize that nuclear-armed ballistic missiles are inherently space weapons. The most important practical finding of Space Age science, also rarely emphasized, is the discovery that we live on Oasis Earth, tiny and fragile, and teeming with astounding life, but surrounded by an utterly desolate and inhospitable wilderness stretching at least many trillions of miles in all directions. As he stresses, our focus must be on Earth and nowhere else. Looking to the future, Deudney provides compelling reasons why space colonization will produce new threats to human survival and not alleviate the existing ones. That is why, he argues, we should fully relinquish the quest. Mind-bending and profound, Dark Skies challenges virtually all received wisdom about the final frontier.
Book Synopsis Multiverse Theories by : Simon Friederich
Download or read book Multiverse Theories written by Simon Friederich and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-28 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the intersection of physics and philosophy of science, this book outlines the philosophical challenge to theoretical physics in a measured, well-grounded manner. Cosmologists, high energy physicists, and philosophers including graduate students and researchers will find a systematic exploration of such questions in this important book.
Book Synopsis The Palgrave Handbook of Global Politics in the 22nd Century by : Laura Horn
Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Global Politics in the 22nd Century written by Laura Horn and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook offers a unique approach to the question: How do scholars write the future of global politics? Written in futur antérieur style, around the 200-year anniversary of the birth of International Relations (IR) as an academic discipline, the contributions engage in world-building and imagine different futures of IR. Set in a multiverse, 23 chapters draw on a range of possible themes and imaginaries, for instance post-pandemic conditions, the Anthropocene, and not least academic practices and the role of researchers. A concluding chapter anchors these explorations in contemporary discussions. The book mirrors the format and style of existing handbooks, combining outlines and discussions of theories, structures, processes, and core issues in IR with an academic science fiction account of how these might play out over the course of the next century. In doing so, the book challenges IR and provides alternative imaginaries, rather than predicting future conditions for all humanity. The book invites readers to reflect on how thinking about the future has become an increasingly radical, but more than ever necessary act.
Book Synopsis Calamity Theory by : Joshua Schuster
Download or read book Calamity Theory written by Joshua Schuster and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the implications of how we talk about apocalypse? A new philosophical field has emerged. “Existential risk” studies any real or hypothetical human extinction event in the near or distant future. This movement examines catastrophes ranging from runaway global warming to nuclear warfare to malevolent artificial intelligence, deploying a curious mix of utilitarian ethics, statistical risk analysis, and, controversially, a transhuman advocacy that would aim to supersede almost all extinction scenarios. The proponents of existential risk thinking, led by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, have seen their work gain immense popularity, attracting endorsement from Bill Gates and Elon Musk, millions of dollars, and millions of views. Calamity Theory is the first book to examine the rise of this thinking and its failures to acknowledge the ways some communities and lifeways are more at risk than others and what it implies about human extinction. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.
