Because of accelerating technological progress, humankind may be rapidly approaching a critical phase in its career. In addition to well-known threats such as nuclear holocaust, the propects of radically transforming technologies like nanotech systems and machine intelligence present us with unprecedented opportunities and risks. Our future, and whether we will have a future at all, may well be determined by how we deal with these challenges. In the case of radically transforming technologies, a better understanding of the transition dynamics from (...) a human to a "posthuman" society is needed. Of particular importance is to know where the pitfalls are: the ways in which things could go terminally wrong. While we have had long exposure to various personal, local, and endurable global hazards, this paper analyzes a recently emerging category: that of existential risks. These are threats that could case our extinction or destroy the potential of Earth - originating intelligent life. Some of these threats are relatively well known while others, including some of the gravest, have gone almost unrecognized. Existential risks have a cluster of features that make ordinary risk management ineffective. A final section of this paper discusses several ethical and policy implications. A clearer understanding of the threat picture will enable us to formulate better strategies. (shrink)

Ethical reflections on military robotics can be enriched by a better understanding of the nature and role of these technologies and by putting robotics into context in various ways. Discussing a range of ethical questions, this paper challenges the prevalent assumptions that military robotics is about military technology as a mere means to an end, about single killer machines, and about “military” developments. It recommends that ethics of robotics attend to how military technology changes our aims, concern itself not only (...) with individual robots but also and especially with networks and swarms, and adapt its conceptions of responsibility to the rise of such cloudy and unpredictable systems, which rely on decentralized control and buzz across many spheres of human activity. (shrink)

Developments in genetics, cyber-technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and other areas hold the promise – and the peril – of redefining what it means to be human. In addition to hedonism or a desire for self-improvement, the possibilities of these technologies plus the rational concern of falling behind a potential adversary produce a classic security dilemma. These competitive pressures among states, firms, and emerging “super-empowered individuals” encourage the development and dissemination of these technologies, and already the possibilities are being explored (...) by actors in conflict. This security dilemma, plus the nature of the technologies themselves, makes it virtually certain that attempts at regulation will fail. Instead, we should expect “arms races” of quantity and quality of improvements, complicated by differing conceptions of what improvement means. This paper explores these pressures and outcomes, as well as general consequences of the potential modification of “human nature” for global and human security. It finds that whatever forms or enhancements we possess, in a transhuman or posthuman future politics will not be transcended. Critical problems of security will continue to challenge ourselves and our descendants. (shrink)

This paper examines the responses to advanced and transformative technologies in military literature, attenuates the conclusions of earlier work suggesting that there is an “ignorance of transhumanism” in the military, and updates the current layout of transhuman concerns in military thought. The military is not ignorant of transhuman issues and implications, though there was evidence for this in the past; militaries and non-state actors increasingly use disruptive technologies with what we may call transhuman provenance.

This paper examines the responses to advanced and transformative technologies in military literature, attenuates the conclusions of earlier work suggesting that there is an “ignorance of transhumanism” in the military, and updates the current layout of transhuman concerns in military thought. The military is not ignorant of transhuman issues and implications, though there was evidence for this in the past; militaries and non-state actors (including terrorists) increasingly use disruptive technologies with what we may call transhuman provenance.