Each year on July 20th, Terasem conducts a workshop on the subject of geoethical nanotechnology. The purpose of the event is to provide the public with informed perspectives regarding geoethical nanotechnology via expert presentations, challenges and discussions. Of course the date of July 20th is symbolic, and we all should always remember what it means.
This year's workshop, at the Terasem Island Amphitheatre in Second Life, has been an exchange of scholarly views regarding the transplanting of organs/limbs, prosthetic devices, hybrid machines and nanotechnology employed in the body, with a goal of optimizing the rights and understanding of enhanced humans. The workshop has been a very solid and intense two-hours event, with two great talks followed by interesting questions and answers, and a final discussion mainly centered on future AIs, their civil rights and possible threats to biological humans1.0. Like the organizer Martine Rothblatt, I consider future sentient AIs as part of our own species and I don't think of "us" vs. "them". It will be just US.
I attended with my Second Life avatar Eschatoon Magic who has recently been resurrected in cyberspace as, according to Terasem, we may all be someday. The Terasem island, which had recently been repaired after having been hit by digital heavy weather, is now one of the few (perhaps the only) remaining transhumanist meeting points in Second Life, and I look forward to attending other forthcoming events.
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