All too human? In praise of the robotic marriage. From the editorial:

What does it mean to live in this kind of emerging world? It is to live in a world marked more by possibility, fluidity, change and negotiability than by outdated images of fixed natures and capacities…. It’s a world where human intelligence itself is poised for repair and reinvention. And one whose bedrock nature is itself becoming fluid, as digital overlays augment reality with personalized pointers…. It’s also a world permeated by a growing swath of alien intelligences (just ask Alexa, although she won’t really admit it).

All this blurs the boundaries between body and machine, between mind and world, between standard, augmented and virtual realities, and between human and post-human. At the cusp of these waves of change, this is also the moment at which, increasingly, inclusivities of one kind (extensions of personal, social and sexual freedom) bump up against the threat of new forms of exclusivity, as the augmented, fluid, connected cyber-haves increasingly differentiate themselves from the unaugmented, less connected, cyber have-nots. Perhaps this is part of the price of all that laudable loosening?….

This is a moment to be savored, even as we sound new notes of care and caution about the speed, nature and range of these changes. Part of this process involves getting used to the alien nature and pervasive reach of the many new subintelligences that now surround us. These are the algorithms that talk with us, that watch us, that trade for us, that select dates for us, that suggest what we might buy, sell, or wear….

Ethically speaking, we need to ask what new costs and inequalities the freedoms and augmentations of some may mean for others. We need to ask if we are willing to tolerate some inequality as part of the rollout process for a more fluid and interconnected world…. What is up for grabs is what we humans are, and what we will become.

For other posts on trans-humanism, see here.