TransVision 2018 Takes Place in Madrid this October
If you are a recent arrival to the rejuvenation research community, then it is possible you do not know that you are entering one of the expanding fields of thought and endeavor seeded by the transhumanist community of the 1990s. The passage of ideas and people and influence as it took place back then is far harder to discern now than was the case even a decade ago, as the core ideals of the transhumanist vision - radical life extension, artificial general intelligence, the use of technology to transcend the present limits of the human condition - have by now suffused every corner of our culture. It has become hard to see where the concepts were incubated and popularized: the handful of people, the few mailing lists, the few books and novels. The transhumanists won, in other words; they spoke their vision for a better future to the world, and the world listened.
The TransVision conference series has spanned much of this period of time. As a consequence, if you look at the speaker list and the attendees for this year's TransVision 2018, you'll see a range of influential folk in aging research, biotech, artificial intelligence, and other fields, and if unfamiliar with the way in which the recent history of these fields is entwined with transhumanism you might be surprised. But transhumanism was always about changing the world, building the future. It shouldn't be a surprise to find that some fraction of the people capable of vision in the 1980s and 1990s then set out to try to make their part of that vision a reality.
Spain will host the next global futurist summit during October 19-20-21, 2018. HumanityPlus will be the main international organizer of this world congress, TransVision 2018, with the help of other leading associations and organizations working on futurist concepts like longevity extension, artificial intelligence, human enhancement, and other technologies and future trends. The first TransVision conference was held during 1998 in The Netherlands.
During the last 20 years, we have seen phenomenal advances, and we expect to see much more during the next 20 years. What will the future bring? Science and technology should lead the way! Now we are planning to host in Spain the 20th anniversary of the TransVision conferences, an international summit open to people from all continents, with participants coming from the United States to the United Kingdom, from Argentina to Australia, from Africa to China, from Russia to Venezuela.
The topics considered will be very broad, ranging from recent medical advances to artificial intelligence and robotics. The first keynote speaker will be Sophia, the first humanoid robot that was awarded citizenship last year. TransVision 2018 will have other keynote speeches by pioneers of the futurist movement like Natasha Vita-More and Ben Goertzel, among many others, both members of HumanityPlus and other leading institutions.
I find the choice of Spain as the venue troubling. I'm sure I'm not alone in believing that big Government with inevitable attempts to regulate and even control an economy is detrimental to technological advance. Ben Goertzel, for example, has chosen Hong Kong as the location of much of his work. Pioneers like Peter Diamandis is constantly shopping for a diversified set of jurisdictions that gives him flexibility to deploy his assets (people, ideas, and the resulting businesses. I would think HumanityPlus would want to reward the most accommodating jurisdictions in the selection of the venue for this event....or it could be driven by affordability and a desired tourist location to attract attendees.
For some years now, Spain hasn't a government worth that name. They are extremely coward and weak. Current government I don't think will finish its term, probably not even 2 years.
I maybe will attend. I'm interested in David Spiegel's talk.