The World in 2030

The World in 2030 315
Man’s Transhuman Future
As I suggested in the previous section, ‘Daily Life in
2030’, within twenty-five years humans will be connecting
themselves directly to the ‘super-web’ via neural interfaces,
body-mounted nano-scale computers and monitoring
systems. Many of us will have virtual assistants – software
personalities – who are our constant companions and
helpmates.
But even as we take technology onto and into our
bodies we will have begun to alter our own biology using
genetic engineering, stem cell research and nanomedicine
– changing what it means to be human. ‘Transhuman’
and ‘transhumanism’ are the terms that have already been
proposed to describe the new type of augmented and
enhanced human that will begin to emerge well before the
year 2030. Wikipedia explains the concept as follows:
Transhumanism (sometimes abbreviated >H or H+)
is an international intellectual and cultural movement
supporting the use of new sciences and technologies
to enhance human mental and physical
abilities and aptitudes, and ameliorate what it regards
as undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human
condition, such as stupidity, suffering, disease, ageing
and involuntary death. 547
Of course, these increasingly enhanced and augmented
transhumans will be occupying a planet on which superintelligent
machines will recently have emerged. The two