Will Our iPhones Turn Us Into Cyborgs?<br />The Long Now Foundation - SFJAZZ Center<br />Techno thriller meets realistic optimism. Ramez Naam, a former Microsoft executive with 19 patents to his name, wrote a riveting just-completed science fiction trilogy (Nexus, Crux, and Apex) that plays out current trends in brain enhancement. As Naam reports in a recent blog, "Neural implants could accomplish things no external interface could: Virtual and augmented reality with all 5 senses (or more); augmentation of human memory, attention, and learning speed; even multi-sense telepathy - sharing what we see, hear, touch, and even perhaps what we think and feel with others."<br /><br />Naam is also the author of important nonfiction books on humanity's prospects for this century and beyond: More Than Human: Embracing the promise of biological enhancement and The Infinite Resource: The power of ideas on a finite planet (that one has blurbs from four previous SALT speakers-Steven Pinker, Charles C. Mann, Ray Kurzweil, and Peter Diamandis.)<br /><br />In this talk Naam explores the growing convergence of human enhancements at the molecular, neural, and social levels: "I think the multiple visions of human enhancement will all focus on our increased connectivity with each other - in sci-fi ways like Nexus and in prosaic ways like the spread of computing power in mobile devices to people around the world."
