Lifeboat Foundation

If you haven’t heard of the bionic pancreas, it’s likely you soon will. With diabetes on the rise and the demand for insulin therapies becoming a real pain point for the medical establishment, the need for innovative solutions has spiked. Back in April, we reported on the Do-It-Yourself Pancreas system, a closed-loop artificial pancreas scavenged from a Medtronic pump, Dexcom CGM, a Raspberry Pi, and CareLink USB. Now a fully bionic pancreas similar in design to the Do-It-Yourself model is being developed by doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston University, with the goal of winning FDA approval. If it succeeds, this will likely be the first bionic organ to see widespread adoption.

Let’s examine some of the previous attempts at bionic organs to see if we can catch a glimpse of where things are heading and some of the societal repercussions that lay in wait. The holy grail of bionic organs is without question the human heart. Coronary artery disease being one of the principal causes of the death worldwide, a fully functioning bionic heart could radically change life expectancy and alter the demographic landscape.

The first bionic hearts, designed over 70 years ago, were plagued by problems that often resulted in thromboembolism and hemorrhage, and made this even more of a gamble than donor transplants. Recent technological advances, however — specifically the advent of bio-prosthetic materials that fool the human immune system into believing the bionic heart is an organic part of the body — could indicate a new era of artificial organs is upon us.

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US army’s report visualises augmented soldiers & killer robots.

The US Army’s recent report “Visualizing the Tactical Ground Battlefield in the Year 2050” describes a number of future war scenarios that raise vexing ethical dilemmas. Among the many tactical developments envisioned by the authors, a group of experts brought together by the US Army Research laboratory, three stand out as both plausible and fraught with moral challenges: augmented humans, directed-energy weapons, and autonomous killer robots. The first two technologies affect humans directly, and therefore present both military and medical ethical challenges. The third development, robots, would replace humans, and thus poses hard questions about implementing the law of war without any attending sense of justice.

Augmented humans. Drugs, brain-machine interfaces, neural prostheses, and genetic engineering are all technologies that may be used in the next few decades to enhance the fighting capability of soldiers, keep them alert, help them survive longer on less food, alleviate pain, and sharpen and strengthen their cognitive and physical capabilities. All raise serious ethical and bioethical difficulties.

Continue reading “Ethics on the near-future battlefield” »

A blind Australian is to have their vision restored with bionic eyes that send images straight into the brain using smart glasses and brain implants.

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The UCHealth Eye Center implants first bionic eye in a Colorado resident.

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Can we end violence? Can we create greater emotional well being and intellectual equality for the greater well being of humanity? Will we be able to keep up with machines? How can we augment our intelligence? Could we cure mental illness? After advancements in aging the next major area of research from a standpoint of eliminating personal and global suffering would be upgrades in intelligence. Transhumanist values at their core want to eliminate suffering and existential risk to people’s lives. With well founded logic, these goals are not completely out of reach, it is possible but as usual, we will have to take the complex issue from many angles and from the standpoint of a systems engineer, but let’s look at some fun stuff before we get into the heavy stuff.

The Benefits of Intelligence Upgrades

Continue reading “Transhumanism Solving Violence and Improving the Human Condition: IQ, EQi, and Intelligence Upgrades” »

Researchers just unveil the first biologically powered ‘chimera’ computer.

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Excited to have a full feature on the BBC homepage on transhumanism and my growing presidential campaign. Transhumanist Party, speech at the World Bank, Immortality Bus, and universal basic income issues discussed:

Not many politicians running for the White House promise to end death. But not many politicians are Zoltan Istvan. Tim Maughan meets a man travelling America in a giant coffin-shaped bus to make his point.

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Humai, a technology company based in Los Angeles, says that it is working on a project known as “Atom & Eve” that would let human consciousness be transferred to an artificial body after their death.

Artificial intelligence, the most important and major discovery of science will be one of the most helpful things in the whole project. The Humai have already started working on human rebirth using artificial intelligence.

The three technologies collectively used by the tech giant company are “Nanotechnology, bionics & artificial intelligence”. The company is expecting the whole system to be ready in 3 decades and, of course, this type of work requires this much time.

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There’s a common misconception that tattoos are only a way to express your individuality (just like everyone else does), or only serve as loving tributes to moms. But they have practical medical applications too, especially now that circuit board temporary tattoos exist.

Developed by Chaotic Moon Studios, which describes itself as a “creative technology studio,” these Tech Tats use conductive inks (in lieu of actual tattoo inks) that only sit on the surface of the skin so they’re not permanent. After all, given the speed at which technology evolves, the last thing you want is a permanent circuit board tattoo on your arm that’s outdated within a year.

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