Intelligent systems and devices are at the forefront of technological innovation and hold particular appeal for the creative imagination. Their appearance in the arts; fiction; and film allow one to glean insights into apprehensions regarding the contemporary human condition and concerns for its future. This study examines the loss of life and the absencing of the other as embodied in intelligent devices; as they are presented in three current; popular films. In these films; human fallibility and mortality provide the raison (...) d’être for the creation and development of intelligent devices and systems. Moreover; the power that these technologies hold is in their evocation of lost life and human transience; and in the manner by which they both conceal and reveal absence and loss. (shrink)

Stefan Sorgner (2009) says that on becoming familiar with transhumanism, he “immediately thought that there were many fundamental similarities between transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially concerning the concept of the posthuman and that of Nietzsche’s overhuman.” In contrast to Bostrom (2005), Sorgner sees significant and fundamental similarities between the posthuman and the overhuman. (I will adopt his use of “overhuman” in place of “overman” or Übermensch.) This overall view seems to me highly plausible. I agree with most of Sorgner’s comments (...) in this respect. My intent is to give further support to the conceptual parallels. In addition, I argue that these are not merely parallels: transhumanist ideas were directly influenced by Nietzsche. (shrink)

_Our artifacts are getting smarter, and a loose parallel with the evolution of animal intelligence suggests one future course_ _for them. Computerless industrial machinery exhibits the behavioral flexibility of single-celled organisms. Today's best_ _computer-controlled robots are like the simpler invertebrates. A thousand-fold increase in computer power in this decade_ _should make possible machines with reptile-like sensory and motor competence. Properly configured, such robots could_ _do in the physical world what personal computers now do in the world of data--act on our (...) behalf as literal-minded_ _slaves. Growing computer power over the next half-century will allow this reptile stage will be surpassed, in stages_ _producing robots that learn like mammals, model their world like primates and eventually reason like humans._ _Depending on your point of view, humanity will then have produced a worthy successor, or transcended inherited_ _limitations and transformed itself into something quite new. No longer limited by the slow pace of human learning and_ _even slower biological evolution, intelligent machinery will conduct its affairs on an ever faster, ever smaller scale, until_ _coarse physical nature has been converted to fine-grained purposeful thought._. (shrink)