Executive summary: Transhumanist views on AI range from enthusiastic optimism to existential dread, with no unified stance; while some advocate accelerating progress, others emphasize the urgent need for AI safety and value alignment to prevent catastrophic outcomes.
Key points:
Transhumanists see AI as both a tool to transcend human limitations and a potential existential risk, with significant internal disagreement on the balance of these aspects.
Five major transhumanist stances on AI include: (1) optimism and risk denial, (2) risk acceptance for potential gains, (3) welcoming AI succession, (4) techno-accelerationism, and (5) caution and calls to halt development.
Many AI safety pioneers emerged from transhumanist circles, but AI safety has since become a broader, more diverse field with varied affiliations.
Efforts to cognitively enhance humans—via competition, merging with AI, or boosting intelligence to align AI—are likely infeasible or dangerous due to timing, ethical concerns, and practical limitations.
The most viable transhumanist-aligned strategy is designing aligned AI systems, not enhancing humans to compete with or merge with them.
Critics grouping transhumanism with adjacent ideologies (e.g., TESCREAL) risk oversimplifying a diverse and nuanced intellectual landscape.
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Executive summary: Transhumanist views on AI range from enthusiastic optimism to existential dread, with no unified stance; while some advocate accelerating progress, others emphasize the urgent need for AI safety and value alignment to prevent catastrophic outcomes.
Key points:
Transhumanists see AI as both a tool to transcend human limitations and a potential existential risk, with significant internal disagreement on the balance of these aspects.
Five major transhumanist stances on AI include: (1) optimism and risk denial, (2) risk acceptance for potential gains, (3) welcoming AI succession, (4) techno-accelerationism, and (5) caution and calls to halt development.
Many AI safety pioneers emerged from transhumanist circles, but AI safety has since become a broader, more diverse field with varied affiliations.
Efforts to cognitively enhance humans—via competition, merging with AI, or boosting intelligence to align AI—are likely infeasible or dangerous due to timing, ethical concerns, and practical limitations.
The most viable transhumanist-aligned strategy is designing aligned AI systems, not enhancing humans to compete with or merge with them.
Critics grouping transhumanism with adjacent ideologies (e.g., TESCREAL) risk oversimplifying a diverse and nuanced intellectual landscape.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.