that one day walking down a street of
Lausanne in Switzerland
I see this young woman by train
to write on a wall then I will tell you
say right now I like it a lot
we wrote that we draw on
walling game always very attentive to these
little expressions like that a little
cryptic that you see on the walls of
our cities
except that she was in the process
to write conscientiously my subject
research
that’s why I wake up every morning
and then you imagine my surprise
so I approach judy late I
asks him with a look a little bewildered
that he did almost by j but
why why this definition
why you are here and there it
explain me very calmly that elie
many things and that often has
words she does not understand then she
search for the definition and then she
said and rightly besides that she is
maybe not the only one to ignore this
what does this word transhumanism mean
so it might be useful to
write it on a wall why not what
I propose you it is to deliver ourselves to
a very simple background exercise
let’s try to share some of the
perplexity of this young woman
let’s admit that we do not either
do not know very well what it is
this case transhumanism and is
by the way very frankly me no
the more I do not really know what it is
I’ve been working for years
on it and there are all kinds of
contradictory definition and even the
transhumanists but are not
agree on the definition anyway
most of the time we ask them
not even their opinion and so she is
rare this perplexity and especially in
a landscape in an extremely debate
polarized where we should take sides
we should always be against
decide whether it’s right or wrong
so this definition
this definition of transhumanism
and the good ones she’s pretty general
but it gives good leads for
understand what it is
you have three elements sorting in one
same intellectual and cultural current
science of technology and
beliefs
and that’s very important for
understand what the
transhumanists that is to say that we
concerns all of them collectively
it’s not just for scientists
wade engineers of the silicon valley
where do I know what
it’s actually most
Transhumanists are not
engineers scientists these are
activists and that’s all the more
important because we have
used to hear in our
company that there will be lines of
very clear demarcation between
science that would only be research
disinterested in the truth the
technique that would only be
the application of science and
beliefs that would have nothing more to
see in this whole story
so now increase the human
vast project maybe a little vague
maybe whimsical vast yes but not
so vague if we judge by the
countless I do not know debate
conference tribune radio program
academic parliamentary hearing
the human 2.0 stick switch in a
new era a post cyborg era
human will we become immortal with
what consequences
Will be able to inject
encyclopedias or languages
foreign countries of which directly
brain
will we have to merge with the machine
at the risk of being destroyed are we going to
having to invent new rights for
the robots that would be beings
conscious
will these robots destroy us
steal our women our men become of
best sex partners we know
so who has never dreamed of
to set up his sexual partner
machines are going to make them disappear
employment plunged humanity 2 an area
of bored of widespread unemployment
the human 2.0 is for tomorrow or for
after tomorrow then obviously the
transhumanism invaded the public debate
with very shapes and colors
well defined and all that produces
a lot of worry
I’m not here to tell you that these
worries are not legitimate
what I would like to tell you rather
it’s that we may not be
quite worried or breakdown of the good
way
basically all these ads produce
a feeling of helplessness enough
comfortable it concerns us but we
we produce stories that we
then tetanizes what can
do you tell me since it’s good
away from 1045 California’s
scientists are predicting what is this
that we can do
well we can take care of the stories
we tell ourselves
individually and collectively and
today indeed we live in a
world that is saturated with objects
technological empowering
supercomputers of autonomous cars
small robots that go on march
or rather it’s the talk about
these objects that is ubiquitous a
speeches that embark them in a
rather strange temporality where they are
both for tomorrow in the future
overdetermined urgent it would take
invent all our institutions and our
lifestyles to welcome them and in
same time a rather abstract future
pretty vague
we do not know if is born when it will be
possible we tell ourselves a world in
which the technical objects are not
interesting that for their
consequences on the state of things
present where they are only
interfaces or tools that should
respond to the use for which they
were designed and doing that one
depends in the wind the pl the thickness
technical objects have produced what
the sci-fi writer of
showcases calls feneon narratives on
can for example talk about the economy
digital that worries us because
personal data for example one
talk about it as an economy
dematerialized so certainly use of
our electronic prostheses has a
very limited life but the
materials to be mobilized
waste the ecological impacts and
social are at geological oil dhl
rare metals exploitation toxicity
so speaking prostheses by
human increase is the first
word that comes to you maybe to
the spirit is cyborg
but do you know where this term comes from
cyborg
before haunting science fiction and
the video games the cyborg is the
answer to a problem we born in 1960
very shortly before the first flight
space inhabited by youri gagarin and one
is worried we are planning to send
humans in space ie in
an environment that does not have an environment
than the name since all the conditions
implicit life we are
accustomed to the land do not go
everything is feeding the oxygen
access to food and so he goes
have to recessed it’s human in a
very elaborate technical device and
at the same time very fragile since
as you know an accident is
very quickly arrived and two
scientists
manfred klein senators klein offers
to totally reverse the problem is
to wonder how we could
implant in the body so
automatic technical devices
which make it possible to take charge of
vital functions
breathing the food etc and they
invent a new cyborg word that is
the contraction of savannah tic
organisms and that is kind of
fusion between the machine and the human
the stake of the symbol they say it
black on white is to avoid that
the human does not become a slave of the
machine is counting by checking without
stop that these settings works and
to make him free to do this
he knows how to explore better
created thinking and feeling in 1960 to
share the first cardiac simulators
which is just starting to be
implanted there is not much that allows
concretely to realize this project it
there are not many more things
today
the stake is really do vl is
possible to speculate on what is that
it could be
and this proposal from the cyborg she is
at the same time very innovative since it
really imagine a merger between
the human and the machine and at the same time
it remains pretty conservative and the
re-actualizing makes a rhetoric that
date at least from the 19th century and from
industrialization where we see the
more and more sophisticated machine
as able to emancipate the human from
release it and make it more
able to
what he can do to think better
feel created etc
at the same time this proposal of the
cyborg goes silent a whole
series of other determination of the
problem it does not question the
need to engage in a
space conquest militarize the fight
between the two blocks
we are at the beginning of the cold war I
remind you she does not question
no longer the need to be effective
performing in an environment
degraded
so obviously the environment of
space is very simple either you
adapt either you die but on earth
what do we do with this cyborg
because as you know I have not
need to make a drawing but
the environment on earth and he too
more and more threatening so during
many years
during all the first years
where I worked on these topics there he
there was a character who was
ubiquitous in all these discussions
who alone embodied the difficulty
classic enough to distinguish what is
of the gold of medicine
traditionally the repair of
the human and those who would be from then on
the increase in performance or
the improvement of the human oscar
pistorius was born handicapped he was
amputated both legs at the age of 11
month
and like any human being with access
to medical care
he was equipped with prostheses him
allowing to walk then prostheses
allowing him to run and run
quickly enough to plunge the instances
international sports in a whole
series of controversies that have lasted
several years and who did
a lot of noise like a lot of echo
media
the question was whether we would
leave as they ask run
with the valid ones like for example
Olympic Games
do these prostheses go
unfair advantage or is it
that they will just compensate a
handicap equal game the best wins
long live the sport in this debate at once
prostheses his heart of the
discussion but at the same time they
are made invisible by a
obsession with performance one
obsession with the redefinition of
criteria of
valid hand and then by the sponsors the
glory etc.
but there is another pistorius a
pistorius who every day is
confronted far from the cameras in a
intimate context to its state
disabled people whenever he has to
put and remove these prostheses from
legs and this is the pretoria court
who somehow shot this context in
Team in full light in
circumstances alas obviously
tragic since the court must judge
pistorius for the murder of his companion
rivas tin cup on February 14 , 2013
this time the question is to know
according to the height of the impacts of
bullets in the door of the hall
baths that separates the room stood
pistorius and the bathroom where have
been killed the stingers did come
the door of a courtroom with the
ballistics experts and that’s the
question to know is what pistorius
was on prostheses allowing him
to do all kinds of things to get
beat to flee to fetch
help to hide or is it
was on the ground terrified vulnerable
in a state of self-defense as he
claimed it himself and at the
trial on appeal his lawyer told him
proposed to show its vulnerability
at the court so that’s not very good
market because they were doomed
even more heavily than in the first
trial but in this context in this
drama suddenly the prostheses are
taken in a context made more more
complex more contradictory and at
present not to the future is truly
if we move the question of
performance of the human towards the object the
thing that is there that is hidden
a little bit under a chair and well one
can rest the question a little
differently since of course the man
increased compensates with more or less
success what they mistakenly consider
or rightly as a disability and the
prosthesis and this object that will come
fill this gap between vulnerability
and performance but the prosthesis she
same is subject to all kinds
of hazards and the fragile
if electronics do not forget to
recharge the battery and so
the lob the object itself becomes becomes
complicated gets a little thick and
it may allow us to avoid the
situation in which we find ourselves
very often in the debate today
around transhumanism for or against
dangerous not dangerous to take sides
which is a quote a situation that
looks a bit like this table of goya
you have two wrestlers busy at
ceyrat tell each other but do not see
not during this time that their four
feet sink into the same sands
shifting
this table put me a lot to think
the fact that very often we are
embedded implicitly in a report
to the technical objects that see them
as coming from the future so
natural irremediable sweet and
regular and there is worse than that even
since we are often told that the
technique would be morally neutral but
no sorry the technique is not
neutral it is determined by
scientific and technical choices
but also by regulations by
political decisions and
textures and by imaginary she puts
at work materials it mobilizes
sources of energy and then to a
moment another one will be used from
pretty inventive way she’s going
produce waste then the stake
it’s about what I’m doing
were saying in the beginning to produce
speech that can be up to
of this complexity of objects
techniques do not ask how
tame them like little animals
but rather how
welcome in their complexity that is
overflowing which is irreducible to
background what I wanted to do
sensitive and that’s the question
posed by transhumanists since
it concerns us remember it is
our business
collectively and individually and
no one running them this
claim to ask questions
on the contrary
what I did not want you
convince but make you sensitive
it is not to ask for answers
emergency to so-called experts but
to take care of the questions you
make you wonder how
complicate these questions how do the
enrich
Thank you for your attention
m
”
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