We Are Not Saved

Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When Robots Rule the Earth is a book about a future where brain emulation becomes commonplace, by Robin Hanson. The future Hanson describes is a mixed bag, and I look at what that says about other transhumanist visions of the future, along with, of course, the very real possibility that none of those visions will come to pass. A position which Hanson’s book also supports though with much less detail. But this position, both because of it’s immediacy and it’s long term downside, is where, I feel, we should be spending the bulk of our attention.