Transvision Utrecht 2024 – Conference on transhumanism

It’s done.

We were delighted to welcome you to Utrecht from 19 to 21 January 2024, The Netherlands, for the “Transvision” conference on transhumanism. The Transvision conferences have been held since 1998, with the first edition taking place in Weesp, very close to Utrecht. Co-organized by the French Association for Transhumanism and London Futurists, the conference is the main international forum for discussion and exchange of ideas related to transhumanism, covering technological as well as philosophical, ethical and societal aspects.

Matching the broad, interdisciplinary nature of the subject, we have bring together a diverse group of people to critically discuss these possibilities, especially in the current Zeitgeist of the anthropocene and unparalleled change to our planet and society, brought on by technology. We have bring together local and global actors, scientists, futurists, people from industry and artists, to create a broad platform for discussions and exchange.

To have a look at past editions of the conference, including videos of the talks, please visit our page on H+Pedia.

Location

The conference took place in the city of Utrecht, The Netherlands, half an hour by train from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. Utrecht is located centrally in the country and has a vibrant cultural life, town atmosphere and closeness to nature.

Our meeting venue was “In de Ruimte”, a large and light space at the canal Oudegracht. This former monastery vault has high ceilings with monumental arches and is a historic experience with all the technology and comfort of today.

In de Ruimte
Oudegracht aan de Werf 230
3511 NT Utrecht, The Netherlands

Social on Friday & Conference dinner on Saturday

On Friday and Saturday evening, we met at The Florin Utrecht Pub:

Nobelstraat 2
3512EN Utrecht
Website: www.florinutrecht.nl

Social on Sunday

On Sunday evening, to celebrate the end of the conference, we met at Café JOOST:

Achter Sint Pieter 3, Utrecht
Website: www.cafejoost.nl

Programme

Friday 19th

Satellite workshop on Longevity & AI

In this satellite workshop, we discussed steps to implement Open Longevity GPT: When? Why (also to diminish existential risks)? How to share data (articles, clinical trial, health data) faster and better? How can you help?

14:00	→	15:00	General explanation about Longevity GPT by Anton and (online) Maria, Nikhil, Alex and Newton.
15:00	→	16:00	Tests from participants. Questions related to longevity to both ChatGPT and Longevity GPT for comparison.
16:00	→	16:30	Drinks and networking
16:30	→	17:15	General large discussion on what is working good, what is improvable, what is missing, what are the alternative tools.
17:15	→	17:45	Attempt to draw a first concrete picture/list of possible improvements, collaborations, changes.
17:45	→	18:00	Conclusion and future prospects
19:00	→		Social and drinks Open to all Transvision (1 and 2-day) ticket holders Please join us at: The Florin Pub, Nobelstraat 2.

Saturday 20th

Main conference, day 1

08:30	→	09:00	Arrival and registration
09:00	→	09:30	Opening remarks by the chair, Charl Linssen
09:30	→	10:30	Envisioning and creating transhumanist futures Setting the stage for the rest of the conference, we review the history of transhumanism, the past 25 years of Transvision, and look ahead to what a transhumanist future might look like for the individual, for society, and for the environment. Chair: Charl Linssen Speaker #1: Natasha Vita-More, « Eloquent Neuroplasticity: Beyond Bias, Theoretical Twist, Pernicious Prattle » Speaker #2: Anders Sandberg, « When is the future? Some musings on transhumanism, timing, foresight, and shaping the future »
10:30	→	11:00	Drinks and networking
11:00	→	12:00	Envisioning and creating transhumanist futures (continued) Speaker #3: Christopher Coenen, « Futures of transhumanism in an atavistic world – a historical perspective » Speaker #4: Beatrice Erkers, « Navigating Our Future with Existential Hope »
12:00	→	12:30	Lightning talks All participants will have a chance to present a topic of their choosing in a 3-minute presentation.
12:30	→	13:45	Lunch and networking A group photo will be taken at the start of lunch.
13:45	→	15:15	Futures for the brain and mind Recent progress in neuroscience puts us on a clear timeline towards cognitive enhancements and whole-brain emulation. We consider the ways in which these technologies are changing our ways of interacting with the world, and how we can manage this change. Chair: Charlotte Rouvez Speaker #1: Randal Koene, « The case for a standardized WBE challenge, being concrete about whole brain emulation and mind uploading » Speaker #2: Marc Roux, « A mental enhancement that respects human rights »
15:15	→	15:45	Drinks and networking
15:45	→	17:45	Physical rejuvenation and beyond Extension of human health- and lifespan is within reach, and to some degree already possible today. With the scale and pace of improvements in healthy human longevity continuing to grow exponentially, we look ahead at what these longevity interventions might be and how they could be made available equitably and ethically. Chair: Marc Roux Speaker #1: Didier Coeurnelle, « How to Better Share and Use Health Data for Healthy Longevity? » Speaker #2: Brenda Ramokopelwa Speaker #3: Jessica Lombard, « The Phenomenological Question of Time: How the Aspiration for Immortality Unveils Something of the Human Condition » Speaker #4: David Wood, « Longevity Escape Velocity: Getting there sooner »
17:45	→	18:00	Reflections on the day
19:00	→		Conference dinner The dinner at: The Florin Pub, Nobelstraat 2.

Sunday 21st

Main conference, day 2

08:30	→	09:00	Arrival and registration
09:00	→	11:00	The coming wave of AI In this session, we discuss the potentials and impacts of the current wave in AI, starting from regulatory and ethical questions about how these systems are used at present, to what a future with superhuman intelligence could look like. Chair: Didier Coeurnelle Speaker #1: Aimen Taimur, « Mind Reading AI & Cognitive Manipulation: A Rights-Based Threat Assessment » Speaker #2: Pepijn Kip Speaker #3: Otto Barten, « Reducing existential risk by informing the public debate » Speaker #4: Lou de Kerhuelvez, « AI Alignment: Challenges & Hope »
11:00	→	11:30	Drinks and networking
11:30	→	13:00	Transhumanism locally and globally In this concluding plenary session, we discuss how to empower people locally and globally, and to integrate and celebrate diverse viewpoints and methods; to study where the overlap lies in our goals and where transhumanism, as a paradigm and as a community, is headed. Chair: David Wood Speaker #1: James Hughes, « The Technoprogressive Declaration After Ten Years » Speaker #2: Sandrine Ngatchou, « What about the black body in a racial context in the field of assisted reproductive technologies? » Speaker #3: Matthew Dennis, « The Spectrum of Enhancement »
13:00	→	14:30	Lunch and networking
14:30	→	15:00	Spoken word performance Speaker: Zita Smit
15:00	→	16:30	Focus groups Several themes will be discussed in-depth in small groups. All participants are encouraged to brainstorm together and share their thoughts. At the end of the session, each table host gives a quick report of the discussions.
16:30	→	17:00	Drinks and networking
17:00	→	17:30	Reflections on the day
18:00	→		Social and drinks Please join us at: Café Joost, Achter Sint Pieter 3.

Speakers

Otto Barten

Otto’s background is in physics, wind turbine engineering, and climate activism, until he realized that existential risks might be an even bigger issue. Now, he is running the Dutch nonprofit Existential Risk Observatory, focusing on informing the public and governments, organizing events, and doing research on AI existential risk. He published in TIME Magazine and many media on AI existential risk.

https://www.existentialriskobservatory.org/

Christopher Coenen

is a political scientist working in the strongly interdisciplinary field of technology assessment at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) within the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. At KIT-ITAS, he heads the research group ‘Life, Innovation, Health and Technology’ and also conducts research on the history of transhumanist thought and its significance in the Anthropocene. He is editor of the journal ‘NanoEthics: Studies on New and Emerging Technologies’.

https://www.itas.kit.edu/english/staff_coenen_christopher.php

Didier Coeurnelle

Vice-Chairman of the French Transhumanist Association Technoprog, he campaigns for research into a much longer life in good health. He is co-president of the HEALES association.(Healthy Life Extension Society). He has published Et si on arrêtait de vieillir (2013) and, with Marc Roux, Technoprog. Le transhumanisme au service du progrès social. (2016).

https://heales.org/

Beatrice Erkers

At Foresight Institute, Beatrice Erkers, as COO and Director of Existential Hope, focuses on nurturing a scientific community dedicated to future-oriented technologies. She manages the Existential Hope group, encouraging thoughtful discussions on technology’s role in society. Beatrice also co-hosts the Existential Hope podcast and oversees its platform, fostering a space for collaborative exploration and ideas. Her work is centred around connecting people and ideas to shape a positive technological future.

https://www.existentialhope.com/

James Hughes

is an American sociologist and bioethicist. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and is the associate provost for institutional research, assessment, and planning at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is the author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future (2004).

https://ieet.org/

Lou de Kerhuelvez

Researcher and practitioner exploring alternative economic, justice, and political systems to legacy institutions in the context of the digital revolutions – systems able to meet the existential challenges of our time. 
At Foresight Institute I build towards technology-enabled better futures, and connect and grow a decentralized scientific community advancing those goals.  Through Embassy Network and Feÿtopia, I support the growth of an intervowen network of place-based communities experimenting with new forms of governance and solidarity.

Site : https://louviq.org/about.html

Pepijn Kip

Pepijn is an entrepreneur, technology expert and poet, with a background in psychology and philosophy.
For years he has advised the business community on innovation and new technologies. For the past three years, he has focused on artificial intelligence (AI) expertise in a prototyping studio.

Randal Koene

a Dutch neuroscientist, neuroengineer, and co-founder of carboncopies.org, an outreach and road mapping organization for advancing Substrate-Independent Minds (SIM). He first proposed the term and specific approach called whole brain emulation.

https://carboncopies.org/

Jessica Lombard

Former commissioned officer in the French military, Jessica Lombard is a PhD in philosophy and a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair « Ethics, Technology and Humanities » (ETHICS EA-7446) of the Catholic University of Lille, France. She specialises in the fields of philosophy of technology, phenomenology and metaphysics. Her main studies entail the question concerning technology and technical objects; human nature and evolution; transhumanism and technical imaginaries. She recently published « French Philosophy of Technology and Technoscience: A Study on the Mode of Existence of Bio-objects », in the book « Canguilhem and Continental Philosophy of Biology », Springer edition.

Matthew J. Dennis

is an assistant professor in ethics of technology at TU Eindhoven. He specialises in the ethics of human enhancement, artificial intelligence, and the future of work. His current research focuses on how online content creation orientates the deployment of human enhancement technologies. Before starting at TU Eindhoven, he was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow at TU Delft (2019–21) and an Early Career Innovation Fellow at University of Warwick (2019).

Sandrine Ngatchou

is an activist for black person health reproductive, also radical, liberal and decolonial feminist. her regular Job is Cybersecurity Tech Lead. She undertooks an meaning reflection on the role of technology in Black life, particularly in the field of assisted reproduction techniques.

Brenda Ramokopelwa

is a Futurist with ethical referents, Keynote Speaker, and Award-Winning Risk and Governance professional with years’ experience in the financial sector. She is the CEO of the Transdisciplinary Agora for Future Discussion (TAFFD’s), a Global Think and DO Tank committed to building the gateway into and out of Africa and facilitating young futurists.

https://taffds.org/

Marc Roux

is cofounder and chair, since 2009, of the French Transhumanist Association (AFT-Technoprog). He co-organized several TransVision (in 2014, 2017, 2022 and 2023).
He’s frequently consulted for academic studies, by Government institutions or companies and the media. He wrote, with Didier Coeurnelle, TECHNOPROG: transhumanism at the service of social progress (in french, FYP, 2016).

https://transhumanistes.com/

Anders Sandberg

is senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI), University of Oxford. His research at the centres on management of low-probability high-impact risks, societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement, estimating the capabilities of future technologies, and very long-range futures. In addition, he is research associate of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, the Center for the Study of Bioethics (Belgrade), and researcher at the Mimir Centre for Long Term Futures (Stockholm). Topics of particular interest include global catastrophic risk, existential risk, cognitive enhancement, collective intelligence, neuroethics, SETI, physical eschatology, and public policy.

Aimen Taimur

is a PhD Researcher at Tilburg University and is part of the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT). She is interested in the human rights regulation of emerging AI-based technologies particularly those which impact cognitive liberty and behavioural modelling. Her doctorate research aims to place human rights protections against the challenges posed by AI on the fundamental right to freely think and the preservation of natural mental faculties underpinning independent cognitive rationalization. She is also the recipient of the 2023 Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) ongoing doctoral dissertation award for her doctoral project.

Natasha Vita-More

is Ex. Dir. of Humanity+, Co-Founder of Women in Longevity Leadership, and Founder, Senior Faculty of the Center for Transhumanist Studies. She is known for co-founding the transhumanist movement, innovating the future body prototype with AI and nanorobotics, and achieving a scientific discovery in the persistence of long-term memory in biostasis. She is the co-editor and author of The Transhumanist Reader (2013) and Transhumanism: What is It? (2018). Natasha is featured in The New York Times, Vogue, Wired, and Newsweek magazines.

https://www.humanityplus.org/

David Wood

David Wood is the chair of London Futurists and the lead designer of the Vital Syllabus educational initiative. He is also the Executive Director of the LEV (Longevity Escape Velocity) Foundation. He is the author of 8 books, including « The Singularity Principles », « Vital Foresight », « The Abolition of Aging », « Smartphones and Beyond », and « Sustainable Superabundance ». Previously, he spent 25 years as a pioneer of the mobile computing and smartphone industries, including co-founding Symbian in 1998.

https://londonfuturists.com/

Zita Smit

Zita is a (bilingual) Dutch poet and artist. Active as a performer since 2011, she is now doing a Master in Theater at Hogeschool Zuyd, focused on Artistic Research. Zita writes and performs eclectic installations of word and sound, with a philosophical approach to humanity; its curses and its possible cures.

https://zitasmit.nl/