An Evaluation of Transhumanist Bill of Rights From Current and Future Perspective

Science and technology are now radically changing human beings and how they help create various future forms of advanced sapient and sentient life in a transhumanist future and their related rights. In that process, the issue of transhumanist rights for such forms attract a great attention that is worth rethinking. Transhumanist Bill of Rights mainly covers “sentient entities” such as human beings, including genetically modified humans, digital intelligences, cyborgs, intellectually enhanced, previously non-sapient animals, any species of plant or animal enhanced to possess the capacity for intelligent thought, and other advanced sapient life forms. In that respect, the main concern of this chapter basically centers around the question to what extent transhumanist rights will be compatible and applicable enough to meet the needs of all sentient entities and forms on universal basis in a transhumanist world, which stands on the line between a dystopian and utopian future.

Business Management Learning

The Transhumanist future will be an age of data dominance, pervasive computing, artificial intelligence, smart machines, and autonomous mobile robots accompanied by a vast speed and ever-increasing acceleration of change. The pervasive and ongoing change requires a fundamental re-invention of business management which should coincide with the conditions of the converging transhumanism age. The main feature of the future management paradigms that differ from the traditional style will undoubtedly be the artificial intelligence with several applications of machine learning and humans' collaborative work with associate-like autonomous robots. Managers at all levels will have to adapt to the world of artificial intelligence and smart environment. The transhumanist manager should learn and get equipped with the necessary management requirements. The new learning platforms, methods, techniques, and media should be researched to get prepared for a transhumanist business management future with a faster alacrity to compensate for the speed of the technological progress.

Being a Post-Learner With Virtual Worlds

Transhumanism, which emerges as a movement of thought, stands out with the developments such as artificial organs, brain-to-brain knowledge and learning transfer and smart robots in the 21st century. One of these technologies, where we see early applications with the goal of reaching the post-human, is the virtual worlds. Some features of the post-humans, which can now be experienced through 3 dimensional immersive virtual worlds in a certain scale, also reveal the fact that the existing virtual worlds are a limited simulation of a transhumanist future. While the virtual worlds and transhumanism perspective is expected to be effective in various areas of human life, it will be inevitable for these effects to manifest themselves in learning processes. In this sense, evaluation of surrounding learning by virtual worlds is the main objective of this chapter. For this purpose, virtual worlds in transhumanism age were tried to be evaluated under learning context by using anime series and film samples which are yet considered as sci-fi.

Automatic IQ Estimation Using Stylometric Methods

Stylometry is a study of text linguistic properties that brings together various fields of research such as statistics, linguistics, computer science and more. Stylometry methods have been used for historic investigation, as forensic evidence and an educational tool. This chapter presents a method to automatically estimate individual's IQ based on quality of writing and discusses challenges associated with it. The method utilizes various text features and NLP techniques to calculate indexes which are used to estimate individual's IQ. The results show a high degree of correlation between expected and estimated IQs in cases when IQ is within the average range. Obtaining good estimation for IQs on the high and low ends of the spectrum proves to be more challenging and this work offers several reasons for that. Over the years stylometry benefitted from wide exposure and interest among researches, however it appears that there aren't studies that focus on using stylometry methods to estimate individual's intelligence. Perhaps this work presents the first in-depth attempt to do so.

According to Zoltan Istvan

Radical science and technology are changing everything around us. The area of transhumanism is growing dramatically in size and impact - and the impact on our species is enormous. In just a decade, many things can change how we live our lives. The upcoming innovation will be amazing. Transhumanists believe that we must protect ourselves from our natural genes, unless they bind us to remain forever as animals. We believe that our outdated instincts can easily tempt us to know right from wrong, practical from impractical. If you look closely, the human body and its biology constantly highlights our many imperfections. Transhumanism seeks to improve the human body through science and technology - that is, to help people develop. This is a strange cultural and philosophical position for a movement. And yet, change is exactly what transhumanism aspires to.

A Case Study on Pre-Service English Teachers' Perceptions of Self-Efficacy and Integration of Information-Communication Technologies

The aim of this study is to find out pre-service English language teachers' ICT self-efficacy perceptions and ICT integration in their lessons. The data were collected from 60 pre-service English teachers in one of the state universities in Turkey via a questionnaire developed by Ekici, Ekici, and Kara. Semi-structured interviews were also carried out with some volunteering pre-service teachers. The questionnaire data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 22). Interview data were analyzed finding emerging themes and categorizing them using constant comparison method. The results showed that they use ICTs in their lessons mostly especially in practicum or macro and micro teaching sessions and they have high self-efficacy on ICT use in language education. Results also revealed some problems they encounter while using ICTs in language teacher education and their suggestions on how to improve their use. Based on the results, certain implications were drawn from the study in order to organize future teacher education programs that utilize ICTs.

Online and Distance Education in the Era of Rampant Technological Revolution

Developments in information and communication technologies have reached an all-time high. These improvements have accelerated the transformation of higher education milieus on all sides. Accordingly, higher education institutions have begun to be delineated by these technological developments, activities, and practices. This technoculture era has started a new interaction among communication technologies, teachers, and learners. Herein, transhumanism regards changes in societies through these technological interactions and transformations. The worldwide technological transformation is approximating all societies and cultures to Marshall McLuhan's notion of a global village day by day as a consequence of the technology paradigm. The heydays of the developments in technologies affect all human beings at all points from living, learning, communicating to eating and even thinking styles. Taking these points into account, this chapter will explore how these variables may influence the online distance education milieus in terms of technoculture and transhumanism perspectives.

Artificial Intelligence in Education

Though only a dream a while ago, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a reality, being now part of our routines and penetrating every aspect of our lives, including education. It is still a field in its infancy, but as time progresses, we will witness how AI evolves and explore its untapped potential. Against this background, this chapter examines current insights and future perspectives of AI in various contexts, such as natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and deep learning. For this purpose, social network analysis (SNA) is used as a guide for the interpretation of the key concepts in AI research from an educational perspective. The research identified three broad themes: (1) adaptive learning, personalization and learning styles, (2) expert systems and intelligent tutoring systems, and (3) AI as a future component of educational processes.

The Role, Influence, and Demand of Pedagogies in the Age of Transhumanism

Whether pedagogies play a role in the age of transhumanism is a question that has no certain answers. There are some who say that pedagogies do not play any role in transhumanism while some say that pedagogies appear to play a role in this movement. Agreeing to the later observation, this chapter proposes that pedagogies have a relationship with transhumanism and will play a very important role in the transhumanistic societies of the future. Extending these arguments and observations, present paper assesses the role, influence and demand of pedagogies in the age of transhumanism. In this quest, present chapter: defines pedagogy and discusses its importance; enumerates the relationship between pedagogy and transhumanism; analyses the role of pedagogies in the age of transhumanism; looks upon the influence and demand of pedagogies in the age of transhumanism; and predicts the future of pedagogies in transhumanistic societies.

Artificial Intelligence in the Era of Transhumanism Smart Phones

The relationship between humans and machines has been a controversial topic throughout history. In the past, technology was viewed as a mere change in people's living conditions while today it is evident that it affects the nature of humanity itself. This very change can range from microscale structures, such as human DNA, to bigger structures, such as limbs. We have been aware that it is just the beginning for this change. According to the theory of transhumanism, further changes on the human body are expected with the rapid developments in technology. These changes will naturally not be limited to the human body. The increasing amount of interaction between humans and machines will result in the execution of more complicated and difficult tasks by machines instead of humans, which is the focus of the present study. There are many points where the humans and machines meet with technological developments, one of which is the thinking function of humans and its possible transfer to machines. The thinking capacity of machines is known as artificial intelligence.