Summary: Dr. James Hughes is not only the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) but also a well known book author and transhumanist. I enjoyed having him on the show and will probably ask him to come back. During our conversation with Dr. Hughes we cover a wide variety of topics such as: what is the IEET and what does it do; the story behind James' interest in technology, policy, philosophy and bio/ethics; why transhumanist atheists are often drawn to Buddhism; his first book Citizen Cyborg and his upcoming Cyborg Buddha; transhumanism and his definition thereof; whether optimism is rational; the impact of artificial intelligence on transhumanism; James' take on the technological singularity and our chances of surviving it; the benefits of biology; moral enhancement and animal uplift. As always you can listen to or download the audio file above, or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. If you want to help me produce more episodes of Singularity 1 on 1 just make a donation: Who is James Hughes? James Hughes Ph.D. serves as the Executive Director of the technoprogressive thinktank Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He is a bioethicist and sociologist at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut where he teaches health policy and serves as Director of Institutional Research and Planning. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago. Dr. Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond To The Redesigned Human Of The Future, and is working on a second book tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha.
