Human Enhancement Technologies and the Creation of a New Caste System: Navigating the Brave New World We Live In
Michael Thiessmeier
Executive Director U.S National AI and Cybersecurity ISAO | Cybersecurity Executive | vCISO/CIO | Chairman UN AI4G Baltics | UN AI SME | Defense Tech Advisor DK | GFCE Delegate | Speaker | Top 0.5% Crunchbase Global
In 2018, I gave my first talk about the topic of human enhancement and its potential impact on society at a university in Riga. During the talk, I raised the concern that the use of enhancement technologies could lead to the creation of a "caste" of humans who, due to their financial resources, can significantly extend their lifespan, improve the quality of life and length of their productivity, and enhance their physical and mental abilities. These enhancements could include improved brain function, muscle and joint performance, more efficient sleep, increased energy levels due to improved mitochondria function and cell health, protected DNA, and optimized brain chemistry for better social skills, public speaking, and leadership.
Unfortunately, we have now reached a point where access to these enhancement technologies is prolific and limited only by one's income. For instance, my social media feeds are full of subscription offers for online prescriptions for drugs falling into these categories, and clinics offering ‘Hormone Replacement Therapy’ are available in almost every town. This was not the case when I was serving with Future Directions. In those times, human enhancement and supporting technologies and drugs were not widely available and were only known to a small group of people.
In a specific recent development, the FDA is expected to approve a drug in the coming weeks that has been shown to result in an average weight loss of 22.5%, significantly more effective than the current best drug on the market at 10-15%.
The new drug is expected to cost up to $1,300 per month with insurance and thus only affordable for the wealthy for the foreseeable future.
It is important to understand that the intended outcome of using a drug like this for enhancement differs from using it to treat a medical condition, though there are grey areas in between. For example, scientific literature has established links between long working hours and obesity, which of course, surprises no one. If you work 80 hours a week, even the most motivated person will find it difficult to devote enough time to the gym and to healthy nutrition to where it would make a difference. In the context of enhancement, a person would dedicate more hours to gainful activity, knowing that they can partially mitigate the negative consequences by utilizing such a drug.
This is one of the underlying motivations for human enhancement. A longer life lived (supposedly) at maximum productivity gives one more opportunity to accumulate wealth.
While we could debate the ethics of human enhancement, the demand for it is clearly high, as evidenced by the proliferation of hormone replacement therapy clinics and online prescription offers. People often publicly claim to oppose human enhancement but will privately pursue it in the end.
It is my opinion that the existence of enhanced humans is now irreversible and has significant societal implications, including impacts on mate selection and the perpetuation of wealth dynasties. It would take a whole book to explore these consequences fully, and I have covered many of these aspects in my talks.
Welcome to the brave new world we now live in. What will your path be?
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Background: In 2016, I served as a volunteer SME on a working group of the IEEE Future Directions Committee. The working group I served on covered digital senses and human augmentation. This sparked my fascination with the topic and was the beginning of my explorative journey through scientific literature review and thought exchange with scientists in the field of biotechnology.
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2yI think the time tradeoff factor you mention is particularly overlooked. When you can spend money to essentially buy free time (as people do with chefs and cleaners present day) you gain such an advantage in financial, social, physical, and spiritual pursuits, whichever you value.