George P. Dvorsky (born May 11, 1970) is a Canadian

bioethicist Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...

transhumanist Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition. Transhuma ...

and

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...

. He is a contributing editor at

io9 ''io9'' is part of Gizmodo media since 2015, and it began as blog launched in 2008 by Gawker Media. The site initially focused on the subjects of science fiction, fantasy, futurism, science, technology and related areas but over the years has ...

and producer of the ''Sentient Developments'' blog and podcast. He was chair of the board for the

Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) is a technoprogressive think tank that seeks to "promote ideas about how technological progress can increase freedom, happiness, and human flourishing in democratic societies."Joseph R. ...

(IEET) and is the founder and chair of the IEET's Rights of Non-Human Persons Program, a group that is working to secure human-equivalent rights and protections for highly sapient animals. He also serves on the Advisory Council of

METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) METI International, known simply as METI, is a non-profit research organization that creates and transmits interstellar messages to attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations. In July 2015, the papers to form METI were filed by ...

. Dvorsky is a secular Buddhist, progressive environmentalist,

ancestral health The Paleolithic diet, Paleo diet, caveman diet, or stone-age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. The diet avoids processed food and typically in ...

advocate, and

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their Utilitarianism, utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding s ...

activist. Primarily concerned with the

ethical Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

and

sociological Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

impacts of emerging technologies, specifically, "

human enhancement Human enhancement (HE) can be described as the natural, artificial, or technological alteration of the human body in order to enhance physical or mental capabilities. Technologies Existing technologies Three forms of human enhancement curre ...

" technologies; he seeks to promote open discussion for the purposes of education and foresight. He writes and speaks on a wide range of topics, including

technoscience In common usage, technoscience refers to the entire long-standing global human activity of technology combined with the relatively recent scientific method that occurred primarily in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. Technoscience is the ...

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

existential risk A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical future event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, even endangering or destroying modern civilization. An event that could cause human extinction or permanen ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

, the search for

extraterrestrial intelligence Extraterrestrial intelligence (often abbreviated ETI) refers to hypothetical intelligent extraterrestrial life. The question of whether other inhabited worlds might exist has been debated since ancient times. The modern form of the concept emerged ...

, and

futurology Futures studies, futures research, futurism or futurology is the systematic, interdisciplinary and holistic study of social and technological advancement, and other environmental trends, often for the purpose of exploring how people will li ...

, from a

democratic transhumanist Transhumanist politics constitutes a group of political ideologies that generally express the belief in improving human individuals through science and technology. History The term "transhumanism" with its present meaning was popularised by J ...

perspective.

Nonhuman rights and ethics

Uplift ethics

Dvorsky presented an argument for non-human animal

biological uplift In science fiction, uplift is a developmental process to transform a certain species of animals into more intelligent beings by other, already-intelligent beings. This is usually accomplished by cultural, technological, or evolutional intervention ...

at the IEET ''Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights'' conference at Stanford University in May 2006; and wrote the first published article in defence of the

Ashley Treatment The Ashley Treatment refers to a controversial set of medical procedures performed on an American child, "Ashley X". Ashley, born in 1997, who has severe developmental disabilities due to static encephalopathy; she is assumed to be at an infant ...

in November 2006, and subsequently the only

cited by

Ashley X The Ashley Treatment refers to a controversial set of medical procedures performed on an American child, "Ashley X". Ashley, born in 1997, who has severe developmental disabilities due to static encephalopathy; she is assumed to be at an infant ...

's parents in their defense.

Existential risk

Dvorsky also presented an argument warning of the decline of democratic values and institutions in the face of existential and catastrophic risks at the ''Global Catastrophic Risks: Building a Resilient Civilization'' conference in November 2008.

Dysonian SETI

Dvorsky, along with Milan M. Ćirković and Robert Bradbury, published a critique of

SETI The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other pl ...

in the May 2012 ''

Journal of the British Interplanetary Society The ''Journal of the British Interplanetary Society'' (''JBIS'') is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1934. The journal covers research on astronautics and space science and technology, including spacecraft design, ...

'' (JBIS) arguing that SETI techniques and practices have become outdated. In its place, Dvorsky, Ćirković, and Bradbury advocated for what they called Dysonian SETI, namely the search for those signatures and artefacts indicative of highly advanced extraterrestrial life.

Space development

Dvorsky has written extensively in favor of space exploration and has both promoted and criticized various

Megascale engineering Megascale engineering (or macro-engineering) is a form of exploratory engineering concerned with the construction of structures on an enormous scale. Typically these structures are at least in length—in other words, at least one megameter, hen ...

concepts.

Dyson sphere

Dvorsky gained some notoriety in 2012 after writing about

Dyson spheres A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its solar power output. The concept is a thought experiment that attempts to explain how a spacefaring civilization would meet ...

, hypothetical structures intended to collect the entire energetic output of a star with solar power collectors. While Dvorsky presented it as a solution to humanity's resource needs including power and living space,

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

blogger Alex Knapp and astronomer

Phil Plait Philip Cary Plait (born September 30, 1964), also known as The Bad Astronomer, is an American astronomer, skeptic, and popular science blogger. Plait has worked as part of the Hubble Space Telescope team, images and spectra of astronomical objec ...

, among others, have criticized Dvorsky's article. Other publications including ''Popular Science'', ''Vice'', and skeptical blog ''Weird Things'' followed up on this exchange. None of them note the above numerical inaccuracies, although ''Weird Things'' does point out Plait's misunderstanding regarding bootstrapping, which Knapp agreed with in an update to his post.

James Nicoll James Davis Nicoll (born March 18, 1961) is a Canadian freelance game and speculative fiction reviewer, former security guard and role-playing game store owner, and also works as a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club. As a Usene ...

noted in his blog that Knapp seriously underestimated the area of a sphere.

Notes

References

External links

''Will death die?''
Dvorsky as a guest on ''The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Dvorsky, George 1970 births Canadian animal rights scholars Canadian Buddhists Canadian transhumanists Futurologists Living people