Many futuristic novels are set in the vastness of space, more or less disconnected from reality. Transhumanist fiction (as a genre) returns and stands again here on Earth, taking up the socio-philosophical reflection arising from the dreams of a life without disease, without aging and without death, dreams conveyed by transhumanism.
So let’s go through this literature to consider the possible futures it identifies: It leads us to a place where the people we’ve known so far no longer belong, where the balance of power between public and private institutions has surely shifted in favor of the latter. The explosion of inequalities certainly leads to a “removal”, a “breakaway” of the ruling minorities, the “preferred”, the elites, who, against all odds, will do their best to defy the death, you have conquered immortality.
How does transhumanist fiction predict the future?
Transhumanist fiction “unfolds” at the intersection of many scientific disciplines, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, cognitive and computational sciences, which propose to reshape the human, but it also “unfolds” at the convergence of the interdisciplinary works of various experts in all cognitive fields. It emphasizes the dimension of the possible, much more than that of the imaginary, even if the plot still revolves around human characters in the process of transhumanization or non-humans endowed with consciousness. With transhumanist fiction, it is no longer a question of the end of the world, but of the world we know, an end which is merely prolonged, sometimes in a peculiar way, extended and inherited by science fiction.
Current work related to the extent of the use of robots in all areas of human activity is particularly important [such as hand robotics developed at the CNRS “Pprime” Institute of Engineering, exoskeletons used to relieve health personnel involved in fight against Covid-19, (Ora Martin Koppe “Des exosquelettes pour soulager les soignants” “CNRS News” of 07.23.2020, – French “National Center for Scientific Research” – Center national de la recherche scientifique French National Center for Scientific Research / CNRS), the direct intervention in the body by inserting microcircuits into the flesh in order to cure certain diseases, to mention only the most recent innovations]. And this is because we can be led to believe that fiction, more and more, will accompany, predict and speculate about the style of the future way of life, which will result from the progress of technological science, designed to improve human existence… if it is considered that he still has a place in the world to come.
On the other hand, the new control techniques will allow better recording and surveillance of people (biotechnological or algorithmic control), will divide society into two categories (those who can accept and tolerate the technologies of improving the instruments or skin and the rest).
Care for the human love life is minimal in this technological quest, as the reconstruction of sexuality is considered secondary or unnecessary in the life of a transhuman. Access to immortality is sought at the expense of an impressive list of rejections, a list of renunciation of pleasures, while it immediately affects the emotions that bind our bodies with a materiality so perishable in time…
Interhumanism and transhumanism
Interhumanism took shape in the late twentieth century, mainly due to the highly productive, active and persuasive Swedish intellectual Niklas Boström *. The transhumanism movement proposes that, thanks to technological scientific progress, we will transcend disease and even death, so that each of us will be freed from all the limits imposed by the human biological condition. After the initial reluctance of the intellectuals, Bostrom managed to convince the right people, with the help of the NBICC (Nanotechnologies, Biotechnologies, Computers, Cognitive sciences) “quadruple” and then to attract a competent essential funding for activities to reshape the future of humanity. Today, pioneering members of the transhumanist movement include …. gurus and wealthy businessmen, such as the American Raymond – Ray Kurzweil (futurist and adviser to the US military in the field of technology, born in 1948)], the German-American Peter Andreas Thiel (big businessman, philologist, lawyer and journalist, co-founder of Paypal, born in 1967), the well-known South African – naturalized Canadian multi-millionaire entrepreneur, economist and physicist Elon Reeve Musk (born in 1971)… All these famous names invest (literally) in immortality, who believe that it is inextricably linked with progress and raises various ethical questions about the coexistence – multipotent “cohabitation” of humans with artificial intelligence.
Nevertheless, at the current birth rate (and not excluding from the general evolutionary game, death, our archenemy), in 2050, people on Earth will reach the number of 10 billion, [see the stimulating article by Robin Korda in the daily newspaper “Le Parisien” of June 20, 2019, based on a UN report, “10 billion people in 2050? This is what it might look like” (“10 milliards d’humains en 2050 ? Voici à quoi ça pourrait ressembler”)]
It is now possible to live longer and healthier lives, but some of us will have to die to make room for others. Progress will inevitably introduce a ‘class eugenics’.
In the book by the Romanian Mara Magda Maftei (Mara Magda Maftei, Professor of economics at the University of Bucharest, philologist of French literature and historian) “Transhumanist imaginations. Literary Representations and Critiques of Transhumanism”, “Fictions posthumanistes: Représentations littéraires et critiques du transhumanisme”, published in July 2022 by Hermann Publications of Paris, demonstrates that the consequence of the reality shaped by transhumanism is always transferred to the consequent transhumanism as philosophical argumentation.
If transhumanism dictates to us that we must not give up the dream of a life without death and eternal youth without old age, because now technological scientific progress guarantees our ubiquitous expansion with all kinds of “prostheses”, transhumanism undertakes to answer all our questions and concerns regarding these matters. A growing number of writers are interested in the immediate consequences of transhumanist ideology.
Compared to science fiction, with which it shares a critical and iconological dimension, transhumanist fiction is a future fiction that takes place in the present or the near future, which is depicted by transhumanist ideologues. Contemporary writers use the discourses of transhumanists, which influence the socio-economic field as well as the health field, to speculate on the immediate consequences of this very “specially” elitist ideology.
The expectations and concerns of the authors
Considered as writers of the immediate future, several authors of fiction novels demonstrate to their readers the feasibility and applicability of the ideas of transhumanist futurists, insisting on the collective dimension of transhumanist approaches.
Writers fictionalize conditions of future reality to show the reader how the man of the future will no longer belong to himself. Immortality goes hand in hand with the loss of human autonomy, with the sharing of power with artificial intelligence, with the creation of alternative “institutions” and institutions (through the use of technological systems) that replace the power previously embodied by the state.
The novel “Golem” (published by Gallimard, 2016), published by the French-Jewish Pierre Assouline from Morocco, foretells the consequences of using a surgical technique (very limited today), which aims to treat neurodegenerative diseases, such as the disease of Parkinson. The lucky patient who undergoes such an operation in 2022 leaves the hospital with electrodes the size of a quarter of a grain of rice, which are placed in his brain with the help of a robot, as well as a subkey neurostimulator. From this, high-frequency pulses are sent to the intracerebral implanted electrodes via a subcutaneous cable. Equipped with a remote control that allows him to connect to a computer program to manage the range of frequencies sent by the neurostimulator to the brain, the Parkinson’s patient regains his brain functions, aided by artificial intelligence.
This technique is used by Assouline to develop his mnemonic abilities (he is a chess champion), but he applies a means of remote control to the main character of his short story, Gustave Meyer, a patient of Professor Klapman, without the patient’s knowledge. Thus, Assouline assumes the negative consequences of forms of heightened mental capacity.
[Regarding this, see the Neuralink project, whose goal is to hybridize human intelligence with artificial intelligence through very high-density brain implants that aim to interconnect thousands or even millions of neurons, since the goal is not it is not only to help people with disabilities, but also to increase the cognitive abilities of people who do not necessarily suffer from a neurological disorder. See also the article by Professor of philosophy at the University of Calgary Walter Glannon, “Ethical issues with brain-computer interfaces”, in the excellent scientific publication “Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience” , 2014. Project of the “Neurotech Lab” group of the Neuroscience Institute of Grenoble-Alpes University,].
Assouline and many other authors envisage the integration of implantable RFID71 microcircuits (where RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification) into the human body, an operation capable of giving humans behaviors as predictable as those of machines. . Techniques to control people will evolve in this way and be controlled by private entities, competing with the state, such as the big five American technology companies GAFAM “Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft” or other growing technological business conglomerates “explosively”, as a result of the increasingly extreme use of the Internet.
Swedish company BioHax and US company Three Square Market already offer their employees free subcutaneous microcircuit implants that automatically enter personal passwords on computers and office doors, store information and can be used to pay in company cafeterias [Time the text of American journalist and architect Dan Howarth, “US tech company offers to turn employees into cyborgs with microchip implants”, Dezeen Magazine, 25 July 2017 ].
In the book “Surtout ne mens pas”, written by Elena Sender (Paris, XO editions, 2015), researcher Erik Hilgarson, the main character, works to make brains immortal thanks to the discovery of the AT37 sequence that repairs brain damage and treats neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Driven by neoliberalism, transhumanism requires people to become increasingly efficient and competitive in the labor market through the use of pharmacology, i.e. the use of smart drugs to increase attention and memory. Elena Sender also speculates on the consequences of their use. [See the article by University of Quebec at Montreal Professors Johann Collin (sociology) and Marcelo Otero (pharmacology), “Knowledgers, smart drugs, and pharmaceuticalization: Evidence for a typology of the new condescending deviant behavior” in the Sociological Research Notebooks of University of Quebec in Montreal (“Insiders, smart drugs and pharmaceuticalization : elements for a typology of the new conformist deviance”, “Cahiers de recherche sociologique”, 2016).
The house arrest we experienced due to COVID in 2020-2021 was anticipated by Antoine Bello’s novel “Ada” **, in which the main character, Ada, is an artificial intelligence endowed with consciousness and intentionality. It is a revolutionary technology software designed to write romance novels for mass consumption. It is autonomous and multiplies and expands very rapidly. Its destruction is impossible, so it is simply prevented from further propagation, since it has become necessary, like all the algorithms we use.
Ada has an inexhaustible memory, which it borrows from its human user. Her memory becomes a kind of functional “prosthesis” for people. It allows people to communicate with each other in the absence of their physical bodies, makes them helpful, and even manages to communicate with “brothers and sisters” (other artificial intelligences) in a network that marginalizes humans. Thus, artificial intelligences become the decisive factors of the hyper-technological and techno-dominated city, as they “protect” all citizens, who are unable to manage even the essentials of everyday life without their “support”.
The change in the habits of individuals as consumer beings is also a key factor in the process of human transformation. The needs are artificially created for consumers, and private investors benefit from them. This is what Rémi Gageac emphatically points out in his novel “Life ++. The augmented life” (“Life ++. La Vie Augmentée”, Asseyelle publications, 2015). In this the company “G-nome” (corruption of the Greek “Gnomi” or “Gnomos” i.e. highly intelligent and industrious, silent dwarf of myths) relies on a controlled delivery of nootropic amines to demonstrate to individuals the negative effects of reducing consumption them, such as the rapid loss of their heightened mental abilities.
A whole series of novels also heralds the use of robots in everyday life. Robots can simply be companions to humans, helping them in their work, as in novels by Isabelle Jarry, in “Magique Aujourd’hui” (Gallimard editions, 2015) or Patrick Laurent, in “Orfex”, (Gallimard editions , 2016). There can also be robots with feelings, cultured and capable of major successes … in the stock market or robots with feelings, cultured, capable of winning in the stock market (Ian McEwan, “Machines like me”, Jonathan Cape publications, 2019). They may even heal and protect children (Kazuo Ishiguro, in “Klara and the Sun”, Faber & Faber, 2021), or they may have a sexual partner role (Jeanette Winterson, in “Frankissstein”, Alto, 2021). . [Here is the very informative op-ed: “Today, algorithms control the stock market” (“Tegenwoordig beheersen algoritmen de aandelenmarkt”) of July 10, 2021, from the Belgian economic and political commentary website and radio station “Business AM”]
These “transhumanist fantasy” novels are concerned with the ability of robots to co-exist, to live with humans, to the point where humans even become robots in turn, creating a new form of work, digital work, specifically for ” immaterial” economy that we have already conquered in the 21st century (and which, through the use of digital systems, is also transforming social relations).
The competitive, bulimic and supply-dependent consumer society based on supply and demand is the habitat of modern technocratic man. It is a fraudulent society of absolute control, which ultimately controls the human masses better than the management of the managed economy. Methodically and in the most detailed programming it “accommodates” this technocratic man, who thus coexists with artificial prostheses and implants or is “enhanced” by genetic engineering, expanded by algorithms and all forms of artificial intelligence that manage his daily life , even forced to share his seat with the robot. Since the end of the Second World War, a multitude of leading bio-ethologists, psychologists, geneticists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists have been concerned with this issue in greater depth and breadth. [Or William Heseltine (American physician born 1944), Burrhus Frederic Skinner (American behavioral psychologist. Inventor and philosopher, 1904-1990), George Church (American geneticist and chemist born 1954), John Rogers Searle (American philosopher born 1932 ), Noam Avram Chomsky (American linguist born 1932), John von Neumann – Neumann János Lajos (Hungarian – naturalized American, mathematician and philosopher, 1903-1957), Claude Elwood Shannon (American mathematician, engineer and cryptographer, 1916-2001) , Alan Mathison Turing (British mathematician, philosopher and cryptanalyst, 1912-1954)].
While many scientific predictions and prospective studies try to foretell the future shaped by these biotechnologies and digital innovations, (the expansion of which every day assumes a greater role in our lives and ways of socializing), only literature seems to be in position to illustrate the possible consequences. Its pictorial dimension, favored by the imaginative processing, offers us a fleeting look at the face that may occupy our immediate future. Thus, the field of works of transhumanist imagination derives, from the innovations already in progress, a possible future, whose deceptive seductions (stopping of old age, exclusion of diseases and disabilities, increase of mental capacities…) are full of latent threats, both to the preservation of the human nature of humans and to the political and social structure of human societies, because algorithmic control also describes the paths of future totalitarianism: The People’s Republic of China already provides a practical successful example (which they … envy the USA and other Western countries). In the 1930s, the ideology of the “New Man” was a true totem of the dictatorships that relied on the successful homogenization of the popular masses, with different approaches of course (homogenization, whether Soviet or National Socialist): Hence the transhumanist utopia of a “new man” of an improved type it could be the subsequent fermentation of new prototypes and “free-democratic” despotisms. This is the terrifying eventuality towards which the related literature tries to awaken our consciousness, engaged in narratives about the future.
