UPDATE: Humanity+ @ Caltech is now over. Videos of the conference talks are being edited and will be posted online shortly.

I’m giving a general overview talk on Humanity+ next week, and in preparation, I recorded a brief practice video of my talk, sitting at home in my study.  The delivery isn’t too dramatic (I need an audience for that) but the content is about the same as the real talk will be.  The practice video is here, and the text I used as an approximate script is given below.  I think it’s a fairly good summary of what Humanity+ is all about.

“What does the future hold?

“None of us really knows.  But the possibilities are pretty amazing.  We’ve got the potential to create a world where people live as long as they want, where scarcity is a thing of the past, where the human brain and body are radically enhanced, where friendly AIs smarter than any of us help us achieve our goals.

“And there are also some darker possibilities.

“Humanity+ is about helping humanity  get the future right.  Not just the technology, but making the technology really work for all of us, and those who come after.

“Some of you may be surprised to see me here talking to you about Humanity+ — I’m better known as a research scientist. I started out as a mathematician, and now I do research on artificial general intelligence, on robotics, on life extension, on computational neuroscience and a bunch of other areas.

“I’m also deeply interested in mind uploading, genetic engineering, nanotech, femtotech, and a whole lot more.

“The reason I got involved in Humanity+ is, it seemed like the only organization whose mission encompassed ALL these different areas — including their interrelationships and their broader implications … including trying to make sure they get developed in a beneficial way, and  we all have the rights to their benefits.

“I think the world needs a world-class organization that’s devoted to future technology in a broad sense.  Not restricted to some particular class of technologies or issues.   Humanity+ is now a small organization, but I’m here because I think it has the potential to grow into something really important & powerful.

“What does Humanity+ do?  We have worldwide chapters, conferences, a magazine, we support R&D.

“Our chapters are spreading the word about advanced technology and futurist thinking in dozens of different countries — gathering together a huge diversity of perspectives on how to get the future right … and what “getting it right” means.

“Our next conference will be at CalTech next weekend — there will be sessions on AI, economics, art and design, and longevity.  For instance, in the longevity session we’ll bring together researchers with a host of different perspectives, trying to understand how various  mechanisms work together to cause aging, and how they can be solved in a unified way.  Our overall goal with our conferences is to work toward a unified understanding of how to create a better future using current and incipient technologies.

“Our magazine, H+ Magazine, is edited by R.U. Sirius, who’s been a leader of futurist journalism for decades.  You  might remember his previous magazine Mondo 2000.  RU is starting a new magazine feature for 2011 called “Problem Solved: Humanity+ Solves All the World’s Problems.”  Each month we’ll consider a different problem and bring together a host of expert opinions about how advanced technology can solve it.  We also publish selected future-oriented books via Humanity+ Press.

“We collaborate with scientists and engineers on critical R&D — helping bring funding and also interdisciplinary insight to the technologies with the biggest potential to make the biggest difference.  We also host the Gada Prize for personal manufacturing.

“We’re working with WideTag on using the Internet of Things to enable mobile healthcare.  And we’re working with OpenCog — an open-source AI project I started several years ago — working on creating robots, video game characters and artificial scientists with general intelligence at the human level and beyond.  If we get the future of AI right, that will help a lot in making the future as a whole great for all of us.

“We’re a broad organization — we’re not focused on any one technology or issue.  Our mission is to help humanity get the future right.  But out of the breadth of our mission, come some very specific action items.

“We could use your help right now with our Problem Solved! magazine initiative, and with our work on spreading the Internet of Things and creating beneficial general intelligence, and a load of other stuff.

“There’s a lot more to say about these things,  and a lot of other cool things we’d love to tell you about — so please look through our website, join our mailing lists, become a member, join a chapter, and by all means GET INVOLVED!”