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Episode 51 - Uploading Yourself to the Cloud This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the transhumanist concept of brain uploading, exploring everything from cutting-edge connectomics and artificial intelligence to ancient philosophical views on personal identity. We debate the metaphysics of “substrate independence,” “computational functionalism,” and religious views of the soul to weigh the prospects of preserving consciousness. They also examine the practical and ethical implications of creating digital simulacra, including duplication problems, machine suffering, and moral responsibility. Show Notes: Connectome 2.0 Project: A National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiative utilizing an advanced MRI scanner to map brain connections down to a single micron level.  Eon Systems Fly Cyborg: A simulated fruit fly connectome connected to a virtual body to simulate behaviors like walking and grooming.  Carboncopies Foundation - research and development toward whole brain emulation.   Blue Brain Project - a Swiss project to model the brain that concluded work in 2024.  Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality by Martine Rothblatt   State of Brain Emulation 2025: A comprehensive report featuring contributions from 45 authors and the Allen Institute that outlines the roadmap for animal and human brain emulations.  “The Soul of Trans-humanism” by Ted Peters, reflecting on the various interpretations of the soul in Christianity, and their compatibility with uploading   San Junipero - Black Mirror episode on uploading  Duncan Bell on transhumanism on David Runciman’s Past, Present and Future podcast  As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 50 - Animal Testing This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. dissect the rapid dismantling of the animal-testing paradigm. We explore the legal and political shifts sweeping the EU and the United States—including the surprising federal momentum under the current HHS framework. From the utilitarian calculus of sentient consciousness down to the moral weight of insect neurology, we interrogate whether high-tech alternatives like organoids and AI models can and should finally render mammalian sacrifice obsolete. Show Notes: “The global push to reduce animal testing in drug development” Drug Target Review “HHS Accelerates Shift to Human-Based Research, Reduces Reliance on Animal Testing” US Department of Health and Human Services “The FDA Finalizes Rule Recognizing Non-Animal Testing Methods, Building on Year-Long Reduction Push” PharmTech  “The future of science without animal testing” Humane World for Animals “A Kantian Case for Animal Rights” Christine Korsgaard Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed  Peter Singer and Yuval Noah Harari Lanterns on HBO Piers Morgan interview with AI actress derailed by Cantonese   As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 49 - Targeting at Machine Speed This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J speak with Major Michael Brodka, a U.S. Army military intelligence officer and author of the July 2026 Military Review article “By Algorithm or Order.” Major Brodka argues that the U.S. Army's human-paced targeting doctrine is dangerously misaligned with the rapid emergence of machine-speed, AI-enabled warfare being pursued by adversaries like China and Russia. It asserts that to close this critical "velocity gap," the military must reform its doctrines, organizations, and training to integrate lethal autonomous weapon systems under lawful human-on-the-loop control. Show Notes: “By Algorithm or Order” Michael Brodka DoD Directive 3000.09: Autonomy in Weapon Systems Department of Defense Law of War Manual Field Manual (FM) 3-60:Army Targeting 2023 DoD Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence Adoption Strategy Michael A. Santoro, “Designing Lethal Decisions: AI, Accountability, and the Future of Military Judgment,” Modern War Institute (16 Apr 2026) Jesse R. Crifasi, “Targeting at Machine Speed: The Capabilities—and Limits—of Artificial Intelligence,” Modern War Institute (17 Jul 2025)   As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 48 - Black Mirror Nir and J discuss the show Black Mirror, the now archetypal tech dystopian cultural phenomenon. In almost every episode, technology is the villain. What rarely appears is a legislature, a regulator, or anyone organizing with anybody else. Technology simply arrives, and the only available moral is individual failure. Dystopian narratives are popular, but what work do they do? Do they spur us to action or disempower us? What would a tech realist version look like? Show Notes:   Be Right Back - s2e1 - What if we could record and replay every experience?   Metalhead- s4e5 - What if Terminator apocalypse with robot dogs?    San Junipero - s3e4 - What if we could upload our minds to virtual heaven?   Common People - s7e1 - What if capitalism enshittified brain-computer interfaces?   Years and Years    As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 47 - Are Chatbots Conscious? A Conversation with Henry Shevlin Henry Shevlin, DeepMind's first in-house philosopher and associate director of Cambridge's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, joins the show to sort through the hardest question in AI: are these systems conscious, and would we even know? Drawing on his background in animal cognition, Shevlin argues that the consciousness debate has never been settled by a single decisive test, in animals or in machines, but by the slow accumulation of behavioral and mechanistic evidence.  From there, the conversation ranges across Ted Chiang's recent essay dismissing machine consciousness, the "just an X-ism" fallacy, what spiders can teach us about the difference between perceiving the world and caring about it, Anthropic's constitutional AI project, and the uncomfortable historical parallels raised by building minds engineered to serve us. Along the way: reward hacking, the "anthropomimetic turn" in AI design, and why philosophy is suddenly a growth industry at the frontier labs. Show Notes: “No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious” Ted Chiang "Behaviourism's Revenge" Shevlin "The House Elf Problem" Shevlin "Contra Chiang" Shevlin  Henry Shevlin’s website   As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 46 - Killer Robots This week Nir and J discuss the evolving ethical, political, and strategic landscape of autonomous weapons systems, contrasting historical methods of remote warfare (such as landmines and guided missiles) with modern AI-driven autonomy. They debate the necessity of keeping a "human in the loop," weighing consequentialist arguments—such as sparing soldiers' lives, acting faster than human cognition, and potentially reducing collateral damage—against risks like cognitive deskilling, unpredictable AI behavior (illustrated by recent LLM security breaches), and complex accountability gaps. The conversation highlights how the geopolitical arms race, particularly with China, severely limits the practicality of international regulations or unilateral restraint. Ultimately, they question whether human moral judgment can or should be replicated by artificial consciences, concluding that technological determinism and military pressures will likely drive the adoption of fully autonomous systems regardless of ethical hesitations. Iain M. Banks' Culture Series: The discussion concludes with a recommendation of Banks' sci-fi novels, which explore a post-scarcity, utopian society governed by hyper-intelligent, benevolent AIs—a fitting, if idealized, backdrop to modern debates on AI alignment, control, and human irrelevance. Show Notes: NYT on autonomous weapons The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks  “Defining Autonomy: Why Software, Not Drones, Will Decide the Next War” by Kateryna Bondar and Matt Mande   “The Futility of Banning Killer Robots” by Rob Enderle  “The Vulnerability of Autonomous Warfare Systems” by Burak Oktenli  “By Algorithm or Order: Integrating Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems into Targeting” by Maj. Michael J. Brodka    “Autonomous Ukraine: We Are in a New Era of Warfare” with Michael C. Horowitz and Erin D. Dumbacher  “A legal perspective:  Autonomous weapon systems under international humanitarian law” by Neil Davison   “The End of American Military Dominance? A Conversation” with Paul Scharre      As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 45 - Right to Try This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss patient autonomy and the "right to try". The debate surrounding medical autonomy is intensifying as desperate patients use federal "Right-to-Try" laws and amateur biohackers bypass traditional regulations to create and access unapproved treatments. A booming gray market has emerged for unproven, compounded peptide shots, and RFK’s FDA wants to protect that access. These trends highlight a profound ethical tension between a patient's fundamental right to medical self-determination and the state's paternalistic duty to protect the clinical trial regime - which gives us the data necessary for informed consent - and to guard citizens from harm. Ultimately, regulators and bioethicists argue that without rigorous oversight, vulnerable individuals may fall victim to "snake oil" because true informed consent is impossible when a treatment's risks and efficacy remain largely unknown Show Notes: “No Evidence for Trump’s Right to Try Claim” Eugene Kiely “Right–to-Try Does Not Undermine Clinical Trials” Niklas Anzinger “Survey: Americans Overwhelmingly Back the Right to Try for Individualized Treatments” Goldwater Institute “Final wish denied as Colorado ALS patient's access to experimental drug stalls”  Brian Maass, Colin McIntyre “Peptides, Patient Autonomy, and the Limits of Medical Freedom” Chuck Dinerstein “Survey Shows Peptide Misinformation, Misuse Rising in US” Ashish Rana “What's behind the push to make peptide therapies more readily available” Will Stone   As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 44 - Magnificent Humanity This week, J and Nir talk to Father Michael Baggot about Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which outlines Catholic positions on AI and other emerging technologies. Father Michael Baggot is an Associate Professor of Bioethics at the Vatican’s Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, a member of the Scholarly Advisory Board for Magisterium AI, and the chief editor of Enhancement Fit for Humanity: Perspectives on Emerging Technologies. Show Notes: MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS  “Pope Leo’s First Encyclical Is a Game Changer,” The Nation  “Pope Leo XIV Against the Market’s Techno-Dehumanization,” Jacobin  “Pope Leo Isn’t Standing Athwart the Singularity” New York Times      As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 43 - Brain-Computer Interfaces This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the ethics of brain-computer interfaces. What role do they play in the futurist imagination, and what is the reality of their current use? How quickly will they be available for consumer use, and what ethical issues do they pose? Show Notes: The Philosophy of Brain-Computer Interfaces Conference - UMass Boston - June 5-6, 2026  “Long-term independent use of an intracortical brain–computer interface for speech and cursor control” Nature Medicine “Brain-computer interface trials are taking off” MIT Technology Review “Brain Implant Lets Man With Severe Paralysis Speak in His Own Voice Again” ScienceAlert “How Scientists Are Growing Computers From Human Brain Cells” SingularityHub “China Prepares Tianjin as a Center for Brain-Computer Technology” VOI An introduction to Neal Asher's Polity Universe books      As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Live from Cambridge: Existential Risk In this special live episode, recorded before an audience at Long Now Boston, Nir and J dig into existential risk. J takes seriously the prospect of catastrophic AI outcomes even absent consciousness or agency in any rich sense, while Nir worries less about civilization-ending scenarios than about a quieter, lowercase existential threat: the erosion of what makes us distinctively human.  Show Notes: Find out more about our hosts, Long Now Boston, here!   The Hollow Men by T.S. Elliot Enshitification by Cory Doctorow The Apology by Plato Cyborgs and Space by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline     As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 42 - Who Really Needs Ozempic Anyway? This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the tradeoffs of GLP1 drugs. Their use has reversed the obesity epidemic and has proven to have myriad medical and psychological benefits. But they also come with risks, and are seen as a technofix replacing the need for diets. Are GLP1s another step to the posthuman body, and is that a good or bad thing? Errata: The first GLP1s were approved by the FDA in 2005, semaglutide/Ozempic in 2017, and oral orforglipron/Foundayo was approved in April 2026. More than two thirds of American adults are overweight or obese by BMI, and 40% are obese. Show Notes: GLP-1s Are a Lot Weirder Than Anyone Thought | The Ezra Klein Show   Ethical Considerations in the Use of Weight Loss Medications  The Ethics of Ozempic and Wegovy WHO issues global guideline on the use of GLP-1 medicines in treating obesity   Review of 64 studies finds GLP1s effective for weight loss for almost all groups  Obesity rate declining in US Hard Fork Podcast Rest is History Podcast   As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 41 - Disgust This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the role of disgust in morality. Neuroscience suggests that feelings of disgust underlie many moral judgments, especially in the treatment of sexuality. Conservatives have long defended disgust as a source of moral intuition, while liberals seek to minimize it. Can we suppress disgust? Should we? Show Notes: Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law by Martha Nussbaum  “The Wisdom of Repugnance,” by Leon Kass  The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt  “Daedalus, or, Science and the Future,” JBS Haldane What We Are Seeking, Cameron Reed Wolfendon Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offenses and Prostitution Jeremy Bentham’s Auto-Icon   As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 40 - Nicholas Christakis - Technology and Contagion Dr. Nicholas Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University and the Director of the Human Nature Lab. His research sits at the intersection of the social, biological, and computational sciences, exploring how our evolutionary biology and social network structures shape human behavior, health, and society. His groundbreaking work on "social contagion," demonstrates how everything from obesity and smoking to happiness and cooperative behavior spreads through human networks. Most recently, his work has focused on the emergence of "hybrid systems" of humans and machines, examining both the Burkean risks of how AI might degrade our interpersonal social graces and the technoprogressive potential of using "dumb bots" to optimize human coordination.   Show Notes: The Human Nature Lab at Yale University An overview of Dr. Christakis's current research on social networks, computational social science, and the biology of social interactions. Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, by Nicholas Christakis. His 2019 book detailing how evolution has biologically pre-wired humans for a "good society" based on love, friendship, and cooperation. Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, by Nicholas Christakis His 2009 book exploring the "three degrees of influence" rule and how social contagion dictates our behavior. Dr. Christakis on Bluesky - @nachristakis.bsky.social For the Love of Science Vlog     As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Live from Portsmouth: Artificial Intelligence and Human Values In this special live episode of Prosthetic Gods, we bring you a night of big ideas recorded on April 2nd at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Presented as part of the University of New Hampshire's Sidore Lecture Series, "Artificial Intelligence and Human Values" gathered three leading thinkers to explore what AI means for how we live, think, and relate to one another. The evening opens with short, TED-style talks from Kay Mathieson (Northeastern University), Henry Shevlin (Cambridge University), and Harvey Lederman (UT Austin), each offering a distinct lens on the philosophical, ethical, and cognitive stakes of AI. Nir and J then take the stage to lead a wide-ranging live discussion with all three speakers and with questions and reflections from the Portsmouth audience. Show Notes: Artificial Intelligence and Human Values: A Public Conversation   As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley

Episode 39 - Sven Nyholm on the Ethics of AI This week on Prosthetic Gods we are talking to Sven Nyholm about his new book The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. If our thinking relies on external media, where do we stop and the AIs start? What is the moral status of LLMs? Are they sentient? Are AI relationships any good? And should we raise robots like children?   Sven Nyholm is Professor of the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence at LMU Munich and a Principal Investigator for AI Ethics at the Munich Center for Machine Learning. His books include Humans and Robots: Ethics, Agency, and Anthropomorphism and This Is Technology Ethics: An Introduction, and his latest, The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, ranges from alignment and moral responsibility to artificial consciousness and the existential stakes of humanity's wager on AI.   Show Notes: Sven Nyholm at Researchgate and PhilPapers “How AI Robs Us of Meaning” Sven Nyholm  The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence by Sven Nyholm   As always, listeners can contact us at [email protected] with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics. Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Music & Production by Jake Burley