Bodies, Brains, Babies -- and the Future of Being Human
Who Gets to Design the Next Version of Us?
What would you change about yourself if technology made it possible? A longer, healthier life? A sharper memory? Freedom from chronic pain, anxiety, or inherited disease? And what would you choose for a child who has not yet been born?
Technologies once confined to science fiction are beginning to alter how we treat illness, understand aging, select embryos, restore lost abilities, and imagine the limits of the human body. Some could relieve extraordinary suffering. Others could transform normal human differences into problems to be measured, ranked, and corrected.
Join host and technology strategist Bridget K. Burke and special guests for an immersive exploration of transhumanism, the growing effort to overcome or redesign human limitations through genetics, artificial intelligence, neural interfaces, longevity science, prosthetics, pharmaceuticals, and other emerging technologies.
Burke invites the audience to join her in thinking critically to examine the promise of human enhancement alongside its unsettling questions. When does treatment become enhancement? Could the freedom to improve ourselves become pressure to do so? Will longer lives and healthier children be available to everyone or create new biological classes? And if we can influence the abilities and characteristics of future generations, who gets to decide what counts as a better human?
This is not an evening about whether technology is simply good or bad. It is about the choices already appearing before us, the values hidden inside those choices, and the future we may be creating without realizing it.
• Registration highly recommended.
• Adults and high school students only! Free wine reception at 6:30pm for pre-registered guests. Waitlist line opens up at 6:45 on a first come, first served basis.
Bridget Burke is your guide to the exciting world of AI. With a degree from Columbia University and over 30 years of global technology experience, Bridget has mastered the art of making complex concepts easy to understand and enjoyable to learn.
She has held top tech roles in major companies and institutions including Chief Information Officer and Chief Security Office, HID Global Corp.\; Chief Technology Officer, Interlogix (UTC Corp)\; and Director, Security Enterprise Management, Harvard University. she researches responsible, human-centered systems, particularly embodied AI operating in healthcare, security, and civic infrastructure.
She also teaches on the privacy, security, ethics, and agency of embodied AI “smart” systems, serves on the HIMSS Global Professional Development Committee, and is an active member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.
Curious to learn more, connect with Bridget on LinkedIn (
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