With keynote speakers William Shatner, Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey de Grey, this year's TransVision conference promises to be the best yet. Focusing on nothing less ambitious than "saving humanity," the World Transhumanist Association's annual conference will cover everything from sustainable energy to antiaging medicine. To get the details, Betterhumans Editor Simon Smith caught up with James Hughes, Secretary of the WTA and Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Engage.

BH: So, another TransVision approaches. With how many TransVisions have you personally been involved?

I organized the first TransVision I attended. After we elected our first Board of Directors in the winter of 2002-2003 we organized the 2003 TransVision at Yale University, since Nick Bostrom was teaching there at the time and we could get some benefits through sponsorship from the Yale folks.  I was the main organizer, and it was pretty successful, turning a profit and bringing about 100 transhumanists together with about one hundred non-transhumanist folks doing or interested in bioethics.

BH: In what ways have the conferences changed in nearly a decade since they started?

The first couple of TransVisions in Europe in the 1990s were small gatherings for a couple dozen transhumanist guys to meet and bounce ideas off one another. Then TV03 at Yale kicked that up to the 100-200 attendance mark, based around an academic conference model that held through TV04 in Toronto, TV05 in Caracas and TV06 in Helsinki. I don't want to make a prediction about how many we'll have at the gala event we're going to have in Chicago, but it promises to kick us up to yet another level, with carefully selected speakers, professional conference planners working year-round, real (as opposed to transhumanist) VIPs like Shatner and Arianna Huffington. It's going to be cool.

BH: TransVision 2003 was particularly significant in being held at a major university campus, Yale, and in raising public attention of issues and developments in cutting-edge science and technology. Looking back, what would you say were that conference's big successes and failures?

The strategic focus of the 2003 TransVision was to draw in friendly bioethicists and philosophers to meet our community, and orient our community to bioethics as a contestable terrain for transhumanist ideas. Most transhumanists, I think, believed bioethicists were uniformly opposed to the H+ project, while few bioethicists had heard of transhumanism, and those that had thought we were a nutty fringe. We needed to demonstrate to the H+ that, in fact, most bioethicists were closer to us than to Leon Kass, the President's Council and bioconservativism, and to the bioethicists that transhumanists were radical but serious thinkers. I think that meeting succeeded, and we continue to see its fruits as the folks we met there have gone on to write about us, join our projects, and invite us to their meetings and projects. Transhumanism is now recognized as a popular and influential player in the bioethics/biopolitics terrain, and not just a Star Trek fan club.

BH: How have things evolved since TransVision 2003? Do you still find the topics raised there as relevant? Have newer issues supplanted those that were big issues then?

The focus of TransVision 2004 in Toronto was to raise our flag in the cultural and artistic arena, which is lot bigger and more diffuse. The meeting itself was an unquestioned success for the participants, despite being a little smaller than 2003. Stelarc and Steve Mann were amazing and complementary evening speakers, the transhumanist film festival was fun and memorable, and again we met a lot of interesting folks who have become biopolitical allies, like the body modders. Whether TV04 was as successful raising the H+ profile in the arts is harder to say, but we have certainly seen a growing use of the terms transhuman, posthuman and so on in the arts.

TransVision 2005 in Caracas was focused on futurists and the developing world, and had some memorable highlights. It was held in a theater that opened onto the hotel bar and pool, and each participant got a free bottle of rum which made the loose and frenetic organization of the event quite tolerable. Most of the attendees were Venezuelan, but the H+ activists present did get a chance to meet some prominent people in future studies, and it seems like the World Future Society meetings are increasingly infused with H+ speakers.

By comparison to Caracas, Helsinki in 2006 was a well-oiled machine. The Finnish Transhumanist Association is probably our best organized chapter worldwide, and they were able to get the meetings broadcast real-time into Second Life, and posted as video almost immediately on the web. The local chapter folks did a great job at making all the international guests feel welcome, and I got to hang out naked in a Finnish sauna. We met a lot of Europeans there who have gone on to make big waves, such as the Italian Transhumanist Association which is now an active participant in Italian politics, and the Russian Transhumanists who have briefed the Russian government on futurist issues.

BH: TransVision 2007 looks to take things up a notch, with three high-caliber and well-known keynote speakers in Ray Kurzweil, Aubrey de Grey and William Shatner. How does this conference most differ from previous? How has organizing this conference differed from organizing previous conferences?

TransVision 2007 is the first to receive significant philanthropic backing, which allowed the planners to hire a professional conference planning firm, secure top-notch speakers, like Shatner and Huffington, and exciting venues, like the Natural History Museum where the awards ceremony will be held. It's a bit of gamble since the registration fees have taken a jump, and the meeting is still a hard sell to a general audience skittish of an -ism they have never heard of. But hopefully it will all come together.

BH: Some might question the involvement of Shatner, who's known more for his association with science fiction than for any association with science and related ethical issues. What drove the organizing committee to include Shatner as a keynote speaker? How did he react to this request?

I wasn't involved with the invitation, but I understand that Shatner is an acquaintance of Kurzweil's and is generally a supporter of futurism and techno-evolution. I'm looking forward to hearing him.

BH: What can people expect at this year's conference? What aspect of the conference are you most looking forward to?

The theme of this conference is much grander than the previous ones-how can transhumanism solve humanity's problems? So I think we'll hear from both the policy wonky and the radical futurist parts of transhumanism, and perhaps less from the academic and philosophical parts. Otherwise, I'm trying to maintain Zen mind-no expectations.

BH: Given the caliber of keynote speakers, the sexiness of the subject matter, and the location, has the conference attracted more interest than previous conferences, particularly from the media? Are you expecting more media coverage than in previous years?

Absolutely. This should make a much bigger media impact than the previous meetings, and there will also be several documentary film crews there to capture the events.

BH: For people who don't know about transhumanism or TransVision conferences, how would you describe this event in a way that would entice them to attend?

All the leading lights in transhumanist thought and activism will be there. If you are new to the area, you will learn a lot and meet all the principals in the flesh. If you are an old timer, it will be one of the coolest H+ parties ever thrown. Chicago is one of the great cities of the world, and the WTA probably won't meet in the North America for another two years. Be there or be square.