# Key Ideas from #hplusroadmap IRC Discussion

• Participants criticized DIYbio.org for attempting to impose collective governance on what they viewed should remain an individualist movement, reflecting tensions between institutional oversight and grassroots autonomy in biohacking communities.

• The conversation challenged the validity of the Turing test as a measure of AI capability, with participants noting that both the standard test and its inverse fail to meaningfully evaluate artificial intelligence.

• Jürgen Schmidhuber's work on deep learning was highlighted, particularly his paper on neural networks and perspectives on AI creativity, representing interest in foundational AI research within the transhumanist community.

• A philosophical debate on immortality referenced Eliezer Yudkowsky's arguments about the physical limitations of living beyond a "googolplex years" due to universal expansion constraints, demonstrating how transhumanists grapple with ultimate physical limits.

• The concept of consciousness was intensely debated, with some participants arguing it should be removed from vocabulary due to ambiguity, while others defended it as an emergent property of information processing in the brain.

• Participants shared cutting-edge scientific resources on neuronal nanosurgery using femtosecond laser pulses, DNA folding models, and 3D mapping of the human genome, reflecting the community's focus on breakthrough technologies.

• The discussion of SRI's micro-robots capable of manufacturing their own tools highlighted interest in self-replicating manufacturing systems, though participants critically assessed their capabilities as more like actuators than true robots.