Akademische Jahresfeier der TUM mit anschließendem Umtrunk in der Immatrikulationshalle (Hauptgebäude)

Powerful new technologies that are just around the corner - gene editing, autonomous vehicles, deep learning machines, for instance - promise to change the human future into one that is unimaginably swifter, smarter, more efficient, and freer from pain, disease, and early death than the present we currently inhabit. Less talked about are the consequences for future humans: what sorts of entities will we be when we are even more linked and networked, recorded in vast data systems, subjected to targeted biological manipulation, and dependent on thinking machines for much of our day to day activity? In this talk, I will review today's approaches to preserving the integrity of the human and consider how that concept might have meaning in the science fiction world that is spread out before us.

Anhand von zwei Beispielen – dem Skelett eines Klosterbruders aus dem 18. Jahrhundert und der Mumie eines bayerischen Generals aus napoleonischer Zeit – zeigt der Vortrag Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der paläopathologischen Methode und veranschaulicht die daraus zu gewinnenden medizinischen und historischen Erkenntnisse.