Giulio Prisco
Giulio Prisco, born in Naples in 1957, is an Italian information technology virtual reality consultant; as well as a writer, futurist, and transhumanist. He is an advocate of cryonics and contributes to the science and technology online magazine Tendencias21. He produces teleXLR8, an online talk program using virtual reality and video conferencing, and focused on highly imaginative science and
technology. He writes and speaks on a wide range of topics, including science, information technology, emerging technologies, virtual worlds, space exploration and futurology. Prisco's ideas on virtual realities, technological immortality, mind uploading, and new scientific religions are extensively featured in the OUP book "Apocalyptic AI - Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality".
Formerly a senior manager in the European Space Agency, Prisco is a physicist and computer scientist. He served as a member on the board of directors of World Transhumanist Association, of which he was temporarily executive director, and continues to serve as a member on the board of directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and of the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti. He is also a founding member of the Order of Cosmic Engineers, and the Turing Church, fledgling organizations which claim that the benefits of a technological singularity, which would come from accelerating change, should or would be viable alternatives to the promises of major religious groups.
Prisco has been repeatedly at odds with technocritic Dale Carrico who argues that transhumanism is technological utopianism turned into a new religious movement. Prisco agrees but counters that transhumanism is an “unreligion” because it offers many of the benefits of religion without its drawbacks.
