At a time when scientific and technological breakthroughs keep our eyes focused on the latest software upgrades or the newest cell-phone wizardry, a group of innovative thinkers are looking beyond the horizon to explore both the promise and the peril of our technological future. This volume explores the origins, nature and meaning of such change, and our capacity to govern it. The book aims to open the doors to a new dialogue on how, in the quest for human mastery, technology may be changing what it means to be human, in ways we scarcely comprehend.