Artificial intelligence plays an increasing role in our daily life, for example in the search engines on the internet or self-driving cars. Futurologists, such as Kurzweil in his book "The Singularity is near", and science-fiction films, such as "Her", "Transcendence" or "Real Humans", go much further and sketch a future where autonomous robots become more powerful than humans. They speak about systems with which humans can transfer their brain states into computers and thus reach eternal life - albeit after giving up their body.

This round table discusses in how far these far out dreams can ever become reality. How should we imagine a future where artificial intelligence is everywhere? What does it mean for humanity if physical embodiment is no longer obvious? And do we really want such a future?

This event is organised by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the University of Brussels (VUB) in the context of '500 years Vesalius' and in collaboration with the Belgian-Dutch AI society (BNVKI). After the round table there is a performance of the tragicomic opera Casparo which explores the same topic as the panel from an artistic point of view.