Giulio Prisco (born in Naples in 1957) is an Italian information technology and virtual reality consultant;[1][2][3] as well as a writer, futurist,[4] transhumanist,[5] and cosmist.[6][7] He is an advocate of cryonics[8] and contributes to the science and technology online magazine Tendencias21.[9] He produced teleXLR8, an online talk program using virtual reality and video conferencing, and focused on highly imaginative science and technology.[10][11] He writes and speaks on a wide range of topics,[12] including science, information technology, emerging technologies, virtual worlds, space exploration and futurology.[13]
Prisco's ideas on virtual realities, technological immortality, mind uploading, and new scientific religions are extensively featured in the OUP books Apocalyptic AI - Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality[14] and Virtually Sacred - Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life.[15] Prisco's ideas are also extensively featured in the 2017 book Dynamic Secularization - Information Technology and the Tension Between Religion and Science[16] and the 2019 book Transhumanism - Engineering the Human Condition: History, Philosophy and Current Status,[17] both published by Springer.
Formerly a researcher at CERN, a staff member at the European Space Agency, and a senior manager at the European Union Satellite Centre, 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 the executive director, and the board of directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies,[18] from which he resigned in 2021.[19] He is currently the president of the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti.[20] He is also a founding member of the Order of Cosmic Engineers, and the Turing Church,[21][22] 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.[23][24][25][26][27][28]
Prisco has been repeatedly at odds[citation needed] with technocritic Dale Carrico who argues that transhumanism is technological utopianism turned into a new religious movement.[29] Prisco agrees but counters that transhumanism is an “unreligion” because it offers many of the benefits of religion without its drawbacks.[30]
Prisco has published two books. The first, published in 2018 and again in 2020 with its second edition, is titled "Tales of the Turing Church: Hacking religion, enlightening science, awakening technology".[31] The second book, published in 2021, is titled Futurist spaceflight meditations.[32]
Prisco has also written the chapter "Transcendent Engineering" for the 2013 book The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future[33] and the chapter "Future Evolution of Virtual Worlds as Communication Environments" in the 2010 Springer book Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual.[34]