We are living in a world in which the arts, sciences, and technology are becoming inextricably integrated strands in a new emerging cultural fabric. Our knowledge of ourselves expands with each discovery in molecular and neurobiology, psychology, and the other sciences of living organisms. Technologies not only provide us with new tools for communication and expression, but also provide a new social context for our daily existence. We now have tools and systems that allow us as a species to modify both our external environment and our internal genetic blueprint. The new sciences and tech- nologies of artificial life and robotics offer possibilities for societies that are a synthesis of human and artificial beings. Yet these advances are being car- ried out within a context of increasing inequity in the quality of life and in the face of a human population that is placing unsustainable burdens on the biosphere.