Slashdot Mirror
Testing The First Cyborgs
D3 writes: "The Washington Post has an article on what may be the first cyborg. The article also lists some other pretty cool stuff going on. Soon we'll also be able to relieve ourselves on a microchip to test for cancer as well." I'm still waiting for the spring leg implants that let me leap buildings, but this is a good first step. The eel-robot has been on before, not so some of the other things.
> Gort! Klatu Barata Nikto!
Is that an allusion to Army of Darkness or The Day the Earth Stood Still? (It could be either, but I'm just curious about how you intended it)
Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Strange as it may seem, peta.org used to resolve to the "People Eating Tasty Animals" website.
Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
...add some wasabi and it is a Hot Wheels.
pronoblem
This depends on how you define cyborg. Is the definition "A living brain with a robot body," or is it, "A mixture of living and technological parts that make a functioning whole?"
If you ask me, the latter definition makes more sense, and therefore I submit that cyborgs have been around for a long time, at least since the first feasible artificial hearts were successfully implanted; and I'm sure someone could come up with examples that predate that.
They could just change their name to PETCA (people for the enthical treatment of cuddly animals) and that would leave the scientists free to experiment on leeches, wasps, eels, spiders, scorpions, and other animals that don't appreciate all that we have done for them.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Keep the bio out of mechanical? OK, since you're not using your arms and legs. Of course, many people would be reluctant to give up their big mouths.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Very sorry to hear about your accident. I'm hoping everything turned out within episilon of OK in the aftermath.
I think there is a general assumption that by "cybernetic (body part)," we mean a body part that is (1) artificial and (2) computer assisted. For example, unless your shoulder had an embedded processor to handle certain functions, it wouldn't qualify in many people's books as cybernetic. Not that it's not cool. :)
I think computer assistance could do wonders for artificial limbs...they wouldn't even necessarily have to *control* the limb, they'd just have to *adjust* the limb for different circumstances (e.g., rock climbing, bicycling, using an automobile). This could open up a whole new world of accessibility for those with certain disabilities.
Another idea, relatively simpler: computer assisted glasses and hearing aids.
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
well, i don't think they'll care. after all, they're for the ethical treatment of animals.
now, if the People for the Ethical Treatment of Disembodied Eel Brains (PETDEB) hears about it, that's a different story.
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Why waste the money on the robot parts? We've been breeding fully human sociopaths for centuries. How would not having a soul really have made your average Hannibal Lecter any worse?
On the contrary side, if the soul isn't colocated with your center of self-awareness, then is it possible to take out the soul and transplant it into someone else? Could I get two souls that way? This quickly becomes an absurd discussion...
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
"lamprey eel brain that was removed, kept alive in a special solution"
"The chicken heart was kept alive in a lab, in a vat filled with a special solution.
lub-dub
One night a careless janitor knocked the vat over.
lub-dub
He went to get a rag to clean it up.
lub-dub
The chicken heart grew.
lub-dub
The janitor returned with a rag.
lub-dub
The heart ate him.
.......
I got MY Jello ready in case that brain comes after me.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
This is great! Reverse engineered Borg built with animal brains! hehe.
We are the Borg.
It has recently be brought to our attention that you are attempting to reverse engineer proprietary Borg Technology. This will cease immediately. Failure to do so will result in nasty letters being sent by Legal Unit iii of paragraph 6 subsection MMCMXVII, calling for a cease-and-decist of this function.
Failure to comply with Legal Unit iii of paragraph 6 subsection MMCMXVII's request will result in immediate assimilation and subsequent assignment to the Legal Unit pool of Drones.
Further. We request that you immediately destroy all sites containing Electrospace Conduits to your site. Failure to do so will reault in immediate assimilation and subsequent assignment to the Legal Unit pool of Drones.
We additionally require that you direct us to any associates that are similarly engaging in the illegal reverse engineering of Borg Technology. Failure to do so will result in immediate assimilation and subsequent assignment to the Legal Unit pool of Drones.
Thank you for your co-operation and we look forward to working with you in the future.
Please prepare for assimilation,
ii of III of the party of the first part
Legal Contact Unit
Unimatrix 0
Borg Space
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
It's just a bit torturous to transplant the brain of a creature and start giving it inputs that don't really resemble how it's supposed to work. What do you think the chances are that the impulses that are being sent to the brain are causing it pain, and it's reacting to that. I don't think I like the prospect of my sight and smell being replaced with raw electrical inputs...sounds like we'd be immersing these little creatures in one unending acid trip.
How, I have to wonder, do we define cyborg. The traditional SF term, which means a melding of man (woman?) and machine is satisfied in the abstract by people who walk down the street yammering at the air because they have a hands-free cell phone.
In the more concrete, Christopher Reeves is clearly part machine (without artificial respiration, he would die, though he's gotten better at breathing on his own for short periods). So, we have to ask ourselves, at what point does medical assistance create a cyborg? Is it only when the result is, in some way, fast, stronger or "better" than an average human, or is it when the human and the machine rely on eachother to exist?
I am fluffy of borg, resistance is futile.
Best Slashdot Co
They have had machines with living components ever since The Flintstones!
-- 2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2
I may still get to acutally become the 6-million dollar man.....
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
Wow, that's a scary thought because I can completely see the consumer demand for a "real" dog that doesn't leave a mess, eat, and can be shut off (paralyzed/hibernation). Once someone starts to get serious about something like this and the demand is high enough then politicians get bought and protesters are removed/ridiculed in the media. This could easily happen in techno-phillic Japan, with their dog renting services and strict no-pet policies in most buildings.
Lets hope doggie AI is advanced before this becomes feasable and profitable.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I want to keep the bio out of mechanical.
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crazy dynamite monkey
Of course, it depends on whose definition you use. By many technical standards cyborgs are already here:
:)
A cyborg is a cybernetic mechanism, a hybrid of machine and organism
Or this one...
(1) an organism with a machine built into it with consequent modification of function; (2) an organism which is part animal and part machine.
By this definition, approximately 10% of the U.S. population (I don't have figures for other countries, sorry...) are already cybernetic. Take my own situation, for example. A motorcycle accident two years ago left me with a right proximal humerus made of chromium steel and titanium. In other words, I have a cybernetic shoulder. You can tell to look at it, and it functions completely normally, but it's there.
And yes, I set off the metal detectors in airports...
-drin
... of course I'm sure PETA will catch wind of this sooner or later.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Well, none of these new cyborg technologies would be of any use for me; if I had a rat-brain-powered vacuum, my dog or cat would eat it immediately.
Doctor: "Please drop your trousers and bend over, Mr. Johnson - this won't hurt a bit..."
Patient: "Um, doctor, what are you doing with that wasp? HEY!!!!!!!"
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Will we have to get an annoying niece and her dog that would help Inspector Gadget out, while he bumbles along?
I mean, the array of gadgets in the story just wasn't impressive:
- Go-Go-Gadget Eel
- Go-Go-Gadget Wasp
- Go-Go-Gadget Bee
- Go-Go-Gadget Moth Antennae
- Go-Go-Gadget Mouse Brain
I'd be embarassed if those were mine.Oh, sure, you think it's interesting now. Wait until the wheeled light-seeking eels rule the planet with cruel inhuman efficiency.
If you don't want my koalas, baby, don't shake my eucalyptus tree.
Oh please, let me be the first to p*ss on a circuitboard wired up to the mains.
Perhaps this is how the Borg started out?
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Gort! Klatu Barata Nikto!
For the people who can't understand this weird dribble, here's a close translation:
0 486121 --> Long reply to a JonKatz editorial about the way his posts helped to define the Brave New World we're all gonna live in.
:)
MGR-0018: 4b6e6f636b2c206b6e6f636b21 --> First Post!
LJW-7790: 57686f2069732074686572653f --> Rant against stupid first posts.
MGR-0018: 48756d616e --> Goatse.cx link cleverly disguised as a DeCSS link.
LJW-7790: 48756d616e2c2077686f3f --> Microsoft bashing...
MGR-0018: 48756d616e206e6f7420616e796d6f7265212048612048612
There ya go
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
"I have delegated it to a pod of Humans, unit MGR-0018"
Some day, in the no-so-distant future, all posts on slashdot will look like this:
MGR-0018: 4b6e6f636b2c206b6e6f636b210 486121
LJW-7790: 57686f2069732074686572653f
MGR-0018: 48756d616e
LJW-7790: 48756d616e2c2077686f3f
MGR-0018: 48756d616e206e6f7420616e796d6f7265212048612048612
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This depends on how you define cyborg. Is the definition "A living brain with a robot body," or is it, "A mixture of living and technological parts that make a functioning whole?" If you ask me, the latter definition makes more sense, and therefore I submit that cyborgs have been around for a long time, at least since the first feasible artificial hearts were successfully implanted; and I'm sure someone could come up with examples that predate that
Yours,
Bob
All the best,
--Bob
So I found this article interesting, and would agree that this is a pretty big step forward in Cybernetics. I mean, they're almost to the point of keeping brain slices alive for weeks at a time now, and using them in sensor technology! Though when it comes to replacing human organs, my money is on biotech. Maybe we'll have replacement livers, kidneys and hearts by the time I'm decrepit and in need of them, who knows? But I'm signing a donor card for now, so I can still be useful in the event of an accident. We need a bit more work until we have replacements as good as those that come from donors, yet. So be a responsible citizen and sign your donor card, and tell your family about it.
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
Sharks with frickin' "Laser" beams strapped to their frickin' heads.
Or, maybe just some ill-tempered sea bass.
Carpe Cerevisi - Seize the Beer
Sure, PETA will undoubtedly swing into full action as the previous guy who has FP on this discussion mentioned, but it looks as if scientists have already been doing this for a while now. I doubt that PETA could do much more than be annoying on this issue.
What will be interesting and exciting is having dirty rats going out in hords in front of our soldiers sweeping minefields and checking for booby traps. I would think it would be a lot cheaper to breed a bunch of vermin to be used as cannon fodder than build big minesweeping equipment.
Reminds me of BattleCats from SNL. ;)
OK, drug-sniffing robots are cool and all, but when can I have a medical droid give me a new right hand when my dad cuts it off? (Lost a perfectly good lightsabre, too, dammit.)
You can engineer the organisms to eat almost anything.
Spam.
I want them to eat spam.
E-mail spam.
Get on it.
--Blair
P.S. There was a book I read about 25 years ago about an old man who filled his grandson's squirtgun with moldy grape juice and used it to dissolve 9-track database tapes at some MegaCorp's computer center, in order to get revenge on them. I think it was a Donald Westlake book. Web searches are turning up nil.
That's it. You don't forget a name like Cartwright-Chickering, and it popped up in one of the alternate titles.
--Blair
"Where's the power to mod when you need it?"
Websters defines cyborg as "A bionic human", and defines bionic as "having normal biological capability or performance enhanced by or as if by electronic or electromechanical devices".
When I think of a cyborg, I think of something that is >50% mechanical, like the T-1000, or this lampreybot, or the borg. Maybe it is because when I think of a cyborg, I think of something that has lost part of the essential 'organicness' or, to be anthropomorphic, something that has lost part of its humanity.
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
His name was Steve Austin, I think he was killed fighting big foot or testing a rocket sled. I forget it was way back in the 70's. Oh yea, he only cost $6 million, what a deal.
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
Even better, I'd like to have a cyborg ME. That way, when my wife wants to go shoe shopping or cuddle after sex or talk about feelings, I can just have the roboUltraBot keep her sorry ass copmany while I go out for beer.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
As frightening as this prospect is, it may allow us some glimpse of what it really DOES take to give an organism true sentience, and weather [sic] or not a 'soul' is inherint [sic] in that.
I'll forgive your spelling, because you've so shrewdly zeroed in on the most important point here: "Science" hasn't yet accounted for intelligence. They haven't explained what it is, nor how it works, nor where it came from -- and they've most certainly given up on even asking "why?"
Don't get me wrong: Science is fine for engineering and suchlike. Science has provided us with many valuable conveniences and useful machines. I'll never deny the worth of what they've done. Nevertheless, I won't be such a fool as to put some clever tinkerers in charge of my destiny. They have their place, but it's got nothing to do with any of the big questions facing us as a nation, nor as individuals. Only religion can take on the real issues, the ones that require faith, an open mind, and honest recognition of the fact of God's unmistakable Hand in His own Creation. Clever mechanical tricks won't cut it.
Let the engineers do engineering, let the thinkers think, and let the rulers rule. This is how it must be.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!