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.

Comments

Great...

[Byteme]

...add some wasabi and it is a Hot Wheels.

First Cyborg?

[GypC]

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.

Re:Man ...

[Phexro]

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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Doesn't anyone else find this a bit abominable?

[ArchMagus]

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.

Not the first cyborg

[ajs]

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?

Re:Not the first cyborg

[Erasmus Darwin]

So, we have to ask ourselves, at what point does medical assistance create a cyborg?

I think like many other concepts in sci-fi that're slowly being implemented in the real world ('artificial intelligence' and 'virtual reality' spring to mind), we should let the parent term remain slightly vague and only worry about defining subterms for each piece of technology.

For example, MegaHAL is a decent enough conversation simulator but lacks no understanding of the words that it produces. Does such a program fulfill some of the "mimics human conversation" criteria of AI? Yes. But on a self-awareness scale, it's more or less tied with my toaster.

So in the realm of cybornetics, I think we should define a category (or rather, I'm sure someone else has already defined such a category) for cybornetic devices that're controlled by direct thought or conscious muscle-controlling nerve impulses. That, to me, is where the really nifty stuff is going to soon pop up. And it creates a subtype that excludes something like a pacemaker -- which is certainly a useful form of cybornetic technology, but is also at least an order of magnitude simpler than what your typical Slashdot geek thinks of as "cyborg".

First cyborg? Not hardly....

[drin]

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

Eel Cyborg

[L Fitzgerald Sjoberg]

Oh, sure, you think it's interesting now. Wait until the wheeled light-seeking eels rule the planet with cruel inhuman efficiency.

That warm, tingling feeling

[mickwd]

"Soon we'll also be able to relieve ourselves on a microchip to test for cancer as well".

Oh please, let me be the first to p*ss on a circuitboard wired up to the mains.

Really?

[Bob Abooey]

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

What makes this stuff interesting...

[paranormalized]

Is that they're working with really complicated tissues. Prosthetics have been around forever, but they're just simple Mechanical Engineering, and have been around since peg legs. And while there has been a mechanical heart, it was originally the size of a washing machine and a Medical nightmare, in terms of patient care. But nowadays we're stringing up Lamprey brains to electronics, and even creating an artificial heart that can actually be helpful, at least for a couple weeks. Complicated stuff, involving computational fluid dynamics and such, to prevent blood clots from forming and wreaking havoc on the body, by causing brain strokes and whatnot. And work continues on other replacements for the human body, both mechanical and biological.

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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