Slashdot Mirror
Bionic Man May Soon be a Reality
choongiri writes "The London Guardian is reporting on the creation of replacement eyes and working hands in the race to build a $6bn human. Currently being worked on is everything from bionic eyes to an entire exoskeleton enabling the wearer to carry 200lbs. From the article: 'The 1970s gave us the six-million-dollar man. Thirty years and quite a bit of inflation later we have the six-billion-dollar human: not a physical cyborg as such, instead an umbrella term for the latest developments in the growing field of technology for human enhancement.'"
But it's gonna drive everyone crazy making that Tf Tf Tf Tf Tf Tf sound. You go to put your arm around your date during a quiet romantic movie, and Tf Tf Tf Tf Tf Tf...
Table-ized A.I.
I would kind of fear hackers if I had a computer-controlled hand or arm. Nasty pranks include:
* Picking nose during job interview
* Fingering your female boss
* Fingering your male boss
* Flipping off the cops
* Yanking off in the restroom in front of the CEO
* Typing hate mail to your fiance
* Throwing the ball backward during bowling
* Heavy thumb twiddling during a meeting
* Pointing to the genital area of the projected Power Point figures and figurines during a presentation
* Making the Satan sign while in a crowded elevator
* Pressing the all the floor buttons while on the elevator with others without getting out
* Sticking your hand into the cake at an office birthday party
* Grabbing a turd from a public toilet and playing airplane with it
Table-ized A.I.
Sure, having an exoskeleton that makes you stronger will continue to have utility, but will we really need bionics in, say, 20 years if new biological eyes or arms or legs can be grown using a person's own DNA?
A-Bomb
Who needs biological when you have mechanical! Do you want a blind spot? Do you want to have to blink? Biological is in no way superior.
No robot body has yet come within a light-year of the elegant structure of the human musculo-skeletal system which allows us to move so flexibly and fluidly while being quite damage-resistant and lightweight. No energy storage device can even come close to the human body's ability to go for weeks without fuel. No motor or artificial muscle offers the excellent performance characteristics and efficiency of biological muscle. Our senses of touch, smell, and taste have not been replicated in hardware; though specialized sensors exist they don't perform equivalently. And the long-term durability and automatic self-repair of the human body is completely unmatched in the mechanical world.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}