Using Technology to Enhance Humans

Roland Piquepaille writes "It's a well-known fact that technology can improve our lives. For example, we can reach anyone and anywhere with our cellphones. And people who can't walk after an accident now can have smart prosthesis to help them. But what about designing our children on a computer or having a chip inside our brain to answer our email messages? Are we ready for such a future? In 'Robo-quandary,' the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that many researchers are working on the subject. And as a professor of neuroscience said, "We can grow neurons on silicone plates; we can make the blind see; the deaf hear; we can read minds." So will all we become cyborgs one day?"

Comments

except we can't

[SmokeyTheBalrog]

we can make the blind see; the deaf hear; we can read minds. Except for the slight detail we can't do those things.


People don't realize how primitive medicine is. 90% of medicine is, "We kept tried random things and found some things that work. Half of this stuff we don't even know why it works, but it does. So we use it."

And /. ought to know that computers are incredible simple and dumb.

There is no such things as a flashing LED that makes everything better controlled by an AI that knows you need treatment before you do.

Re:communication

[TooMuchToDo]

Don't think brain implant. It's a very crude method for a very advanced idea. When the time comes, the interface won't be physical (like in The Matrix). It'll be completely wireless. The technology/method behind this is called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic _stimulation

It's still very much in it's infancy, but this is the future of the human/silicon interface. No physical device to cause problems with biological systems. No need to "upgrade" the hardware in your head. And of course, it's not permanent.

I agree with your point that we shouldn't be accessible 24/7, but I also think that the next technological leap forward is going to be the result of increasing the data transfer rate between the brain and non-biological systems.

Re:I'm using less technology these days

[DNS-and-BIND]

It's more a question of ignorance. "Second world" does not mean developing country, it means a member of the Soviet bloc. It is a phrase that has been relegated to the dustbin of history. Third world, likewise, should cease to be used. Developing world is much more descriptive term.