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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?"
While I doubt we'll end up in some Ghost In The Shell - like world anytime soon, the urge to improve ourselves to the point of modification and beyond is a part of our own adaptability.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I was a hardcore geek for a long time. I've been using less and less the last few years however due to personal choice and quality of life choices. The more technology we seem to use these days the less social we seem to become. Answer honestly, when was the last time you had a chat with your neighbor? Do you even know their names? In my sociology class less than 5% of the students could answer yes to that last question or remember the last conversation they had. In most countries it's normal to know those around you, to have a sense of community. Here in America we're becoming estranged from one another, not completely because of technology, but it's a large contributing factor. I'll pass on the transplants. I prefer the natural me. These all seem like breast implants for technology nerds anyway.
will almost certainly involve adult entertainment.
Now, what was that question, again?
In theory, a nice idea. I mean, interfacing easier with the computer, all good and fine.
But when I look at today's systems and the surveillance surrounding them, who wants to tell me that whatever is plugged into my cranium is really "mine"? And the manufacturer doesn't think that he's still the one owning it?
We have operating systems that require you to let them phone home to see if you're no crook. We got content restricted with DRM (or DCE or whatever the buzzword of the week is). We even got corporations that don't even consider infecting your computer with a trojan to protect their precious.
And I should trust them with my thoughts? In today's society, I'd be wary with such an idea.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Thinking about this in relation to the previous story, what will happen if MS or some other company has tons of patents on the technology that helps you? What happens when patents restrict innovations in that area? What happens if your prosthetic arm BSOD's and causes you to veer into oncoming traffic but the EULA you signed to wear it means you can't sue MS?
That's exaggerating what role MS might play, but the question is valid.
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No. There will always be reformists and there will always be purists. I prefer to have technology outside my body, not inside. Thank you.
This reminds me of a popular Japanese anime movie called Ghost in the Shell, which already raised these questions. The setting is futuristic Japan, where many people are full cyborgs or have cybernetic implants. One of the central issues in the movie is the main character's struggle for an identity: She is fully cybernetic, with only something called a "ghost" to distinguish her from a robot. Throughout the movie, she asks herself if she is still human, The question is never fully resolved, and I think the director (Masamune Shirow) purposely made it that way.
While it is impossible right now, I believe that (unless there is an apocalypse) we will eventually invent the technology needed to become fully cybernetic. However, we need to start asking these questions now, so that when the time comes we will be prepared.
We can reach anyone anywhere who wants to be contacted with our cellphones.
When you don't want to be contacted, turn it off. When someone you don't want contacting you calls, hit the ignore button, or ban them on your phone. It isn't that hard.
We're no longer forced to socialize only with those in close proximity to me. I don't like my neighbours. I don't particularity want to socialize with them. They're fine people and I occasionally chat with them, but we have nothing in common aside from location, and they aren't terribly interesting.
Why do people thing that timeliness and quantity is the same as quality when it comes to human-to-human communication? People have only so much capacity to take in information - why would I want to fill my life with junk. One well reasoned, concise and consistent message (be it email, phone, or face to face) is usually priceless compared to hundreds of unfinished ideas, mumbles or rants.
(this is just an example, of course; my mentioning of "high-paying coding job" should be an obvious giveaway.)
Yes, no one expects a person who doesn't see the use in a mobile phone to want these sort of products.
The thing is, to quote down and out in the magic kingdom, "We don't need to convert our detractors, just outlive them"
There are many situations where NOT having instant communication accessible would be idiotic. Not to mention, when you break down on the side of the road or have a heart attack/accident you are relying on other people to provide you with a cell phone.
I hope no one is ever harmed by your stubbornness.
"Will we remain human?" isn't really an interesting question, because we will always consider "human" whatever happens to be accepted as normal at the time.
... "Can we afford not to upgrade?", once a particular replacement has become very popular and widely accepted and inexpensive. Because to say "No" to upgrades on the basis of some rather retro urge to remain "natural" is a recipe for being left behind.
Today we don't regard a person with breast implants or metal+plastic hip replacements as anything other than human, and this trend will continue as replacement technology improves and our rather crappy protein organs get upgraded bit by bit.
A far better question though is
Do that for long enough and you've destined your family for extinction.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
"Because we can" isn't always the best answer"
Sorry but eliminating serious diseases "because we can" and preventing children from being horribly and mounstrously ugly is *ALWAYS* the best answer. Designer children will be the future and those who dont will be left behind and fade away into historical obscurity. You think someone is going to resist life extension technology? I can see many wars being fought once life extension is possible, I can only imagine what its going to be like not to be able to afford life extension for the millions of poor people who will be consigned to "death" in a market society.
Why is it whenever something cool comes along someone has to say "the money could be better spent blah blah blah"? Just because you don't see a need for it doesn't mean that people shouldn't spend money on it, it's not like we don't have enough to spend on this and fuel alternatives. Besides, if you are so sure the world is going to end, why spend money on educational systems etc at all?
I for one would love to have the ability to download documents to a chip connected to my brain. Just think of how useful it would be to have instant memorized knowledge of a piece of literature before you were going to write an essay or having the latest linux bible etc in your head for work.
Advancement is great, but if you start meddling with what makes us human, it doesn't matter how good, noble or ethically correct your intentions are. You will lose.
Spoken like a true Luddite. However, what I think you don't take into account is that "what makes us human" is always changing -- it's always just beyond our ability to change at any given moment.
E.g.: in the mid-19th century, the idea of swapping blood with someone else was pretty macabre. After all, "the blood is the life," right? Hence, it got used as a plot device in Dracula (among other novels), as a way of showing the 'human essence.'
But, once it became possible to routinely pump blood from one person to another, so that they didn't always die, and their personality didn't change, the criteria of 'what makes us human' got pushed back a little further. Okay, so we can now swap blood -- nope, that doesn't make us human; it's not what makes us unique. Suddenly, a blood transfusion doesn't seem so bizarre anymore.
Not too many years later, you have people getting their organs swapped. Although not too many rational folks really thought this would change one's personality, there was still some squeamishness on the part of the public, initially. But over time, it became accepted. Just because you have someone else's liver inside you, and maybe somebody else's heart and lungs, you're not them. Whatever makes you human? Not sure, but haven't hit it yet.
What about brains? We know that can cause personality changes. Seems pretty ghoulish. But there are thousands of people in the world today running around with implanted electrodes in their brains, allowing them to hear better, or not have seizures, or see -- are they still human? Yep.
The fear that we'll change "what makes us human" is the same sort of vague uneasiness that caused cartographers to draw giant sea creatures at the edges of their maps. It's a fear of the unknown, of change. But when you get close to it, suddenly it doesn't seem quite so scary anymore. That's how change happens. We'll make a change, realize we're still human, still here, afterwards, and push the "what makes us human" mark out a little beyond our current grasp. Repeat, over and over, and even if the end product isn't recognizable as a "person" to us today (just like Steven Hawking would probably be written off as some sort of carnival freak by anyone born in the 18th or early 19th century), people will never really question their humanity.
That thing that "makes us human" will always be one or two discoveries away, just like the sea monsters were always a little beyond the edge of the known map.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I can only wish for the day that my arthritis ridden body can be replaced by a robot one!
PLEASE DO IT SOON!!!
Yes,yes. Our ancestors didn't know as much as we and we not as much as our progeny will. The world as it has and will be.
Yet despite the gloomy prose, it is a better place now than then. I certainly wouldn't want to live a hundred years ago, what with hardly any refrigeration, biomedicine, etc. And, it will be a better place in the future.
"Entropy is always increasing, and nature will have her way."
Meaningless. Entropy is physics, not social or biological.
"...and we approach the process to create a more holistic child, and not just to further the Aryan state."
You're worried that much about neo-Nazis? Don't be. Oh, I think you mean we'll try to eliminate genetic abnormalities and try to make the kids physically and mentally better. That would be bad why?
and when it is smarter than us, it will see us as a collaborator, in the way that we see say, for example, a dog, or a tool as a collaborator. working alongside us doesnt necessarily mean we are the dominant part of the team.
open your mind too much and your brain falls out!
I've got to say I take issue with a lot of your assumptions. First "near future" - if you've ever programmed a computer you'll know that getting them to "learn" anything is a huge chore. They're quite amazingly stupid.
Second - technology has got better and better throughout history, but at some point we may fully understand the physics and engineering of everything and be able to do things maximally well within those physics, technology won't get any better when this happens. For instance, we've already reached the limit on the power efficiency of a non-heat-pump heating device (exactly 1.0) because that's a fundamental limit of thermodynamics.
Third "bodies for themselves which are far superior to our biological bodies" - I don't think that just something is designed it's always going to be superior. Is a car superior to a human? It can move faster, but it uses hard-to-find fuel and it can't climb stairs or swim. In a fight between an AI-driven or remote controlled car and a human I'd back the one who can dig a trap. To make something better than a human body is not an easy task, we're autonomous, self-repairing, highly mobile, socially organised and can eat all kinds of stuff... current technology is laughable in comparison.