Slashdot Mirror
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.
Scientists are saying that in the future we will be able to have sex with robots. I tried that once. It was horrible. Right in the middle I had to call tech support.
Valkyrie is about to die! Wizard needs food -- badly!
Now, what was that question, again?
...but who plans on being that important to justify being accesable 24/7 via a brain implant?people can wait for me to return a message on the answering machine. Do you mean say you're that important, other people should just wait for you?
True. Personally, I think I'd prefer slashdot if we had to write our posts long hand, and send them in by postal service.
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.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I have always been fascinated by the notion of hive mind and I truly wish that one day, humans will have their brains connected to the net by wifi or something. Each time we have a question, instead of thinking we could access the net of minds. We could have one big hive mind with all of the knowledge or have a distributed system where the knowledge is distributed among our brains. Also, only the most advanced researchers could access the core to change the official knowledge database. We could always have a core that works like the current Wikipedia too. Who knows what's the best way to manage a hive mind?
I'm already answering tons of queries in my job thanks to Wikipedia and Google. I just wish we could go one step further...
[lonely geek]: Hello? Are you human?
[support]: Yes dearie, I am human...
[lonely geek]: Oh good, I'm speaking with a real techie girl! My LoverBot v6.2 beta just crashed in the middle of some awesome robolovin', and I can't get her rebooted. Can you help me?
[support]: {chewing gum sound} Have you tried plugging her in, givin' her some juice?
[lonely geek]: Oh yes, Lots!! but, for some reason she doesn't respond? Whats's going on???
[support]: ....I mean of the electricity kind...
[lonely geek]: oh yes, that too. But she won't start up!
[support]: haven't you tried readin' the manual?
[lonely geek]: You mean that damn phone book sized thing that came in the box? ...no...
[support]: Well, once you git 'round to readin' it', {chewing gum sound} give us a call, willya? Thanks... [CLICK, dead air...]
[lonely geek]: Noo!! Don't hang up on me, I only want to be carressed... that is all! Sigh, where's that manual?
No. There will always be reformists and there will always be purists. I prefer to have technology outside my body, not inside. Thank you.
If you have a problem with that, just go into autistic mode.
Newb.
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.
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
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.
"Excuse me, sir, your head is shaking. Are you going to answer that?"
Pretty handy for answering incoming calls. However, pretty hard to carry on a live conversation with frothy bubbles spewing forth from your mouth. But, then again, I could always shave with it. I think I'm still undecided on this technology.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
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.)
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.
Technology is kind of scary, because you have to realize that the unthinkable will eventually become real.
If you asked a scientist who worked with ENIAC some 50 years ago if he believed that you could put a billion transistors into a 1cm^2 chip, would he believe you? After all, a single transistor was the size of a light bulb back then.
This is why we have to think the unthinkable when speaking of technology. We all know that having a chip inside our head sounds weird and kind of repulsive, but once we have 10 guys doing this, we will have 100 following them, and 10,000 following the first 110.
I personally don't know or care what the outcome will be, but I am sure that we can eventually create organic computers. For example, your left finger nail could in fact be a small computer.
Full Tilt
Well, I don't know about the next one, but I saw on the 11 o' clock news earlier that the last one is currently listed as being in stable condition.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Well, all these years later, I for one, still think this joke is funny... Now imagine the future malware that infects someone's cranial implant with a synthetic experience that makes them experience goatse in a way that is indistinguishable from really being there? or better yet, experience being goatse, bending over by the mirror, feeling the gapingness, and shoving things up there. If firewall tech is anything like it is today, I think I'll pass on the implants. But the possibilities for pushing people over the edge are tantalizing in the cybernetic future.
Then we get to our assumptions about animals. It was thought that if we sequence a genome, all would be revealed. We now know that the story is very much more complex that simply saying this gene sequence does this. The orientation of the genes seems to be an issue. Genes seem to activate or not depending on the presence of other genes. The high school analysis of genetics seems quite inadequate, and the old yarns about improvement through cross pollination seems as antiquated as staying home to make sure one doesn't miss a phone call.
I don't think we are anywhere near the point where we can predict the side effects of messing with complex natural systems. We can't even predict the side effects of delivering psychotropic drugs to kids. We do so because we want our kids to be 'normal' and succeed in school and life, and then get angry when the negative side effects emerge. Of course they will be negative side effects. Nothing is free. Entropy is always increasing, and nature will have her way. I have no doubt we will engineer our children. I just hope that our courts are not tied up by the whiny parents with fantastic dreams of the perfect kid, and we approach the process to create a more holistic child, and not just to further the Aryan state.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
It's funny to read an article like this after reading how technology makes people drive their cars off a cliff or into a speeding train.
I can imagine the news:
Suzy, 23, said her bionic implants made her drink boiling water until her jaw dropped. "The implant said it's room temperature, and I have absolute trust in my bionic implants".
When things really take off (they've obviously already begun) there won't just be simple enhancements like integrated email and genetic corrections. There are so many other possibilities that the article hasn't brought up. Once nanomachines become practical, they could become part of us, reconstructing any damaged DNA, destroying cancer cells and unwanted pathogens, reversing aging, and augmenting the brain or even replacing biological neurons and synapses as the substrate of our minds. As computers increase in speed and become more and more parallel, we'll be able to move our consciousness to the digital realm, eventually allowing us to experience subjective years in a second, rewire the way we think, and literally expand our minds. This is way past merely having a cell phone in your head, but it's a bit much for most people to conceive of.
There's a great deal of concern for enchancing our capacity for experiencing the world, or durability to experience it longer, but very little for enhancing our internal mental experience, which is what this all seems to be about in the end.
We know that all of our experiences are the result of the workings of and inputs into our nervous and sensory systems, and ultimately our brains. If the goal is to enhance our own experience, it seems that ultimately direct input to our nervous and sensory systems and even the brain by electrical signals is the most effective, most efficient, most sustainable means of enchancing our own experiences.
There is no jet fuel to pollute our water and air when you fly across the world in an airplane in your mind. There are no natural disasters in this world if you do not want there to be. There is no death to see or experience if you do not want there to be.
And there is no reason to believe that experiences grounded in physical reality are the most enjoyable experiences to have. Evolution and geological processes are not directed to enchancing the quality of human mental experience, and to the extent they have enhanced it, by no means do we have reason to believe they have maximized it. And it may be technically very difficult to simulate the fullness of experience of the real sensory world to the mind. But perhaps raw emotions and sensations coupled with abtract realities can be every bit or more enjoyable.
There is also the matter of induced dreaming. Dreaming is a very cheap way to simulate experiencing the world - or some other - in a way that often seems very enjoyable to many people. If we could find ways through technology to induce and enhance the dreaming experience, we could relatively cheaply improve the quality of experience for many people.
Dreaming seems to consist in very real and compelling experiences, or at least the sense of having had real and compelling experiences. I retain very little of what I dream about, but at the moment I awake or perhaps just before, if I have had a dramatic dream, I have the very real experience of remembering having just had real and compelling experiences (whether I have or not I do not know).
If enhancing quality and duration of experience is our aim, then I think these will be ultimately the most rewarding courses to pursue.
Unfortunately, perhaps, I stubbornly believe there is much more to life than enhancing the quality and duration of experience.
I haven't seen a comment on this viewpoint yet:
At some point in the near future, people will figure out how to make a machine that can learn. At that point, it will only be a matter of time before there are machines that will be more intelligent than a typical human, and will be able to build bodies for themselves which are far superior to our biological bodies.
If we haven't learned how to evolve ourselves, either through genetics and/or cybernetics at that stage, we _will_ be replaced as the dominant life form in this region of space.
Whatever happens, it will probably progress slowly and isn't anything we need to be worried about. We will find ways to link our brains with machines, we will invent new ways to communicate, which is something humans always have done, and we will slightly mesh our brains and bodies with implanted neural tissue and sometimes electrical devices, but I don't think there will be a demand for things that are too invasive to our lives and our ability to stabilize and control ourselves. We might have the ability to create all of these fancy chips and neural tissue, but if there is no demand, there won't be any money to be made. Of course for someone like Stephen Hawking, being able to hook your brain up to a mouse on a computer and type with your thoughts would be a great improvement to his quality of life, and is something I'd like to see happen. But for the average person to receive "upgrades", I think it's something that is unnecessary and isn't something we should be too worried about. Besides, with the rising risk of oil running out, global warming, and nuclear warfare, I think we'd be better off spending this money enjoying life while it still exists, or helping people in other countries stabilize their economies and educational systems. Feeding hungry kids and helping poor families get an education... Oh wait... we can't even do that in America yet... Sorry guys....
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
That scares me no end. I can't imagine that technology having no bad side-effects. No way I'm going to let them use that on me.
-- Cheers!
"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.
MILLIE in Oath of Fealty. Supercomputer that people (executives of the arcology in this case) connect to via wireless network from an implant to have instant access to whatever information they might need. Just as people can pretend to be more intelligent than they really are online by pulling information off the net, I would now be able to do the same so long as I have connectivity. Oh, and an push button off switch located just behind my ear, just in case of the equivalent goatse or white noise hack that occurs.
---- Liquid was a patriot ----
Now that completely reminds me of Ghost in the Shell...
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."
Why is bad being a cyborg, anyway? Why is everyone scared of losing the so-called human nature? Do you lose it when you place a heart pacemaker if you have arrhythmias or a metal plate after a head trauma? Are we sure we will become less human because we would use technology [let's say] to monitor our physiological or other parameters or interface with other humans and machines around us?
This IS evolution fellows, not "natural" evolution, mind you, but still evolution.
Thus... assimilate or perish!
(if being human means staying with recognized "design flaws" then it's ok for some of us to be called another species)
"Sum Ergo Cogito"