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Can Cyborg Tech End Human Disability By 2064?
the_newsbeagle (2532562) writes "As part of a 50th anniversary celebration, IEEE Spectrum magazine tries to peer into the technological future 50 years out. Its biomedical article foresees the integration of electronic parts into our human bodies, making up for physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities. The article spotlights the visionaries Hugh Herr, an MIT professor (and double amputee) who wants to build prosthetic limbs that are wired directly into the nervous system; Helen Mayberg, who has developed brain pacemakers to cure depression; and Ted Berger, who's working on neural implants that can restore memory function."
No.
Next question?
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Call Cyborg!
He can shoot a rocket through his shoe
Go Cyborg!
Making up for intellectual disabilities?
Oh boy, I better run and invest in stocks right away, if they can do that...I'm gonna get rich!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
but it will be unnecessary since we will be able to grow body parts.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
most disabled people won't be able to afford it
I rather expect augmented cyborgism (?) to be a big thing with the next generation or two, much like tattoos, piercings, implants, and gauges today. It'll be chic and trendy. Then it's just one short step from there if you have to replace limbs or organs, so for those that have to, it won't be that radical a change and won't be so outside the mainstream as it is today; and some people might actually choose to do so voluntarily. ("Wow dude, is that the new Cyber-nimbus 2000-? your new arm is so cool!" "Yeah, I can crush an aluminum bat with this!!".)
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I never asked for this...
You can keep your puny mortal flesh. I'll take the robot legs that can jump 20 feet and run 40mph, the robot fingers that can type 500wpm, the robot eyes that have infrared and ultraviolet vision and a heads-up display, etc etc etc...
2064? why not 2068?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Division is futile. You will be approximated.
So, say I put my brain in a robot body and there's a war. Robots versus humans. What side am I on?
It would depend upon where you live. Do you live in the USA, where you are judged by the color of your skin and not the content of your character?
If you live in the USA, if you look like a robot, you are a Robot. Nothing has changed since World War II where we basically had prison camps for Japanese-Americans -- simply because they were of a particular "race". Or what the USA did to the natives. And don't even get me started if you're black.
Or a black robot.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
With the advancement AI and advancing cybernetics, I predict that this is inevitible. Human disability and imperfection will be eradicated, along with the whole human race, of course.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
Computer learning is growing faster than the unintended consequences can be mitigated. It's just a matter of time.
My girlfriend and I spend a lot of our TV time (Roku) watching science and technology related programming. It's difficult to watch anything from as recent as 2011 or prior. It is difficult because I can frequently point out how wrong or at best incomplete many things are compared to the understandings and accomplishments of very near recent. This goes for both science and technology. A lot of highly-beneficial technologies never make it out of the lab because they are so quickly replaced, many technologies cannot keep up with themselves. That, and any one of many recent single astronomical discoveries can render an hour of programming from just a few years ago obsolete. Unless of course a documentary is historical in nature, which is always fun.
On that note, as a nerd who is highly entrenched in following science and technology on a daily basis, I have spent the last few years humbly in awe at the exponential rate of technological innovation. There is so much going on right now it's mind boggling. 2064? At this point I call that selling the human race short. There are so many factors to consider. For example, I see the currently embryonic maker\bio-hacking\grinder movements becoming a driving force behind advancements that will bring a lot of amazing things into our lives as those movements grown and more advanced tools slowly become available to them. The world of 2064 will more likely be the world of 2040. The only real enemy to all of this is the course of international politics.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
What a brave new world that will be.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
Sooner or later, we'll learn to tech the tech. You'll see.
The summary specifically calls out physical, intellectual, and emotional. Are they suggesting that in 50 years you'll be able to get a chip implanted because you're depressed? Or stupid? Physical issues are being improved upon markedly. But seriously - fixing perceived issues in how people think seems just wrong. Fixing perceived issues with how people feel doubly so. If this were possible, we'd be squarely in sci-fi AI-controlled-human territory.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
Frankly, if you stick to the 19th century definitions of disability, then I can see 2064 cyborging them away.
If you talk about late 20th century definitions, no.
If you exclude the many things I think will end up being recognized as disability in the next 50 years - definitely no.
But of course, I expect the following to be considered a disability by then:
non-evoltionism - Failure to believe in Evolution.
Self-Constionalism - a belief that the Constitution says what you want it to say rather than what is actually written.
under-waterism - a belief that global warming has not happened and that the city of New Orleans has wasted billions on dikes to keep it above water.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I'm gonna have my consciousness uploaded to a robot by then, have fun with your frail human bodies, suckers.
Dead people cannot have disabilities.
army may want this and before 2064
But I imagine many guys will "limp" around until they can afford cyber legs to carry their other, *ahem* cyber-enhancements.
Lack of 600% profits.
Longer answer is that even though technology cannot eliminate disabilities, it can definitely mitigate the impact. A prosthesis can only make up for what is lost. It can't keep the loss from happening. It is the loss itself that causes the disability.
Put differently, artificial limbs that are tied into a person's neural system and allows them to function, say as real legs and to walk doesn't eliminate the disability any more than a wheelchair does. Both allow a person to get from point a to point b. The artificial limbs may also provide numerous other advantages over a wheel chair, but they do not, in fact, change that the person has lost the function of their legs. That is the disability. The artificial limbs and/or wheel chair are just tools to mitigate the loss.
You would think somebody from MIT would realize this.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... because we all know that they will have a huge part to play in this, proportionate to their percentage of the population of Earth, right?
Past expectations and predictions upon science, technology and society have been pretty off the mark. The majority of quality, new, breakthrough technologies never come to fruition. For example we have seen battery breakthroughs every month or so but the actual sales of these new designs is slow, low or nonexistent. After all investors are frightened when an investment might become obsolete before returning any profits. Social conditions stop a lot of progress and a really lousy economy stops even more. In the mean time the public counts on technology saving them from the brink of disaster when in fact technology might cause even greater disasters. At the root of all of these problems is excessive reproduction. Too many people generate too many problems. The denser a population gets the more laws and regulations must be imposed upon the whole. The expense of enforcement of all the rules and laws tends to turn the entire system on its ear. Our legal system became a savagely rude joke. Our cures become our curses . Our poorly educated population, ignored and mistreated becomes nothing more than a liability waiting to happen. All is not well and the British are not coming.
Being disabled I don't have to read any generalized statement that treats all disablities as 'solvable' by attaching some device to the human body.
Only a lame slashdotter would fall for this and waste their time reading the article.
What a rotten fucking disease.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
We barely understand neurological disorders like schizophrenia, we don't even understand the basics of these disorders, so to believe will have them solved by 2064 is entirely unrealistic.
Why?