Machinizing Humans

The last post was about humanizing machine, I thought that looking the other way around would be fun too. Using the power of machines to “upgrade” the human body. I remembered reading an article about that in Wired when I was U1 (in 1999). I could not find the same article, their archive does not go that far back, but I found a 1999 CNN article about the same experiment of Prof. Kevin Warwick of the cybernetic lab at University of Reading in the UK.
His first experiment (in 1998), Project Cyborg 1.0, was to get a microchip implant in his left arm, he was the first human to do so.
The microchip could interact with the intelligent building of the cybernetics department, automatically identifying him and opening doors, his computer would tell him how many new emails he got as he passed the door, etc…
This microchip was not linked in any way to his nervous system, but at this time he was already planning this experiment.

In 2002 he attempted a more ambitious experiment, project cyborg 2.0.
“On the 14th of March 2002 a one hundred electrode array was surgically implanted into the median nerve fibres of the left arm of Professor Kevin Warwick.”
He basically connected a microchip to his nervous system.

“A number of experiments have been carried out using the signals detected by the array, most notably Professor Warwick was able to control an electric wheelchair and an intelligent artificial hand, developed by Dr Peter Kyberd, using this neural interface. In addition to being able to measure the nerve signals transmitted down Professor Wariwck’s left arm, the implant was also able to create artificial sensation by stimluating individual electrodes within the array. This was demonstrated with the aid of Kevin’s wife Irena and a second, less complex implantconnecting to her nervous system. ”

The ability to link microchips to the human body nervous system would have obviously a lot of practical applications (medical and others… Here’s an example).
What do you think of upgrading the human body using microchips???

see: The project Cyborg 2.0
and Neural Interface

2 Responses to “Machinizing Humans”

  1. Hannah says:

    Very interesting. It seems as though the microchip has desireable applications, such as helping paraplegics to walk again, and even the pacemaker has helped to prolong life. It seems better than using organs from other humans and animals. Taking a life to help another life seems unjust. The technology does not seem completely safe, as Warwick mentioned. If the chip is contained in glass, it could shatter easily if any pressure was applied, and may cause more damage, perhaps even death, from internal bleeding if the shards of glass were to reach precious organs. But perhaps they’ll come up with a way to make it safer. If we start upgrading the human body using microchips, how far would we go…eventually, perhaps we may even come to the point where we become machines, and instead of producing human babies, the act of creation would entail just making more machines with our hands, with a set of instructions to follow. There would be no mystery in creation anymore…