NBC Ch 1 Cyborgs Unplugged

NBC Ch 1
–

Cyborgs Unplugged

•
Rats in Space

•
Implant & Mergers

•
A Day in the Life

•
Dovetailing


24
-
hours wo/ technology

•
“the first motion I made as I left the classroom was
to reach for my music”

•
“Going the whole day without my cell phone or my
computer made me feel like I was missing out on a
part of something “

•
“I tried not to use my phone all day but unfortunately
I had to use it a few times to text my friends about
our plans for the night and to call my mom. Even
though I caved and had to use my phone I did not play
any games on it all day or use it for the Internet. “

•
“…not so patiently waiting for the clock to strike 9pm.
When it did, I literally ran to my room where all my
electronic devices were.”



•
“I also suspect this activity had something to do with
the difficulty of adapting to a regression in
technology. While making the transition from reading
on a computer monitor to reading from a book is no
real transition at all, had I needed to communicate
with someone or, dare I say, wash clothes without
electronic devices, the transition would have been a
great deal more unnerving. This simply shows that we
grow in tandem with our tools; that we alone are quite
powerless, and that when our current tools are taken
from us we return to that powerless state for a time
before we are able to assimilate replacement tools.”


Rats in Space

“
Cyborgs and Space
”


•
1960, Astronautics

•
Based on talk
“
Drugs, Space &
Cybernetics
”

at Air Force School of
Aviation Medicine in San Antonio, TX

•
Manfred Clynes & Nathan Kline

•
“
Why not alter the humans so as to
better cope with the new and alien
demands?
”

Work in

•
Computing

•
Cybernetics
–

science of control &
communication in animals & machines

•
Interested in self
-
regulating systems
(feedback)

•
E.g., home thermostats, human
autonomic nervous system

Cyborg
-

Clynes

•
“
For the exogenously extended organizational
complex … we propose the term
“
cyborg.
”

The
Cyborg deliberately incorporates exogenous
components extending the self
-
regulating control
function of the organism in order to adapt it to new
environments.
”


•
Cyborg = cybernetic organism or cybernetically
controlled organism.

Rat with Implanted Rose Osmotic Pump

•
1960

•
One of the first cyborgs

•
Pump automatically injected chemicals
into rat to form biotechnological
control loop

–
Could be adapted to unusual
conditions (e.g., space)


•
“
As cyborgs go, Rose, like the human
being with the pacemaker, is probably
a bit of a disappointment. … But Rose
remains pretty much a rat nonetheless,
and one pacemaker doth not a
Terminator make.
”


Implant & Mergers

•
Cochlear implants
–

electronically
stimulate auditory nerve.

–
Limited by requiring healthy,
undamaged nerve.

•
McCreery
–

built new implant

–
Connects directly to brain stem

–
Originally placed on surface contacts
& not very good.

–
Need to feed info differentially into
various layers of neural structure


newer implants implanted deeper into
brain stem

–
External speech processor with
receiver implanted under scalp,
directly wired to 6 different depths
within ventral cochlear nucleus.


Regular Cochlear implant

Cochlear implant into
auditory brainstem

Kevin Warwick (I, Cyborg) Dept. of
Cybernetics, University of Reading, UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB_l7SY_ngI

•
“
I was born human. But this was an
accident of fate
–

a condition merely
of time and place. I believe it
’
s
something we have the power to
change.
”

•
1998
–

implanted silicon chip in left
arm which sends radio signals (Open
doors)

•
2002
–

100
-
spike array implant.

–
Each tip makes direct contact with
nerve fibers in wrist & is
connected to transmitter/receiver

–
Safer than direct neural
interfacing!

–
Pain or pleasure

•
Can our neural plasticity allow our
brains to interface with new sensory
signals??

Kevin Warwick: TED Lecture

•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJQvvVgbVY8

•
“Enhanced with integral technology”
--

cyborgs

Other Implants

•
University of Tokyo
–

control
movements of cockroach by
hooking motor neurons to
microprocessor

•
People paralyzed
–

electronically mediated control
of some muscular functions.

•
Other types of medical implants


•
Technologies do NOT have to
be wire
-
and
-
implants!

Monkeys & robotic implants

•
http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=pz_DV7elpxw

•
http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=SSaBOd4pQp
M

Insects with implants

•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSCLBG9KeX4&fe
ature=BFa&list=PLE7FDD5601B1771DE&lf=results_m
ain


Technologies do NOT have to be wire
-
and
-
implants!

•
“
… what we should really care about is not the mere fact of deep
implantation or flesh
-
to
-
wire grafting, but the complex and
transformative nature of the animal
-
machine relationships that
may or may not ensue.
”

•
Start simple and get more complex

–
“
… bioelectronic interface grows in complexity and moves
inward, deeper into the grain and farther away from the
periphery of skin, bone, and sense organs, we become
correlatively less and less resistant to the idea that we are
trading in genuine cyborg technology.
”

–
“
.. Idea that truly profound biotechnological mergers must
be consummated deep with the ancient skin
-
bag runs deep.
”

•
Adamantium skeletons, skull
-
guns, cochlear implants,
matrix …

•
Warren Ellis
–

Transmetropolitan

–
Dancer has fully functional 3
-
inch high
bar code tattooed across her breasts.

–
“
.. More unnerving, more genuinely cyborg
image than
”

Lolo.

–
Sense of deeply transformed kind of
human existence.


1.
“
We care about the potential of technology
to become integrated so deeply & fluidly with
our existing biological capacities and
characteristics that we feel no boundary
between ourselves and the nonbiological
elements.
”

2.
“
We care about the potential of such human
-
machine symbiosis to transform (for better
or for worse) our lives, projects, and
capacities.
”

Intuitions are strange & unstable things

Fluidity of Human
-
Machine Integration &
Resulting Transformation May Matter More

•
Does greatest usable
bandwidth & potential
lie with full implant
technologies or with
well
-
designed non
-
penetrative modes of
personal augmentation?

•
Clark
–

technologies
that offer integration &
transformation without
implants or surgery.

–
E.g., piloting a plane =
system manager?!


A Day in the Life


•
Alarm clock

•
Driving in car with ABS

•
Work on presentation
“
Designs for Living
”

•
Turn on computer

•
Drink coffee

•
Real problem
-
solving engine is biotechnological matrix
comprising brain, stacked papers, notes, electronic
files, search procedures on computer …


Dovetailing

•
“
Nonpenetrative cyborg technology is all around us and is posed
on the very brink of a revolution.

•
“
… It is a route upon which we as a society have already
embarked, and there is no turning back.
”

–
Part of our daily lives

–
Ubiquitous computing (Weiser, 1988)
–

environments become
progressing more intelligent; distribute computation

•
TABS, PADS & BOARDS

–
“
Third paradigm
”

computing (Alan Kay)

–
Transparent technologies (D Norman)
–

tools that become so
well fitted to, and integrate with, our own lives and projects
that they are pretty much invisible
-
in
-
use

Monitoring vital signs

Cell Phones

•
http://www.wpi.edu/news/20
112/kichonapp.html

•
“smart phone application that
can measure not only heart
rate, but also heart rhythm,
respiration rate and blood
oxygen saturation using the
phone's built
-
in video
camera. The new app yields
vital signs as accurate as
standard medical monitors
now in clinical use”

Wireless
(http://
www.nytimes.com/2011
/09/04/technology/wireless
-
medical
-
monitoring
-
might
-
untether
-
patients.html)

Individual as Human
-
Machine Hybrid

•
Can a smart world make you into a cyborg?

–
Clark
–

depends on how smart the world is & how
responsive to activities & projects distinctive of
individual person.


–
“
The more closely the smart world becomes
tailored to an individual
’
s specific needs, habits,
and preferences, the harder it will become to tell
where that person stops and this tailor
-
made, co
-
evolving smart world begins.
”

When the world dovetails back to
us

•
“But the most seamless of all integrations, and the
ones with the greatest potential to transform our
lives and projects, are often precisely those that
operate deep beneath the level of conscious
awareness.”

•
“We are already primed by nature to dovetail our
minds to our worlds. Once the world starts
dovetailing back in earnest, the last few seams must
burst, and will stand revealed: cyborgs without
surgery, symbionts without sutures.”

To read for THIS week

•
Sharon Begley (2011). “I can’t think!”
(
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/02/2
7/i
-
can
-
t
-
think.html
)

•
NBC
–

Chapter 2

•
Wiki groups (Tuesday
–

meet in G35 at 6:30):

–
Red: change background of wiki

–
Blue: incorporate slides from weeks 1 & 2

–
Purple: create section for Cyborgs in News

–
Orange: create section for web links

–
ALL : Put your names on the wiki & identify your
group