Daily Archives: October 11, 2013

By Erin Biba on Oct. 8, 2013 at 10:25 a.m.

This week were taking a look at the ethics of enhancing ourselves. Well present you with a series of ethical conundrums brought about by entirely possible future transhuman modifications and you can argue the ethics in the comments. Well have to face these questions eventually, might as well get started now. Are you pro or con superhumans?

The scenario: You have carpal tunnel from repetitive tasks and your legs dont have much muscle left because you sit all day long anyway. Dont fret! Advances in prosthetics means cheap, easily attachable, bionic parts are available to you. Why not replace all your limbs? Mechanical hands can type faster than your stubby human ones, mechanical legs dont get shin splints or bum knees, and a new metal elbow will make playing catch with your dog WAY more fun (especially since your dog is a robot). Prosthetics are better than your real limbs, theyre super cheap now, and its a simple in-and-out procedure. What do you do?

How Realistic is This?

In a lot of ways, prosthetic limbs are already starting to look better than the regular old boring human ones. All the way back in 2009, an arm prosthetic called the iLimb came equipped with its very own iPhone app that allowed its users to customize a variety of personalized grips. Today its able to gradually increase the strength of its grip to adjust to different activities (like tying a shoe versus picking up a glass). And thats just arms. In 2012, Zac Vawter and his bionic leg climbed all 103-flight of Chicagos Willis (aka Sears) Tower in just under an hour. His $8 million dollar prosthesis, made by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicagos Center for Bionic Medicine, is connected directly to the nerves in his leg that would normally control his hamstring. Right now, the biggest hurdle preventing us all from replacing our limbs with bionic ones is the price tag.

Youll have to decide how you feel about cutting off your already working limbs. After all, theyve served you well enough for this long. And you have no idea how youll actually feel about your bionic replacements. Remember, once your limbs are gone, theres no going back (probably). And how prepared are you to come in for regular firmware and hardware upgrades? Youll also have to decide how your friends and colleagues will feel about your modifications -- because once youre part robot youll jump higher and run faster than any of them. Plus youll beat everyone in arm wrestling. But if youre a reporter youll be able to type super fast, so maybe its worth it.

Much like in other elective surgeries, your doctor will have to decide how he feels about basically maiming you in order to enhance you.

Here's what ethicists have to say on the matter.

Shockingly, this is already an issue were already confronting. Partial amputees are opting to have more of their limbs removed in order to make their replacement limbs more comfortable and easier to use. And we all know about the Olympic argument about whether or not runner Oscar Pistorius had an advantage over other athletes thanks to his carbon fiber blade legs. But what about elective surgery in people that arent already injured?

Some ethicists note that humankind is pretty well hindered by the limitations of our bodies. Talking to The Guardian, Andy Miah, director of the Creative Futures Institute and professor of ethics and emerging technologies at the University of the West of Scotland said: What's crucial about these technologies is they don't just repair us, they make us better than well. The human enhancement market will reveal the truth about our biological conditions we are all disabled."

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A Transhuman Conundrum: Elective Bionic Limb Replacement ...

By Erin Biba on Oct. 9, 2013 at 9 a.m.

This week were taking a look at the ethics of enhancing ourselves. Well present you with a series of ethical conundrums brought about by entirely possible future transhuman modifications and you can argue the ethics in the comments. Well have to face these questions eventually, might as well get started now. Are you pro or con superhumans?

The scenario: Everyones always told you to relax. Youre too high-strung. You just have so much anxiety about everything. So why not get yourself a shiny new exocortex. A little computer that you can wear behind your ear. It plugs into your brain and helps you have all those fantastic personality traits youve always wanted. Want to be funnier? Tap into a repository of jokes and anecdotes. Have a better memory? Storage capacity is not a problem. Instantly speak a foreign language? Sure! Why not even a constructed one?

The exocortex--or even the ability to jack your brain into a computer to enhance it--is still a long way away. But its not completely impossible. Were already experimenting with it on the small scale. You can already buy a whole slew of toys that claim to be operated by your brain (Mattels Mindflex games let you use your mind to direct a ball through a maze). UC Berkeley's Carmena Lab is developing techniques to use the brain to manipulate mechanical devices. And, of course, theres Obamas infamous brain map initiative--who knows what will come from that. Applications today work in one direction--from brain to device--but two-way connections, such as memory implants, are in the works.

Your new exocortex is going to help you with high level thinking. It could make you a better student or a better all around person. But it could also significantly change (or even replace) your personality. Youre going to have to decide how far you want to go. Just how different are you going to end up being after all is said and done? Youre also going to have to take into account how your friends and family are going to react to these changes. At the same time, your boss might consider you to be the ultimate employee--truly dedicated to being the best at your job that you can be.

Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxfords Future of Humanity Institute, writes in his paper Dignity and Enhancement, that its important to remember how enhancements like hooking our brains into a computer will ultimately affect our dignity:

"A trait acquired through the deliberate employment of some enhancement technology could be more authentically ours than a trait that we possessed from birth or that developed in us independently of our own agency. Could it be that not only the person who has acquired a trait through personal growth and experience, but also one who has acquired it by choosing to make use of some enhancement technology, may possess that trait more authentically than the person who just happens to have the trait by default? Holding other things constant such as the permanency of the trait, and its degree of integration and harmonization with other traits possessed by the person this would indeed seem to be the case."

So what say you? Is adding a new brain onto our old brain a great way to get ahead in the world? Or is it unfair (or just plain creepy) to modify parts of your personality youd otherwise have no control over? Discuss!

Continued here:
A Transhuman Conundrum: Brain-Machine Interfaces - Tested