Transhumanism Test Pilots: Fly-by-Tongue

 Aging Society, Brain, Cybernetics, Exoskeleton, Human Augmentation, Medical Technology, Neurology, Prosthetics, Technology, Technology & Disability, Transhuman, Transhumanism, Transhumanism Test Pilots, We're Already Cyborgs Already  Comments Off
Feb 292012
 

Something New
Hmmm… I think Transhumanism Test Pilots should be become a regular thing around here – a new section to go with Terminal Anachronism and Japanese Technology from the Future Friday.

I like to keep an eye on transformative technologies for disabled humans – also known, to me anyway, as the Transhumanism Test Pilots! They’re transtastic.
(I can spit out bad taglines all day)

Because The Thing is This:
Much of the technology being developed to assist or augment the lives of the disabled kinda overlaps or pushes subtly into human 2.0/transhumanist/rebuild the animal territory. Otherwise stated, the somewhat primitive yet practically necessary prosthetics and human augmentation implements of today could easily evolve into the voluntary upgrades of tomorrow.

And here’s a very good example of the human body used as input device:

Least or Most Dorky Retainer Ever - Depends.

The Tongue Drive System
While unimaginatively named, this new human-machine interface is everything long of awesome. Basically the relative orientation of a magnet on the tongue, which one assumes is not a piercing, originates a signal from the fancy retainer actuating a connected device/vehicle/zombie personal assistant to execute a preprogrammed action.

It’s totally cool.
Have a read of the original article.

[ARTICLE VIA CNET]

Where the Human Ends & the Machine Begins: Getting Unclearer…

 Aging Society, AI, Anthrobotic Originals, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Consciousness, Cybernetics, Exoskeleton, Future Already Very Pending, Human Augmentation, Kurzweil, Medical Technology, Prosthetics, Technology, The Beginning is Near, Transhuman, Transhumanism, Transhumanism Test Pilots, We're Already Cyborgs Already  4 Responses »
Feb 032012
 

Cyborg Stuff
There’s an interesting piece over at NYT – The Dilemma of Being a Cyborg.
I’m not entirely sure what the dilemma is, but cyborg stuff is no small deal here at Anthrobotic, so it merits some consideration. Here are a few thoughts to roll the ball:

What are the Boundaries of my Physical Parts?
Okay, so I’ve got my guts, and my bones, and my connective tissues – like most people, that’s what I refer to as my physical “self,” the physical Me.

But… then I’ve got a few fillings and a few non-biological implants. Are those things any less Me? Are they just add-ons? What about the various bacteria and teeny-tiny bugs that at all times live in/on my body? Are those Me, too? As part of a whole bacterial culture, individual components pass and new are born – and at a molecular and sub-molecular level, nearly every cell in my body does essentially the same thing.

So my physical body, my Me, seems to be a bizarre combo platter of the co-dependent fauna, the implants (cyborg?), my body’s dead-cell accumulations of hair & finger/toenails, and transient molecules following a recursive pattern that results in my distinctly human biological structure, i.e., all my bones and squishy parts. In sum, these components make up my essential physicality, my manifestation, my both internalized and projected physical reference point for the world around me.

Well, I guess the thing is this: every living human is in a symbiotic relationship with the millions of other organisms contained by our bodies, and by definition many of us are already cyborgs (Dick Cheney, Stephen Hawking, Me). As such, what we routinely conceptualize as our discrete physical “self” isn’t nearly as cut and dried as we might think. Or quite necessarily, not think. Too much thinking about this would result in psychosis and/or a PhD in biological philosophy or losing one’s religion or something.

Technology’s helping us further explore and understand these ideas, but the catch is that it’s also totally complicating the issue.

Because What about the Boundaries of my Personhood?
Where is my Personality, or Soul, or Whatever? Continue reading »

The Disabled Wage War Against the Wheelchair and Begin Test-Piloting Transhumanism

 AI, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, CareBots, Cybernetics, Exoskeleton, Human Augmentation, Military Robotics, Neurology, Prosthetics, Robot, Technology, Technology & Disability, Transhuman, Transhumanism, Transhumanism Test Pilots, We're Already Cyborgs Already  Comments Off
Jan 102012
 

Burn it Down
This lovely young woman is doing her part to destroy the wheelchair industry. And she’s a hero. Practical, admirable, and necessary, movements such as ADA and other anti-discriminatory legislation were essential for their time, but we should all be happy when technology renders them irrelevant.

As I’ve said before, the technology that is the wheelchair has helped millions, but its time is finished – and the time of the wearable robot exoskeleton is approaching. Unless you build wheelchairs or access ramps or any other specialized wheelchair-centric equipment, you’ve gotta agree that a mobility revolution for the disabled is long overdue (and if you do build such equipment, it’s time to diversify, yo).

This post is really an update; this exact system came up here last May, then Berkeley Bionics (now renamed Ekso Bionics – a real lateral marketing move, I think) was just testing their prototype wheelchair killer. Now the device is moving through medical trials and appears to be fast-tracking to the market. These guys know what they’re doing – they’ve been at it since 2005, and their tech is also being used in Lockheed’s HULC exoskeleton.

The Physically Disabled as Transhuman Pioneers Continue reading »

ROM for Right & Wrong: Teaching Humans Vs. Coding Machines

 AI, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, CareBots, Consciousness, Future Already Very Pending, Industrial Robots, Medical Robots, Military Robotics, Robot, Robot Emotions, Robot Love, Technology, Technology & Politics, Technology & Work, Technology Law  Comments Off
Jan 072012
 

Here’s an interesting piece from the humanities section of the New York Times – a bit old but worth the read (awesome how a piece from two weeks ago is already “old.” INTERNETS!¡). Points on morality, philosophy, and existentialism on and for machines are rather thoughtfully drawn out. Recommended.

And I’ll offer this:
Stabbing forward and further into the human/machine civilization, it might be a good idea to let AI/NBI be, as we are, only vaguely moral. A self-aware & morally pure machine might not be so kind to human nature. Just saying.

[ARTICLE VIA NYT]

A Human Soul: Gift from Spooky Father Figure Above, or Just a Complex Recursive Pattern?

 AI, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Consciousness, Medical Technology, Neurology, Technology, Transhuman, Transhumanism  Comments Off
Dec 072011
 

The Sum or The Pieces or The Product
Well, here’s the pandering, patronizing sentence where,
like a good journalist, I state the screaming obvious:
AI & NBI researchers, transhumanists, philosophers, and of course neurologists have grappled with questions of the nature of the soul, consciousness, and their representative patterns in human brain activity and whether or not they can be reverse engineered, and what the hell are we, and why are we here, and does it even mean anything?

See – despite my bizarre sentence structure, I did use the word “grappled!” And I’ve never even studied journalism!

Connectome
There’s a book coming out in February: Connectome, by Sebastian Seung. It’s asking the classic questions, but more so as an overview of contemporary biological/neurological science that, more so than philosophy or religion, pushes forward our understanding of the sloppy grey thinking organ in our skulls. SciAm has pre-review up, and ANTHROBOTIC recommends – have a look – add to wish list!

And who knows, man… Are we monumentally arrogant to even wonder if we are anything other than an inevitability of chemistry and physics? [author shrugs] We’ve been asking ourselves this stuff for like, you know, ever. Probably because it’s the best question like, you know, ever.

[REVIEW VIA SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN]

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS POST:
“Connectome”
by Sebastian Seung
Support the site – buy at Anthrobotic’s Amazon Affiliate store!


Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens: Profound Philosophical Quandary! Ish…

 Anthrobotic Originals, Brain, Consciousness, Cybernetics, Future Already Very Pending, Human Augmentation, Neurology, Prosthetics, Technology, Technology & Work, Telepresence, Transhumanism, We're Already Cyborgs Already  Comments Off
Nov 252011
 

My Eyeballs Rule. But…
I’ve always known that my superior vision makes me better than most people (of course), but as the years go by and these lenses improve, I’m kinda looking forward to the decline of my, to use the medical definition, “Awesomer Than Perfect” vision.
(This point of hubris might chafe, but I don’t care – I’m incompetent in almost every area of human endeavor, but when it comes to seeing stuff and skipping rocks, I’m World Class Champion League. I shouldn’t even be allowed near WordPress, really – unless it’s for like, you know, looking or throwing rocks at it. You work with what you got, son!)

You Won’t Need a Phone or PC
A research lab at the University of Washington is continuing to advance data-centric contact lenses for us to someday get data from – theoretically cybernetic prosthetics providing an augmented/virtual reality overlay of the world around us. It’s a rather profound concept – both practically speaking and for the simple and timeless philosophical question of:
“What the Hell is Reality, Yo?”

Looking Out From My Skull
Skip forward lots of years – but not too many – and a simple contact lens with high-res capability could theoretically replace almost every screen you find yourself looking at on a day-to-day basis. Continue reading »

 Older Entries