“Post digital era and the evolution of becoming human cyborgs”
(Outro Music)- 5 secs
(Logo)
Intro:
Society nowadays use technology wherever they go, it is a part of them.
Not using technology will be seen as awkward, people feel naked without it.
Having brilliant inventors’ study and create technology to enhance society and satisfy their needs is beyond clever.
Hi guys I’m Korede Onaderu, and I am currently a uni student and I’m here today to discover and discuss whether we should draw the line somewhere when relying on technology.
Many of us have of course watched a few sci-fi/action films back in our day, Terminator is one of them, I robot and one film well known marvels ‘Avenger’s age of Ultron’. Each one of these films have one thing in common; technology, the facts that the inventors who create AI robots fabricated for good only to turn corrupted and ruin mankind is really scary and worrying.
These things could happen, as it highlights some of the stuff going on in the era that we’re in. The fact that certain innovative inventors are creating the impossible right now means we’re well on our way. Some people are excited for these inventions, some are less.
But before we talk about the modern era that were living in, we must first start from the beginning. The past.
During the 1980’s we had what was called the ‘The Digital Revolution’. During the digital revolution came the “advancement of technology from analogue electronic and mechanical devices to digital available today”. (Thomas,2019, p.1).
Example of this is a simple record player or use of paperback library books but now we have Alexa; ‘a virtual AI technology that has the capabilities and means of playing music’ and audio books ‘that allows us to read a book online or listen to one’.
It is a fact that these advancement in technology it’s still ongoing today.
Theorist ‘Florian Cramer’ defines post-digital as the “state in which the disruption brought upon by digital information technology has already occurred”. (Cramer,2017, p.94).
This quote supports what I’ve said about the digital revolution, that since the revolution occurred the digital era of digital technology has continuously been proven to be advanced.
As we come into the life of the digital age era, more and more people like to push their limits when using digital technology or tech in general to boost and create highly efficient, dominant abilities for themselves.
This all leads to the term posthumanism, for all of you who don’t know what posthumanism means. It’s defined as a person who has or want science- technology to enhance and create new possibilities for themselves.
This can be deemed as works of power play.
An article ‘Posthumanism’ trusted by the company Sage Publications Ltd. Academic Professor Richie Nimmo came to publicize that posthumanism takes a, “View of the humanity- science- technology nexus, foregrounding how technoscientific change create not just new possibilities of human emancipation but new rationalities and techniques of power and domination…… it can “often take on a logic of its own and leads to malign, unintended, or unimagined consequences beyond human control and irreducible to human beings”. (Nimmo,2019, p.3).
Professor Richie Nimmo simply says how we as humans are likely to use or envision ourselves having technology as a part of our anatomy to increase our possibilities of becoming more than an average human.
There are of course consequences to this as he stately notes that these so-called technologies could perhaps take on a logic of its own and lead to something worse effective being harmful to us human beings.
Greek philosopher ‘Protagoras’ (490- 420BC) who mainly studied and taught humanism quoted that “Man is the measure of all things”. (Mark,2012, p.1).
Challenging the term posthumanism, saying man should know the morals between right and wrong.
In this case knowing when certain technology, being created will be used for the greater good while taking notice of any dilemmas that may arise.
Fast forward to now many of us are viewed as human cyborgs in the way we use technology. Some of us actually do have some part of our body that is machine (technological) e.g., amputees.
According to an article, ‘Who are we online’ it is said that “posthuman cyborgs (part person, part machine) become more deeply entangled with digital devices.”
More on this, devices like contact lenses and hearing aids fit the category of proof that were cyborgs. Technological innovations that help restore the bodies failing senses.
Watching videos on phones, laptops or tablets can also state that were cyborgs too, as these devices is instrumental to our life.
We use these devices almost every time everyday, using a huge amount of time on it.
We can call people over long distances, almost any questions worth wanting to know is on the internet.
Wireless devices have engrained themselves into our day to day lives.
This shows the extent to which we’ve grown to depend on tech, it’s become an important part of schools, workplaces and homes. Society uses technology smart systems like Alexa which is an AI system.
(Never know one day in the future we could live in an age where we are all iron men)
The digital era has improved a lot, we once before had to use wooden prosthetics as replacements for amputees now in the digital age we are now capable of building robotic metallic skin like prosthetics for people who are in need of wanting to feel somewhat normal again.
Elon musk “Human brains are extraordinary computers capable of taking in tons of information in a matter of moments however are bodies are less capable outputting information.”
For musk the next step of human evolution is removing that physical barrier allowing our brains to interchange with technology instantly.
( 3 secs music intro)
This all leads me to the case study, Elon musk’s new neuralink brain implant that’s in the works.
The basis around why Elon musk wants to create a neuralink brain implant.
The neuralink implant is created for the purpose right now to fix anything with one’s brain.
The neuralink brain implant has battery and Bluetooth. Its also a little AI device.
The way musk explained the process is a robot will cut open a piece of your skull and implant the device onto the brain, these devices will then stretch multiple electro threads onto certain points of the brain, allowing the link to interface anywhere on the brain.
As an experiment Elon musk has recently demonstrated how this neuralink implant works by using a live pig according to an article published by ‘Newscientist’.
The experiment was said to be simple really, the neuralink team bought out three pigs, one without the neuralink and the other two with the implants.
Records said, “Dorothy one of the pigs, illustrated that you can put in the Neuralink, remove it and be healthy, happy and indistinguishable from a normal pig,” Musk said.
“This will be important for human users, he said, because they may want to remove or upgrade their implants. The challenging part that they’ve pulled off is that the animal is happy-looking and walking around and acting normal and the data is being relayed wirelessly.” (Crane,2020, p.g1).
Meaning it can be really easy to take out if any person having that device in them taken out.
There are a few advantages to this type of A.I technology being linked onto our brains.
It was said that one possibility the neuralink could have is the chances of helping cure eyesight or in fact hearing in some manner of speaking. One other advantage musk mentioned was the fact that it could perhaps restore lung functionality.
Things such as restoring quadriplegics allowing them to walk/move, restoring memory loss and getting rid of epilepsy is fine and all, but is way too good to be true. As if this is coming from a Sc-fi film or something.
I can’t say that there isn’t technology similar to this cause there are, they do the same job that the neuralink is doing only difference is of course that its less effective and less advanced’.
On one podcast musk later basically mentioned that foreseeing ten years into the future, that neuralink’s could evolve in some way enabling us “like the matrix to download data if you ever wanted to speak another language.”
In theory changing the way human beings’ interface with each other.
He also went on to say that the chip could perhaps save our state meaning our mind and memories and restore it to a biogical being.
This is where things get morally wrong and tricky. Meaning of life is we are born; we live and eventually die. Doing this cancels the third law questioning the ethics behind it.
Some people who are religious would safely say that that is playing god.
This leads me to all the potential disadvantages of all of this. The chips put in us may pose a threat to our health. It could also be prime targets for people such as hackers with bad intentions. Slowly the microchips may take away our freedom of choice depending on how the A.I has evolved referencing the Hollywood film ‘Upgrade’.
In some way many people would agree that it totally neglects privacy controls and security measures, wherever a person may go or do big brother could be watching.
Lastly in an article called ‘Sociable.co’, Dr Lieber mentioned the immune response problem where “the brain would see a foreign, mechanical things Like A.I as a threat and attack it. (Hinchliffe, 2018, p.g1)
My question of the day, who are the real threat, technology or human beings?
Thanks, guy’s, for listening. This is episode one of Korede’s Convo, catch next week’s podcast as we discuss on another controversial topic. Like share and comment. Peace Out.
(Finish with music)
Bibliography:
Thomas, D. (2019). What is the digital age?. Blog.ventivtech.com. Retrieved 21 February 2021, from https://blog.ventivtech.com/blog/what-is-the-digital-age.
Forcier, E. (2017). Re(a)d wedding: A case study exploring everyday information behaviors of the transmedia fan. Proceedings Of The Association For Information Science And Technology, 54(1), 94. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.2017.14505401011
Nimmo, Richie. (2019). Posthumanism. SAGE Research Methods Foundations, Retrieved 21 February 2021, from https://files.coventry.aula.education/afcf149f6bbf929019481f1738d7de6fposthumanism___sage_research_methods.pdf
Mark, J. (2012). Protagoras of Abdera: Of All Things Man Is The Measure. Ancient History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23 February 2021, from https://www.ancient.eu/article/61/protagoras-of-abdera-of-all-things-man-is-the-meas/.
Crane, L. (2020). Elon Musk demonstrated a Neuralink brain implant in a live pig. New Scientist. Retrieved 13 February 2021, from https://www.newscientist.com/article/2253274-elon-musk-demonstrated-a-neuralink-brain-implant-in-a-live-pig/.
Hinchliffe, T. (2018). Medicine or Poison? On the Ethics of AI Implants in Humans – The Sociable. The Sociable. Retrieved 24 February 2021, from https://sociable.co/technology/ethics-ai-implants-humans/.
Link to Podcast:
