Bionics, Cybernetics and a New Class Hierarchy
Casey O’Donnell

One of the most unique characteristics of technology has been the speed with which it has integrated itself into our lives. Most people often don’t even realize how often they are in the presence of a computer. Most people are not aware of the simple computers that most everyone can use. It is interesting that technology is often times given the hardest jobs, and expected to do it without error beyond the abilities of a human. Even more amazing is how quickly our society has adopted technology in so many of its forms, even many of the forms that were first considered very taboo.

It is amazing how far computers and robotics have come in the past few years. Every year, we increase the speed of computers. Many of the problems that are now concerning computer designers are issues dealing with individual electrons disrupting one another, and the constraints of the speed of light. Now most users are considered the "bottleneck" in modern computer systems. Humans can’t provide information fast enough for modern computers to be busy all of the time.

It is advantageous to first examine several of the advances of robotics, and their relationship with society. Secondly I would like to examine the issues specific to bionics and cybernetics. Then I would like to focus on the lack of respect given to the current state of artificial intelligence. Then we encounter the split, the fork in the road when people speak of robotics and bionics, the positives and then the negatives.

Robotics once the prize child of science fiction has recently lost its foothold. So much of modern science fiction has instead been interested in bionics and cybernetics. Interestingly enough, one more than likely, cannot live without the other. Those that work primarily in the field of robotics must first develop many of the mechanisms that many researchers desire for bionics. However, there has been a serious departure in the last few years. Instead of developing robots that carry drinks, take out the garbage, walk the dog, wipe your ass or other such (un)pleasant jobs. Many researchers have instead begun to work instead on "sentient" robots. Robots that "can be your friend."

One researcher at MIT has recently begun work on the second generation of a robot named Kismet. Kismet is a robot that instead of trying to play the piano or throw and catch a baseball or play with a slinky instead is being taught the beauty of facial expressions, body language and humanesque emotions (Douglas Whynott). Interestingly enough, I have already presented my bias in this paper. I (like many people) have trouble conceiving of a robot that can truly "feel" emotions. I will delve into this prejudice later, but I think it is very important to be aware of how much we don’t "want" robots to be on our level.

Robots have already shown that they are superior at noticing rhythms and beats beyond the level of an "average" human. Even more interesting is that anything "learned" by one robot, coincidentally being recorded by a computer, could easily be transferred to another robot. If one robot finds himself/herself/itself "sentient," what prevents him from then sharing his sentience "program" with another robot? The amazing thing about computers is the speed and ease with which they can transfer information to one another (think e-mail or faster here…). What is to say that a robot could not as easily "learn" to care for humans, or one another?

More interestingly is that several researchers that are focusing on taking computing to the "next level" have taken several approaches. One of the approaches that has been recently gaining ground and support has been the use of organic computing. Computers that instead of working on circuit board, instead operate using bacteria to transmit and process data. Our brains clearly use a more organic approach to data transfer and storage, why not use a similar approach in modern computing?

I find it horribly amusing after having watched Terminator and Terminator 2 many times in my life, I have recently discovered that by our own definitions, many of the elderly people (my matrilineal-grandmother included) in our world are the first cyborgs on earth. Isn’t it interesting that everyone has assumed that cyborgs would first come to earth as a robotic plague with the one desire to wipe humans out (though I wouldn’t put this past my grandmother), or instead be so dominated by their robotic parts that they no longer had any knowledge of their humanity. Instead it has come in the form of my grandmother. The thing that causes so many people to fear cybernetics and bionics is that they for some reason have decided that those imbued with the ability to interface with will ultimately destroy our fragile society. Admittedly there will be adjustments that occur in the way people live, and some of these may be less than positive. However, we have already accepted that many people meet and start relationships online, however I do not believe it is healthy, but nor do I think it will destroy our social structure completely. Change due to the world around us is inevitable, be those changes physical or electronic.

Recently advances in bionics have progressed at a rate that even puts the modern computing industry to shame. Up until recently the only widely used bionic device was a pacemaker. However, many research groups have recently reinvested themselves into bionics research. A neural prosthetic that prevents seizures has recently gained FDA approval. This device is very similar to a pacemaker, but instead of preventing heart attacks, it instead prevents seizures. It sends an electrical shock to the brain stem when a seizure is detected (Chevy Chase). We have already managed to create a device that can work with the brain to prevent seizures. How long until we are able to more directly influence the brain? Already available are Artificial Retina Component Chips that replace the vision center in someone with a damaged retina. Although this device doesn’t work as well as the human eye, the mere fact that it is CURRENTLY available is incredible (Mike Fillon). One researcher has recently been hard at work at connecting a Charged Coupled Device (CCD) to the human brain. A CCD is what is generally used in the more expensive camcorders, or telescopes. The human eye is only able to capture roughly 30% of the available light. CCD’s on the other had are able to capture almost 99.9% of the available light (R. Colin Johnson). If successful, why WOULDN’T people want their failing eyes to be replaced by something of this caliber?

Hearing aides have been in use for many years now in one form or another, but imagine if instead of just magnifying the sound, you could instead replace the item in your ear that did the receiving, and could instead replace it with an electronic device. Have a serious hearing loss in my left ear in the speech range of sound, and I would love to be able to have confidence in my hearing. One problem with many of these replacements is that the way things are heard is actually different from the manner in which "normal" people hear sounds, and the best candidates are those that have never "heard" before (Mike Fillon). These problems exist because the method of sound delivery is different than how "normal" people hear sound.

Several researchers have recently developed implants so precise that they can detect the activation of a single nerve (Mike Fillon). So exact, even our brain isn’t that exact. When nerves fire in our brain, they tend to stimulate the nerves around them as well. Electronics have progressed to where they are able to more accurately stimulate our brain than our bodies can.
Several other research groups have been working on the integration of robotics and humanity. The replacement of missing limbs with electronic limbs. A ten-year-old in New Jersey has been hard at work, making use of the ligaments in her arm that would move her fingers if she had any. They’ve progressed to the point where she can make a computer differentiate between which finger she’s trying to move. Soon she will be provided with a prosthetic that reads these tendon movements and moves robotic fingers accordingly. Even as discretely as the amount of pressure she is trying to exert.

I think it is very interesting that some of these advances are being applied (more often) to female patients. I have no idea why, but it is interesting that when people think of cyborgs, they tend to think of men with robotic parts. They most often, do not think of women with robotic parts. However, many of the researchers are using women more often than men, and many of the researchers are women.

If the Internet has taught us one thing, that lesson would be that sex sells. Porn sites are some of the most profitable sites on the Internet. How many people do you think would use a service that offered something that felt exactly like sex, looked just like sex, and even tasted and smelled like sex, but with no "real" consequences? No sexually transmitted diseases, no risk of pregnancy, no one to even know that it "really" took place. If we are able to directly access the site areas of the brain, why couldn’t we show the brain something "false?" If we can directly access taste and smell, why not? If we can directly access the sense of touch, why not? If we can access these areas, why not make the sex better than anything we could ever experience in reality (Evelyn Strauss)? I think this is where many of the real fears derive from when people talk about the "cheapening" of real life with bionics and virtual reality. I think people fear more that something may seem more real to some people than life itself, not that they really have any desire to not have people experiencing a meta/para-space.

I think it is very important for people to realize how prejudice we have become as a society against that which we depend so heavily upon. We rely on technology to do so many jobs for us that it almost seems impossible to conceive of how things were done prior to the use of current technology. We have a desperate need to still be special in some fashion.

"Developing androids challenges humans’ last refuge of specialness. At first we thought the Earth was the center of the universe. And then there was Darwin. And the Crick and Watson showed that we’re all made from the same DNA, essentially. And they said that a computer couldn’t play chess, and when a computer could play chess, they said it couldn’t feel. We’re trying to push on that boundary." That was said by Cynthia Breazeal, a researcher at MIT, working on the robot Kismet that seems to have a limited vocabulary of emotions. We have become horribly upset at the proposition that a robot might surpass us at our own ability to be loving and caring. Perhaps instead they will save us from total annihilation? Perhaps a computer could better understand than we can that blowing everything up isn’t the best solution? Isn't it also interesting that the moment Garry Kasparov was beaten by Deep Blue, we instantly jumped to the losers rescue, saying it wasn't fair, since Deep Blue could examine so many different possibilities.

It’s interesting that we are so opposed to allowing computers and or robots onto the same level as "humanity." We apparently have decided that for some reason anything we create CANNOT go beyond us. Do we take this same stance with our children? Why is it then that a computer or a robot cannot go beyond us? Several wonderful examples of this hypocrisy have shown themselves at two very different times during the explosion of technology. Star Wars released in 1977 is a perfect example of how we treat technology, only as an extension of our toolbox. The two robots, C3-P0 and R2-D2 are treated as objects, even though many people identified more with R2-D2 than they did with the spasmodic Luke Skywalker. Yet these two droids were nothing but slaves to the humans in the story. As a matter of fact, the destruction of C3-P0 was often viewed as comic relief. In 1987 we see the enslavement of a murdered police officer’s mind in Robocop. The police officer murdered on the job, is used to power a cybernetic police officer. The audience is awed by the ability for this creation of humanity to love, think, feel and change. Interestingly enough, audiences were presented with a very different picture in 1991 with an adaptation of a William Gibson novel, Blade Runner, was released, with a very different message for the audience. In Blade Runner, interestingly enough it was the human that seemed to act like a machine, and the androids that were more "human" than any of the humans in the movie.

Everyone I’ve ever talked to seem to have a serious "issue" with the idea of true AI. Even more discouraging is that many modern computer scientists have even written it off A/I as a "pipe dream." Whenever you ask someone if they think a computer could ever be intelligent, they often respond with something to the affect of, "but computers only do what they are told." I wonder if we’ve ever thought about our own actions, and how often we actually come up with new ideas. Often times we respond in a manner that we’ve been "programmed" with. However, this stigma of computers somehow being completely unable to develop emotions and real thought, although far fetched, should at least be acknowledged as a possibility. I think that unfortunately we as a society will either value "normal" people more or less after the bionics revolution that I believe will occur in the coming years. It’s only a matter of which direction it takes. We are not a forgiving enough to allow the differences to go unnoticed.

In the coming years society will either decide to continue the use of labels. If this is the case, then there will be a creation of a new strata. What I am most curious about though is if it will create a new slave/sub class, or if instead it will be more utilized by the upper/super class (not that these names represent worth…).

Some suspect, that because of our capitalist system, and that many of these devices would allow for a more enhanced body, that the rich/super/upper class will benefit more than anyone else from these advancements. Since most companies that do research ultimately answer to some sort of money-making entity. This seems to be the inherent problem. If something isn’t profitable, it will never see the light of day. Since these scientists may initially have noble ideals (no laughing), and do the majority of their testing on "average" or "needy" people, they would then suspect that their research would go on to benefit those same people. Instead, we are dealing with companies that tend to answer to the highest bidder, and not the people in need of these items. I think that as insurance companies become less interested in people, and more interested in the bottom line, I think the chances of people that have a need for these operations will not be allowed to have them, as insurance agencies will see them as cosmetic. In Neuromancer we see a society not only dominated by technology, but a society obsessed with this idea of cosmetic enhancement of the human body. The "needy" people will be pushed down by those with money who would like to be able to see at night with their new CCD eyes, those that wish to use these new technological advancements more like tattoos than science.

I think perhaps instead of society creating a new super class, that instead the poor will be expected to perform in a work place that deems it necessary for the average worker to be able to perform tasks that only massive machinery is capable of. Perhaps we begin to expect our military men and women to be outfitted with suits that allow them to "wax" an entire planet using only one platoon (Heinlein, Starship Troopers). Perhaps we begin to expect every steel mill worker to be able to carry steel beams. Instead of computer repair technicians being expect to sit down at a comfy desk and solve computer problems, the best are only those equipped with arms and hands that have repair tools built in (Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress). I think it is accepted by many that people should do anything and everything to perform in our capitalist system, and if that means that your everyday average Joe/Jill should have brain interface connections, then we will accept that, and we will subject ourselves to the will of those above us (The Matrix). Why is it that so often, we think we are the masters of technology? How many times have we been unable to get work done because technology has failed? How many times has life been interrupted because a satalite in space was disrupted by solar winds? It is interesting that we find ourselves in such a position of power, that we can’t even control our own creations.

I think the real question is whether these bionic additions to our bodies will be considered useful or if instead they will be considered with the same disdain that piercing and tattoos are currently considered in. Interestingly enough, pop culture has adopted many different forms of body art into the "norm." I am then curious if these bionic additions will also be embraced into the culture of the youth. If this is the case, then I think we will be creating a super class. I think this is the case, because we will have people that are able to live, work, exist and feel on two different spaces. Un-enhanced "virgin" (William Gibson, Neuromancer) humans will be considered a sub class, as they are only able to "experience" one aspect of human existence. On the other hand, you will have the enhanced part of society that can exist actively in two different para-spaces.

Conversely, if society sees a real "need" for bionics and human enhancement, we will see many members of the "working" class being forced to utilize these enhancements. People will only be able to perform many of the newly created jobs if they are enhanced. We will have created a class of people that are instantly labled as workers, warriors and lower class, simply because they primarily work in situations where you must be enhanced to perform. Much like the upper class people of the early years of the Americas, class was told by the whiteness of the skin. Those that worked in the field always had tans, so were instantly labeled as the working class.

People’s attitudes towards technology and its integration into our lives have changed greatly over the past few years. Coffeehouses often have computers for people to check their e-mail on, and most everyone has some sort of "high-tech" device as a part of their lives, be it a computer, a pager or a cell phone. I don’t think this acceptance of technology will necessarily be reflected in the acceptance of bionics though, because of the closeness of it with the actual person.

I think the key to whether we face a sub or super class will be decided by how people view bionics. If it is seen as only piercings are now seen, then we will have the creation of a super class. I believe this, because so many of the people in positions of power now are those that were originally a part of a high tech sub culture, and this trend will continue. On the other hand, if society views these "enhancements" as useful, then we will see the creation of a sub class, as people will be forced to receive these "enhancements" to be able to function in our modern society. I think that of course there is a middle ground, that could be found, where "enhanced" people are just that, able to use their bodies in different ways, but not thought of as above or below "normal" people. I don’t think this will be the case however, since we are so obsessed with labeling the good, the bad and the weird.