>From The Chicago Tribune,
http://www.chicagotribune.com/leisure/tempo/printedition/article/0,2669,SAV-
0012280052,FF.html
-
BODY SHOPPING
FUTURISTS USE THE WEB TO PLAN A WORLD MERGING MAN, MACHINE
By Dan Dinello
Special to the Tribune
December 28, 2000
Imagine yourself a virtual living being, free of physical pain, able to
repair any damage to your mechanical body and with a downloadable mind that
never dies -- a post-biological human. Several 21st Century technologies --
prosthetics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and
robotics -- may define a new era in human progress, the Post-Human Era. With
outposts all over the Internet, scientific idealists promote a positive --
almost religious -- vision of these emerging technologies' potential impact
on human evolution.
Their outlook is in marked contrast to the often grim warnings about
advancing technology. Science-fiction films, for example, from "Metropolis"
to "The Matrix," remain firmly rooted in these fears. (A more comprehensive
look at this technophobia will run next week.) Last year, computer scientist
Bill Joy warned, in Wired magazine, about the dangers of uncontrolled
technology: "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us"
(www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html)
But as evidenced by the following Web sites and books, the miraculous
promise, no matter how theoretical, of these human-improving technologies
draws a rapt audience.
Prosthetic technology regenerates a damaged body with artificial replacement
parts -- synthetic skin, mechanical heart valves, cochlear implants,
titanium jaws, hips, arms, legs, hands, feet. The Global Resource for
Orthotics and Prosthetics (www.oandp.com) provides links to numerous
corporate and informational Web sites related to these currently available
prostheses.
Cutting-edge prosthetic research promises even more miraculous
possibilities. Scanning these research Web sites reveals developments in
working artificial devices for many organs -- kidneys, hearts, blood vessels
and livers. Retinal Implant (www.uak.medizin.unituebingen.de/depii/g
roups/subret/index-en.html) has developed technology that may provide sight
to the blind in a few years; Bizspace Pharma (www.bizspacepharma.com/
Technology20%Articles/hand.htm) details research on artificial limbs
controlled by nerve impulses.
Prosthetic research, with links to many research Web sites, is summarized at
BusinessWeek online (www.businessweek.com/2000/00-12/b3673025.htm).
These prosthetic innovations of techno-science encourage a dream of
immortality through gradual replacement of all body parts.
Biotechnology goes even further. Rather than provide a new artificial body,
biotechnologists want to prevent or cure disease by managing the body's
biological processes in ever-greater detail, leading to perfect health. Web
sites such as Bio OnLine (www.bio.com/os/start/home.html) and the government
site Biotechnology (www.nal.usda.gov/bic/) offer information about the
methods of biotech -- nanotechnology, genetic manipulation and cloning -- as
well as present and future applications.
The many wonders of nanotechnology -- designing or evolving tiny machines or
biochips that can be programmed to operate within the human body -- have
been elaborately imagined by Eric Drexler in his 1987 book "Engines of
Creation," available for free on The Foresight Institute Web site
(www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html).
Among other things, he envisions a nanotech diagnostic tool of the future:
DNA-based computer chips, implanted into the body, will continuously analyze
a person's entire genome, determine when something goes wrong and provide
the information needed to apply treatments and cures.
Other mind-boggling projections can be found at Nanotechnology magazine
(http://nanozine.com/). A future nanotechnological cure for cancer might
involve injecting cell-size nano-robot machines, or nanobots, into the
afflicted person's body. Using genetic sensors, these nanobots may be able
to hunt down and destroy every cancer cell. Other diseases may also be
subject to nanobot attacks. For example, differently programmed nanobots
might be sent into the body to loosen tiny bits of artery plaque and clear
out clogged blood vessels. These and other intriguing nanontechnological
developments remain at an early stage.
Another biotechnological method, cloning, involves the regeneration of
proteins, plants, animals and even humans from single cells. Brought to
public attention by the movie "Jurassic Park" and the actual cloning of the
sheep Dolly, current cloning practices produce antibodies used in medicine
as well as drug manufacturing and disease diagnosis. Research, future
predictions and lots of Internet links can be explored at the New Scientist
Special Cloning Report
(www.newscientist.com/nsplus/insight/clone/clonelinks.html).
Besides the possibility of growing entire replacement arms, feet, hearts or
livers, cloning may lead to human immortality through endless bodily
replication - as long as one remembers to extract and store his or her own
DNA. Gene banks for pets already exist on the Internet. Genetic Savings &
Clone (www.savingsandclone.com) offers to extract DNA from your pet and
cryogenically store it. Human Cloning (www.globalchange.com/clonlink.htm)
provides visual explanations of the cloning process, future predictions,
links, news and ethical debate; Slouching Towards Creation: Peer Into the
Face of Cloning (www.pathfinder.com/TIME/cloning/dolly.html) provides
visuals plus essays on questions such as "Human cloning: should it be done?
If it's done, what would it mean?"
Artificial intelligence and robotics experts envision an even more bizarre
method of attaining immortality. Their post-biological utopia assumes the
extinction of humans or, at least, their conversion into an almost
supernatural post-human species. On his Web site
(www.penguinputnam.com/kurzweil/links.htm), author and computer scientist
Ray Kurzweil -- the inventor of the first reading machine for the blind --
describes a future utopia in which humans live forever by becoming one with
robotic technology. Rather than preserving our bodies, this method discards
our death-susceptible physical form and aims to preserve our identity (our
minds) by downloading consciousness into a computer within a robot body. A
fascinating visual history and future projections of robot technology can be
seen at Android World (www.androidworld.com/index.htm)
No one follows this post-biological line of speculation with the mechanist
abandon of Carnegie-Mellon robotics pioneer Hans Morevec
(www.frc.cmu.ri.edu/(tilde)hpm/). Moravec first seriously proposed
transferring our minds into machines in his 1988 book "Mind Children" and
developed the idea in his 1999 book "Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent
Mind." On his Web site, Morevec says, "By mid-century no human task,
physical or intellectual, should be beyond effective automation." Moravec
and Kurzweil both argue that humans should happily adapt to artificially
intelligent robotic technology and gain immortality or face extinction.
Perhaps the most zealous proselytizers for this new brand of Homo Cyber are
the post-humanists known as the Extropians (www.extropy.com). The Extropians
spend a lot of time plotting out neo-Darwinian future scenarios dominated by
futuristic technologies. Navigating their Web site, you will find optimistic
predictions of off-world space colonies, advanced robotics, artificial
intelligence, nanotechnology and life extension through mental downloads.
Like religious mystics, the Extropians meticulously plan for the day when
technology will free us forever from the clutches of the earth, the body and
death itself.
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