Cyborgs: the lost age
If you were a child of the 80s, or even the 70s, you grew up with pop culture which featured cyborgs. From Darth Vader to Steve Austin, Robocop to Cybermen to Inspector Gadget and Doctor Octopus, we were deluged with characters who were at least updates of Lewis Carroll's Tin Man. Everyone thought we'd see a future where people got bits of themselves replaced with mechanics for utilitarian or even cosmetic reasons.
But it hasn't happened.
Oh, there's medical implants. Pacemakers and hearing aids and ever-more-capable prosthetic limbs. But there have been three major hurdles to the Cyborg Future.
Firstly, the parts we've been able to build, even with the assistance of supercomputers, just don't match up to the flexibility, strength, lightness and power consumption of the real thing. Implants and prosthetics are a stopgap or emergency measure. People don't go around getting bits of themselves replaced for no reason.
Secondly, there's the integration issue. We're still chewing on the whole problem of making artificial parts work properly with human nerves. Joints we can replace, but not the muscles moving them - not well, anyway.
And thirdly, biomedicine has advanced along with prosthetic technology. We can do more with hormones and gene therapy and cell lattices and cloned skin patches now. And those kinds of medical repairs don't get you singled out at airport X-rays for up-close-and-personal sessions with metal detectors.
So will cyborgism turn out to be a dead end? I'm guessing that it'll be more subdued, anyway. Small implants, detachable limbs, emergency parts which can be knocked up quickly to hold the fort while more subtle, long-term biosolutions are crafted.
So much for Swiss Army fingers. :)
But it hasn't happened.
Oh, there's medical implants. Pacemakers and hearing aids and ever-more-capable prosthetic limbs. But there have been three major hurdles to the Cyborg Future.
Firstly, the parts we've been able to build, even with the assistance of supercomputers, just don't match up to the flexibility, strength, lightness and power consumption of the real thing. Implants and prosthetics are a stopgap or emergency measure. People don't go around getting bits of themselves replaced for no reason.
Secondly, there's the integration issue. We're still chewing on the whole problem of making artificial parts work properly with human nerves. Joints we can replace, but not the muscles moving them - not well, anyway.
And thirdly, biomedicine has advanced along with prosthetic technology. We can do more with hormones and gene therapy and cell lattices and cloned skin patches now. And those kinds of medical repairs don't get you singled out at airport X-rays for up-close-and-personal sessions with metal detectors.
So will cyborgism turn out to be a dead end? I'm guessing that it'll be more subdued, anyway. Small implants, detachable limbs, emergency parts which can be knocked up quickly to hold the fort while more subtle, long-term biosolutions are crafted.
So much for Swiss Army fingers. :)