Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
to investigate how the capabilities of human beings can be improved in
this way.
9
Research in this area has extended, though not yet in Kevin War-
wick or his wife, to the human brain. Warwick talks of humans being
upgraded into cyborgs. He uses the verb “upgrade” to emphasize the su-
periority of cyborgs over humans. The upgrading process enhances hu-
man capabilities by adding whatever computing power and/or memory
and/or AI resides in the electronics embedded in the human body. The
cyborg brain, eventually, will be part human and part machine which, as
Warwick readily admits, creates vitally important ethical questions:
Should every human have the right to be upgraded into a cyborg?
If an individual does not want to should they be allowed to defer,
thereby taking on a role in relation to a cyborg rather akin to a
chimpanzee's relationship with a human today? Even those humans
that do upgrade and become a cyborg will have their own problems.
Just how will cyborg ethics relate to human ethics? [20]
Cyborg technology, which will benefit from the research into implanting
electrodes into the human brain,
10
will eventually be extended to assist
humans in some rather dramatic ways. We could have an AI system
loaded with whatever knowledge bases and intelligent programs we wish.
Such systems will be a boon to the mentally ill, who could be given new
or recharged intelligences. If Warwick and other cyborg researchers are
successful, the day will come when the intellectual and cultural contents
of a human brain, its intelligence and knowledge, can be downloaded
using electronic probes. It will then be possible, for example, to take
“backups” of our brains at regular intervals, so that in the event of an
accident or a disease such as Alzheimer's affecting a person's brainpower,
he or she can have the most recent backup of his or her brain uploaded
into an electronic memory device, which by then will doubtless be small
enough to be implanted into the body.
How to Treat Your Robot
Richard Laing, formerly a computer scientist at the University of Michi-
gan, has contemplated the day when human-level intelligent machines
exhibit complex behaviors, including altruism, kinship, language, and
9
Warwick is not alone in his optimism for cyborgs. Ray Kurzweil is another futurist who believes
strongly in this type of brain augmentation.
10
See the section “Mind Reading” in Chapter 10.
