The Artificial Perceptual System — In a Perceptual Prosthesis? - Artificial Human Sensors: Science and Applications - page 179

Figure 7.10. A humanoid robot mimicking the human performance, with human-related
abilities. Photo courtesy and copyright Peter Wide c 2010.
to sense and act, that will result in more or less a constantly increased performance.
The artificial prosthesis parts are foreseen to be frequently used in the human body
and move in a direction toward adopting further functions to the individual's spe-
cific behaviour. This raises an important question about where do we put a limit
in defining a human as still being a human and when does the human go over
the threshold to become an artificial agent, i.e., humanoid as for example shown
in Fig. 7.10. Today there seems to be a broad understanding in defining the dis-
tinction between a human and an artificial humanoid, but when we start to mix
the parts from each other, then we will probably end up in a fuzzy challenge when
defining a human being. Hopefully the time for this type of discussions is not here
yet, but we can be sure that the time will come, in the year 2020, 2030 or perhaps
2050.
7.3.2 Personal Exterior Systems
Complementary systems for increasing the human perceptual ability are of an
emerging interest that are capable of performing advanced interaction with a
human operator. The attractive possibilities that can be achieved when investi-
gating conditions at a distance from the human are undoubtedly a flexible and
safe solution. The performance, without interfering in an unhealthy or dangerous
area of interest, for example, due to personal risks, is of importance in the area of
personal safety and security. The human safety and security aspects may with ad-