The term Cyborg was originally coined by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline as a proposal for “Altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments.” The idea has since permeated our language, culture and consciousness, and expanded to encompass a variety of merged human-machine meanings. If you believe those at the forefront of technology – from Musk to Sutskever to Kurzweil – you’ll assume that the merging of human with machine is a near-future certainty. Although the speed of developments in technology makes it seem inevitable, there’s very little about this sci-fi mental image that fits with our everyday surroundings. Dan, pictured here in his living room, is a case in point. He has a bionic limb, but he looks far from a futuristic human-machine fusion.
This is not about utopia, dystopia or anti-tech sentiment. It’s about reality.
Interrogating the real world of human-tech overlaps, or Augmentality, I sought to understand what it means to be “merged” with technology. This is not about utopia, dystopia or anti-tech sentiment. It’s about reality. What can the attitudes, needs and behaviour of people already using bionics and other physical augmentations teach us about the future of technology and our bodies? This article outlines my observations, following conversations with people that, through choice or necessity, are already physically augmented.
Implants Are Big Barriers
As you’d expect, given the theme, it wasn’t long into any of the conversations before the topic of surgery and implants came up. Among the entire group, there was scant enthusiasm from any individual for implanting themselves with technology. Even those with tattoos were against the idea of embedding themselves with anything more solid or elaborate than ink. Whilst Amy described her multi-tattooed body as a “blank canvas” and believes the pain of getting a tattoo is worth the result, tattoos are her limit: “I’ve seen people get the contactless chip and it grosses me out having things under my skin.”
Amy sees her body as a blank canvas, but she’s repelled by the idea of objects under her skin
The reality is that embedding anything inside us can still be dangerous. Tajana had Deep Brain Stimulation when she was a teenager, to control a dystonic tremor. She had to recover from a series of traumatic post-operation experiences, including a dangerous life threatening infection. Despite all the benefits of having DBS, she still wishes she had waited until she was older to have a surgery that resulted in serious adverse side effects.
Humans have “merged” with various inventions over the course of millennia, albeit without surgical procedures.
In the course of writing Natural Born Cyborgs in 2003, Professor of Cognitive Philosophy, Andy Clark, expressed his doubt for invasive implants as the best way to build future technology for the body. He believes that Humans have “merged” with various inventions over the course of millennia, albeit without surgical procedures. He wrote “The old technologies of pen and paper have deeply impacted the shape and form of biological reason in mature, literate brains.” He concludes that “the most potent near-future technologies will be those that offer integration and transformation without implants or surgery: human-machine mergers that simply bypass, rather than penetrate the old biological borders of skin and skull.”
Empowerment is the Priority
Whilst the process of implantation necessitates relinquishing control to a surgeon, once the technology is inside the body there are additional curtailments to personal control. As she explained why installing a chip in her brain didn’t appeal, Amy also said “I don’t like the idea of not being able to switch it off.”
In “Implant,” a 2022 episode of Radio 4’s The Digital Human, mechanical engineer, Dr Christopher Dawson expressed similar concerns about the commercial relationship between implant, implantee and manufacturer. “What we’ve seen in the past is companies have developed cool, interesting medical devices. They’ve taken them to market. Those devices have been safe. People have had them implanted and then the company’s gone bust. The risk comes in orphaned devices just not working anymore and not being supported.”
Regulation should be able to restrict companies from this kind of unfortunate outcome. However, developers will need to build trust that goes much further than just adhering to the law, before we’ll see consumer implants appeal to wide populations of people.
But tech doesn’t need to be inside us for the issue of bodily control to stand in the way of adoption. If people feel disempowered or somehow impeded by a technology, even if it expands other capabilities in an unprecedented way, the impediment seems to outweigh the expansion. For instance, despite many years of development and iteration, VR headsets still fail to break into the mainstream. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is because the provision of total visual immersion into a virtual world, is at the expense of sight in the real world, where the rest of our senses remain.
Brian uses a networked device to send ICD data to the hospital
Empowerment comes by giving people as much control as possible over their experience of the world and over their bodies, particularly when, despite the size of our zettabyte brains, we are still a mystery to ourselves.
As Brian cycled to work one morning, he had a cardiac arrest. This was a massive reminder of the mystery of his own internal workings. Even though his heart is now constantly, carefully monitored by an Internal Cardiac Defibrillator, he’s no closer to truly understanding his own body. He talked about his ICD check-ups with resignation. “When I’m in hospital, I have no control and I can’t even see the data. And if I ask to see it, I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”
Despite the size of our zettabyte brains, we are still a mystery to ourselves.
We already consume data intended to empower – through smartwatches, wearables and in some cases our phones. Vast opportunities lie in building products that can translate the workings of our inner flesh, blood and organs into personal knowledge. Tajana spoke for many when she proclaimed “I’d just like to know why I do what I do!”
Function = identity = function
Empowerment, however, is about more than how we function. The technologies we extend ourselves with are also extensions of our identity. This became clear when I spoke to Enas, who has a limb difference. When she was 10 she was told she must use a prosthetic arm. She remembered the experience, saying “Your hand would look like this – you can’t move the thumb and it’s the two fingers that move using electronic functions… I’d gone my whole life not seeing a prosthetic on myself, so it felt foreign and restricting and annoying.”
Despite what some might consider an improvement to Enas’s functional capabilities, her experience with the prosthetic was influenced by how she looked and was a significant contributor to her discarding it. In the process of the interviews I conducted for Augmentality, I heard time and again that how our bodies look and feel is inseparable from what our bodies do.
The “who” that we experience ourselves as is a complex combination of appearance and feeling and performance.
This is why, for Joe, Deep Brain Stimulation was wholly transformative. He said “Without the technology I am not who I am.” Before his operation, Joe could barely walk because of his tremor. This technology enabled him to go travelling and take the post-card worthy pictures he sat in front of while we were talking. And it also affects the way he looks – by aiding his posture and gait, it makes him look “normal.” This is important to him because as he observed “If you look abnormal people will tell you…” The “who” that we experience ourselves as is a complex combination of appearance and feeling and performance.
Tech with real personality
In some cases, though, abnormal is desirable. Most of us have a need to be unique, to be special. Dan sees his bionic limb as an opportunity to be just that. He thinks if his arm was too human-like he wouldn’t enjoy it as much because it would make him like everyone else.
Historically, prosthetics were built to mimic the appearance of the body. But with customisable 3D printed covers, many bionics have as much in common with a mobile phone, or a fashion accessory as they do with prosthetics. Enas welcomed the comparison, explaining that her “prosthetic is an accessory, and the cover is a skin for the prosthetic.”
Enas says her bionic arm has a lot in common with an accessory
It reminds us that most of the consumer tech we use is an expression of our identity. Of course, things like phones, wearables and headphones are chosen for their functional attributes, but we also select the shape, texture and colour of those products to signal something about who we are. The continued evolution of manufacturing methods, sensors, materials and power sources, promises components that may revolutionise technology formats for the body. Under these circumstances, the potential is increased for products that, whilst satisfying our functional needs, enmesh with our identities through new modes of self expression. Small, lightweight, flexible, weave-able, intelligent objects made with these properties could be folded, rolled, squashed and moulded to us. Technology that is even more evocative of mood, personality and individuality will further enmesh with both our behaviour and our identity. Enas looks forward to a day when her bionic arm is more personal in both function and appearance.
Augmented Futures
20 year old Guy has had an Internal Cardiac Defibrillator monitoring his heart since he was 18 and says you could replace a lot of his body before he would stop feeling human. “We’ll never become part of the artificial world – robots will become part of us but we will never be them.” When asked about the threshold between human and robot, the mechanics of limbs or organs didn’t matter. Other interviewees also talked about the importance of “personality”, “soul”, or “heart”. Augmented technology does not seem to pose an existential threat to that which we define as human-ness. There is nuance in how we think about ourselves in the context of technology.
Invasives make us squirm and we worry about relinquishing control, but we’re willing to overcome these impulses when we see the potential results as necessary in the pursuit of a normal life. That’s how Abigail felt when she discovered she’d need both of her hip-joints replaced. These days, smartphones meet the same criteria as hip joints. When Enas was asked to choose between a smartphone and her bionic arm, she gave it serious thought before eventually choosing her arm. Tajana also talked about her smartphone as indispensable. “If I didn’t have a phone, I wouldn’t be able to contact my friends… If I didn’t have those things I would be abnormal.”
The normal world around us is not the normal of 100 years ago.
Will we follow a path of ever greater physical incorporation with technology? Or as Andy Clark describes, are we more likely to limit physical alterations to medical needs, whilst human-machine mergers bypass physical integration? With the smartphone as important as it is, it suggests this is a distinct possibility.
The future technologies that succeed in extending and enhancing our bodies will certainly need to strike the sweet spot between essential and normal. But the normal world around us is not the normal of 100 years ago. As what we deem essential to “normal” life continues to evolve, so the future of augmentation and our bodies will track that same trajectory.