Artificial Intelligence
Theory of Transformation
The technology may seem
like science ficition, but the transition
is already happening. Back in 2002 in
Oxford, England a ground breaking surgery
performed on Professor Kevin Warwick made
him the first cyborg, that is part human
and part machine. Surgeons implanted a
silicon square about 3mm wide into an
incision in Warwick's left wrist and attached
its 100 electrodes, each as thin as a
hair, into the median nerve. Connecting
wires were fed under the skin of the forearm
and out from a skin puncture and the wounds
were sewn up. The wires were linked to
a transmitter/receiver device that could
relay nerve messages to a computer by
a radio signal. It was hopeful that this
procedure could potentially lead to breakthroughs
for people paralysed by spinal cord damage.
And, indeed, before
(and after) Warwick's experiments, people
have been benefiting from pacemakers,
artificial hearts, prosthetic limbs, hearing
aids and other artitifical devices. New
breakthroughs in bioelectronics mean that
technologies may interface with the human
nervous and other biological systems at
an even more basic level. With new strides
in nanotechnology, nanomachines may be
able to effect biological changes on molecular
levels, causing changes in our human biological
structure that have been unprecedented.
Now there is a great deal of excitement
and enthusiasm about the possibility of
gene therapy curing previously unstoppable
hereditary disorders.
Computer intelligence
has some clear advantages over the human
brain: the computer can quickly perform
complex calculations and has the ability
to have extremely detailed memory cells.
Linking the fast paced technology of the
computer, by means of implant technology,
to the otherwise sometimes sluggish human
brain, seems to bring about the best of
both worlds. The joining of the two would
bring about capabilities far succeeding
what the human brain is currently capable
of achieveing.
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