Do you want to be a cyborg?

With the way technology is going today, it seems very likely that within the next 25 years it will be possible to get implants that augment the human body. These range from the simple rfd chips available today through chips that could be used to increase/improve your memory and do complex math for you all the way to the possibility of downloading your conscientiousness into a robotic body.

I am wondering how many of us would choose to use these augmentations and just how far would you be willing to take it?

Personally I would take advantage of pretty much anything that's available that has been proven safe. I would even go so far as to do the conscientiousness transfer, although I don't think it would be a way to become immortal. I see it more as a way to leave my mark on the world. After all, it will only be a copy. The “me” that is typing these words would die, but the copy would “live” on. So my personally would survive, but I would not. But what the hell, it's not like it will hurt me to do it.

As for the other augments, bring em on! I can't wait to be a cyborg.

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic woman. Vares Solvang will be that woman. Better than she was before. Better ... stronger ... faster.”

The real question is:
Would you put your brain in a robot body?

Where do you draw the line of a cyborg? Is it anyone with a prostetic? Or does it need to be "better" in some way than the original part?

From Wikipedia:

"The term cyborg, a portmanteau of cybernetic organism, is used to designate an organism which is a mixture of organic and mechanical (synthetic) parts. Generally, the aim is to add to or enhance the abilities of an organism by using technology."

Really, even a prosthetic makes the person "better in some way" as it restores normal function that they had somehow lost.

I'd love to be one, on one condition:

- that none of my body organs started conversations with anyone else's, when they got within range.

Desmond's Liver: Desmond starts producing higher amounts of bile.

I'm ambivalent about it - for the most part I think we are in the infancy of mixing biology and technology. For the immediate future, I hope the extent of my cyborgization is my glasses and my dental implants.

If and when nanotechnology reaches the point of letting me genuinely link my mind to a computer or reshape my body at will, then we've got something to talk about.

The issues of pain and control are going to be big deals for a long time to come. Most implants these days can involve a lot of pain, both acute and ongoing. And for every advance in creating neurocircuitry that would give you more control over your body and your tools, there's another that can give people more control over you. The same technologies that might allow you to "upload" your mind to a computer could be used to rewrite it and make you a slave.

Depends .. on the attachments that come with it

Ah, this is a very good point. But why would they need to rewrite my brain to make me a slave? The way I see it, the uploaded personality (U.P.) would be a slave. It's only a copy after all. It would literally be a computer program at that point and could be copied and modified at will. So they could make endless copies of it, instead of going to all the trouble of rewriting the minds of thousands of people.

Have a nuclear accident like the one at Chernobyl? Don't send in living people, download a copy of the U.P. into a robotic body designed specifically to deal with nuclear accidents and send it in. If it gets destroyed, who cares? Download another copy and send it in to finish. The U.P. wouldn't be alive, it's just a simulation. Granted a very sophisticated simulation, but still just a program.

Do with it as you will.

Now the obvious question to ask is since the U.P. would be an exact copy of my mind, would I want to be thought of as disposable? Honestly, if I knew that “I” was just a simulation running in a computer, I would be ok with going into the reactor even if it meant certain destruction. After all hundreds of thousands of lives would be depending on it. Real, living people did it, so why shouldn't I do it as a simulation? Especially since I know I am just a copy of a program. Even if I was destroyed, my program would still be around somewhere.

Besides, they could just modify the U.P. so that it wouldn't care if it “lives” or “dies”. Problem solved.

Vares, my head asplode.

I would probably be the first in line. Set me up with a rig ala neromancer, system shock, anything like that. I'm a freakin techy. I'd be the ULTIMATE TECHY! MUAHAHAA!

*cough*

"Do you want to be a cyborg?"

No, but I want to be transgenic. Hopefully something useful like part raptor or part coral.

Not a cyborg as in robot-looking body, but something to let me upload my consciousness into a natural human-looking body would be funky.

Edit: This is weirdly close to what SL allows, except it is of course only a simulation in SL.

I can see some nice aspects to becoming an augmented person, something to aid with the short term memory would be nice. Sound processing to aid speech comprehension would be good. A deblur function added into the visual processing center would be good. Some kind of electronic nag to make you clean up your room and wash your car and get the mail and pay the bills would be good although despicable.

I would do it for some crazy/cool things. Like the occular implants Geordi LaForge had in Star Trek First Contact, etc. Not just to allow someone to see, but for the cool zooming and stuff. You could even have it so it could display things as well, so you'd have a mini-screen in one of your eyes. That would rule.

Or what about a multi-device implanted in the ear/mouth for: phone calls, super-hearing, voice-recog for computers, etc. That would be cool too.

</geek>

MM

Will the programming for my robot parts be as screwed up as Windows?
Will "I can't come into work today, I came down with a virus" take on new meaning?
Will an EMP burst turn me into a lawn ornament?

Inquiring minds (both flesh & silicone) want to know.

Well the “cool” stuff is of course fun, but what about the practical stuff? A chip that translates any language you hear into your native language. How many college students would kill for an implanted chip that will instantly do their calculus for them? Sensors in the body that do real time monitoring of blood pressure, cholesterol, liver function, scan for antibodies that indicate cancer, etc. A skin layer for firefighters that can become highly reflective at will. HUD's implants in the eye or brain that can be used for any number of things from driving to flying a jet to playing baseball to displaying the Internet feed from your wifi chip. Hehe, which brings us back to the cool stuff.

I have my Babelfish for that. A little weird going in, but works great!

MM

Definitely I'm pro-cyborg. I've always wanted to plug my brain into my computer, and make wonderful works of art just by thinking about them. Then comes the occular implants for your very own HUD as Vares said. You could download specific tasks and learn them instantly, ala Matrix. Then comes things like chips that stimulate the right spots in your brain so you can smell, taste, and feel. Then you can really get aroused when having *ahem* encounters with other people in SL. And builds will become so much faster! Think it, it gets built. Then I think I'd graft a particle weapon to my left hand, complete with tracking systems for my occular HUD. Then possibly bionic legs, jetpack, and armor. Then, I will take over the world! Whoa, I'm getting out of control on this whole cyborg thing.

I could really use a new leg. Prosthetics, right now are pretty amazing, but they hurt. We gotta figure out ways to grow new and better fleshy parts, cuz this flesh on plastic or metal stuff ain't happenin'.

If I was a candidate I would have cochlear implants right now. They are sensors that pick up sounds and convert them to electrical signals which are directed at nerve fibers via electrodes. When the nerve fibers are stimulated the brain adapts and over time begins to interpret the signals as sounds. Cochlear implants allow a lot of deaf people to hear, making them somewhat of a cyborg.

As someone who has recently decided to get fit after over a decade of illness and operations, I would like the time to get to know what my current body is capable of before I start replacing bits. Eventually though when bits start dropping off or drooping too much I'd like the choice of upgrades.

Brain backups would be great as you never know when something is going to go wrong with the old noggin. I would prefer a versioning system on this though and not just a backup replacing the previous one in case I miss the first signs of something going wrong or just want to forget my 22nd wife completely.

We are all already Cyborgs to some degree. Spectacles are one of the most primitive but effective cybernetic enhancements we have, and theyre dismountable, so we can revert to our inferior defective ocular system, which is of course entirely biological.

I don't see spectacles as being cybernetic. You wear them, as you would clothes. To be cybernetic they need to be an actual part of you, like the ocular implants or an artificial hip. Prosthetic limbs would make you quasi-cybernetic. Even though they technically aren't a part of you, since you can take them off, they still replace a part of you that is gone. The goal with prosthetics, as was pointed out earlier, is to improve them to the point that they actually do become a permanent part of you. Ideally, no one should be able to tell that it's artificial without being told. Perhaps some kind of metal and/or plastic “bone” framework that has living tissue grown around it and is electronically controlled by the brain? That sounds like Sci-fi at the moment, but I can't really see any reason why it's not technically possible.

Anyway, it seems to me that these kinds of cybernetics should be the priority. Let the “toys” be a happy side effect of their research.

I just read this short story and it seems to be relavant to this thread, enjoy:

http://www.365tomorrows.com/05/19/better/

Wow, I find that a rather nightmarish concept. Perhaps that's because I've spent a good portion of my life trying to unearth the basic, unvarnished, additive-free me. And the moments where I felt I achieved it are ones I cherish. To truly be, unencumbered, without the chains of old personalities and hidden influences... Why would I want to go and pile new ones on all over again?

Here's a collection of outlandish and fascinating ideas about the possibilities ahead from Ray Kurzweil. I especially like the Primo Posthuman bit by Natasha Vita-More.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0551.html?

Down in the last section it says "Meets the latest EPA guidelines for environmentally-friendly elimination."

I'd want to be a cyborg like the agents in Section 9 on GHost In The Shelltandalone Complex.