We, cyborgs

Twelfth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society18-19 February 2016

Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina

"WE, CYBORGS. HOW HUMANITY IS INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY IN ITS BODIES AND LIFE"

Susana Finquelievich, Ph DCONICET – University of Buenos Aires

Respectfully dedicated to Prof. Stephen Hawkins, my favourite cyborg

Twelfth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society

How will technology affect our species?

How will humans be 200 years from now?

How will technologies enlarge our capacities?

Can we live forever by incorporating artificial devices to our bodies?

Would you transfer your brain to other human being?

Is 120 the new 40s?

• («+Humans: The Future of Our Species»)


What are tecnological changes of our bodies, our minds, our lifes?

• Improvements?• Unforeseeable changes?• Is there a limit?

• Examples: • Neil Harbisson (from colour blindness to

an anthena which uses audible vibrations in his skull to report information to him)

• Aimee Mullins (from missing fibula bones to athete and fashion model)


Possible futures

Kurzweil predicts an exponential increase in technologies like computers, genetics, nanotechnology, robotics and AIYear 2045: Technological singularity A point where progress is so rapid it surpasses humans' ability to comprehend itTechnological creation of superintelligence


Two combined fears: technology and knowledge

• Technological advances will transform people as they augment their minds and bodies with genetic alterations, nanotechnology, and AI

• AI will be infinitely more powerful than all human intelligence combined

• Intelligence will radiate outward from the planet until it saturates the universe (!)


Other opinions (Noam Chomsky, Paul Root Wolpe)

• Knowledge and technology are advancing at a rythm we´re not aware of

• There is an increasing convergence between humans and technologies

• We will go on discovering new complex phenomena• The reference to robots is a reference to programs;

programs are designed by humans• Can we design advanced AI if we have not achieved

that degree of intelligence?


Interactions societies – technology are more complex than we think

• Societies are much more complex than we think in their interactions with scientific fields

• Not A singularity, but a series of moments of change• Universities have to change their structure to adapt

to new converging, interdisciplinary knowledge


Fear of intelligence and knowledge


Wanting more knowledge is punished

Irina Spalko: All she wanted was total knowledge

But knowledge burned her out


Fear of technology


Pre-humans had already incorporated technology to their lives


A cascade of «mindware upgrades»

First revolution: language


A species defined by symbols

The human species can be defined by its special ability to manipulate symbolsEach great augmentation in this skill has brought enormous economic, social, political, religious, epistemological, educational changes


Symbolic thinking• Artifacts retrieved in South Africa—pigments,

pierced shell beads, engraved shells - have located the origins of symbolic thinking at more than 70,000 years ago

• In some cases, as early as 164,000 years ago• Modern cognition was probably in place

when Homo sapiens emerged

Twelfth International Conference onTechnology, Knowledge & Society

Accumulation of knowledge

• In most species, knowledge is stored in individual brains. When the animal dies, knowledge dies with it

• In human societies, knowledge is stored in the group and transmitted to the next generations

• Knowledge accumulation is one major engine of culture and progress


Successive cognitive upgrades

• Spoken language

• Written text and numerals

• Early printing (without moveable typefaces)

• The printing press

• Digital encodings that bring text, sound and image into a uniform and widely transmissible format


Each phase produced improved technological tools for our bodies and

minds


What´s a cyborg?

• Cyborg: derived from cybernetics and organism• Term coined by Manfred Clynes in 1960• It described the need for mankind to artificially

enhance biological functions in order to survive in the hostile environment of Space


Yes, we are cyborgs

A Cyborg is:Anyone who incorporates to his/her body, temporarily or permanently, electronic technologies and biotechnologiesAnyone who uses a computer or other electronic device to work, socialize, create, study


The cyborg in my mind

• Not only our bodies use electronic devices• Our minds reach throughout the world to generate,

exchange and co-create information and knowledge


Potent machinery linking people to an ever more responsive World Wide Web

Steady smartening-up and interconnection of the everyday objects which crowd our homes and offices


A reinforced human species

• New potentials contributed by S&T and machines make us more capable, more human

• We live longer, have children in older age and rely on artificial intelligence to do routine tasks


Collective intelligence

• Collective intelligence is not new• Inovative knowledge has always been built on the

existing mass of knowledge• ICTs—especially the Internet—now allow enormous

numbers of people all over the planet to work together in new ways


People + knowledge + technologies = Improved Humans

• The successes of systems like Google and Wikipedia indicate that the time is now ripe for many more such systems (MIT Center for Collective Intelligence)

• How can people and computers be connected so that—collectively—they act more intelligently than any person, group, or computer has ever done before?


Evolution is incessant

• Human evolution takes its own time, independently of machines

• There can be artificial manipulation of genes• But…• Evolution has its own ways that no one can

predict for sure• We may add artifical parts, but we will not

become androidsTwelfth International Conference on

Technology, Knowledge & Society

This will not be our future


This MAY be our future

• The enhancement of capacities• New capacities• Why should there be a limit?


Which is the limit to intelligence, to knowledge?

• Knowledge bears more knowledge, as it generates increased human capacities for aprehending it

• Who wants to prevent the democratization of knowledge?

• Who wants to appropriate knowledge?

• We may think of many social actors: churches, bussiness, governments, the military… even the scientists


The necessary condition to the democratization of knowledge in KS

Acting, working, being, as humans interacting with machines, as ciborgsLeaving fear behind


QUESTIONS?

• Now we will hold a Garden Conversation, an informal question and answer session

• Thank you!
