Cyborg
[1] In contrast to biorobots and androids, the term cyborg applies to a living organism that has restored function or enhanced abilities due to the integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on feedback.
[10] In a typical example, a human with an artificial cardiac pacemaker or implantable cardioverter-defibrillator would be considered a cyborg, since these devices measure voltage potentials in the body, perform signal processing, and can deliver electrical stimuli, using a synthetic feedback mechanism to keep that person alive.
Bruce Sterling, in his Shaper/Mechanist universe, suggested an idea of an alternative cyborg called 'Lobster', which is made not by using internal implants, but by using an external shell (e.g. a powered exoskeleton).
In 1960, the term "cyborg" was coined by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline to refer to their conception of an enhanced human being who could survive in extraterrestrial environments:[1] For the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, we propose the term 'Cyborg'.Their concept was the outcome of thinking about the need for an intimate relationship between human and machine as the new frontier of space exploration was beginning to develop.
A designer of physiological instrumentation and electronic data-processing systems, Clynes was the chief research scientist in the Dynamic Simulation Laboratory at Rockland State Hospital in New York.
The term first appears in print 5 months earlier when The New York Times reported on the "Psychophysiological Aspects of Space Flight Symposium" where Clynes and Kline first presented their paper: A cyborg is essentially a man-machine system in which the control mechanisms of the human portion are modified externally by drugs or regulatory devices so that the being can live in an environment different from the normal one.
For instance, using Candida albicans cells, a species of yeast that often lives inside the human gastrointestinal tract, cyborg tissue materials with temperature sensing properties have been reported.
[26][27] Prostheses like the C-Leg, the e-OPRA Implant System, and the iLimb, are considered by some to be the first real steps towards the next generation of real-world cyborg applications.
This also required him to be hooked up to a two-ton mainframe, but shrinking electronics and faster computers made his artificial eye more portable and now enable him to perform simple tasks unassisted.
[28] In 1997, Philip Kennedy, a scientist and physician, created the world's first human cyborg from Johnny Ray, a Vietnam War veteran who suffered a stroke.
[29] In 2002, Canadian Jens Naumann, also blinded in adulthood, became the first in a series of 16 paying patients to receive Dobelle's second-generation implant, marking one of the earliest commercial uses of BCIs.
[31][32] Since 2004, British artist Neil Harbisson has had a cyborg antenna implanted in his head that allows him to extend his perception of colors beyond the human visual spectrum through vibrations in his skull.
[35] Harbisson is a co-founder of the Cyborg Foundation (2004)[36] and cofounded the Transpecies Society in 2017, which is an association that empowers individuals with non-human identities and supports them in their decisions to develop unique senses and new organs.
Rob Spence, a Toronto-based filmmaker, who titles himself a real-life "Eyeborg", severely damaged his right eye in a shooting accident on his grandfather's farm as a child.
According to their article in Nature, the technology is composed of smart devices, screens, and a network of sensors that can be implanted into the body, woven into the skin or worn as clothes.
[52] The continued technological development of bionic and (bio-)nanotechnologies begins to raise the question of enhancement, and of the future possibilities for cyborgs which surpass the original functionality of the biological model.
The stretchable material and circuits of the apparatus were first constructed by Professor John A. Rogers in which the electrodes are arranged in an s-shape design to allow them to expand and bend without breaking.
Research into invasive BCIs, which use electrodes implanted directly into the grey matter of the brain, has focused on restoring damaged eyesight in the blind and providing functionality to paralyzed people, most notably those with severe cases, such as locked-in syndrome.
Its goal, according to DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office, is to develop "tightly coupled machine-insect interfaces by placing micro-mechanical systems inside the insects during the early stages of metamorphosis.
For instance, the exoskeleton race still required its participants to stand up from a chair and sit down, navigate a slalom and other simple activities such as walking over stepping stones and climbing up and down stairs.
Some of the pioneering artists who created such works are H. R. Giger, Stelarc, Orlan, Shu Lea Cheang, Lee Bul, Tim Hawkinson, Steve Mann, Patricia Piccinini.
Some work to make an abstract idea of technological and human-bodily union apparent to reality in an art form using varying mediums, from sculptures and drawings to digital renderings.
Hypothetical technologies such as digital tattoo interfaces[99][100] would blend body modification aesthetics with interactivity and functionality, bringing a transhumanist way of life into present day reality.
To this end, individuals may also embody feelings of uneasiness, particularly in a socialized setting, due to their post-operative, technologically augmented bodies, and mutual unfamiliarity with the mechanical insertion.
[102] Stephen Hawking, a renowned physicist, stated "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war ...
[104] To tackle the issue, Clynes and Kline theorized a cyborg containing a sensor that would detect radiation levels and a Rose osmotic pump "which would automatically inject protective pharmaceuticals in appropriate doses."
[136][137][120][138] In the late 2010s, scientists created cyborg jellyfish using a microelectronic prosthetic that propels the animal to swim almost three times faster while using just twice the metabolic energy of their unmodified peers.
[144] Researchers from the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley published a series of articles in 2016 describing the development of cyborg bacteria capable to harvest sunlight more efficiently than plants.
[145] In the first study, the researchers induced the self-photosensitization of a nonphotosynthetic bacterium, Moorella thermoacetica, with cadmium sulfide nanoparticles, enabling the photosynthesis of acetic acid from carbon dioxide.
[147] Scientists of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis and Academia Sinica in Taiwan, developed a different approach to create cyborg cells by assembling a synthetic hydrogel inside the bacterial cytoplasm of Escherichia.
