With the rapid advances in contemporary science and technology, we have begun to translate the analytical tools of molecular biology, materials science, computer science, and artificial intelligence that have been developed over the past few decades into engineering tools. With these tools, we are recognizing how capable we are of grasping life, especially human life, at the most fundamental level of life's activity.
Much of what was once science fiction has come into reality, with the technology of combining humans and machines opening up vast prospects for patient treatment and rehabilitation. The biggest benefit of combining humans and machines can be? replicate? and? enhance? certain functions of life, which can be particularly useful in the fields of medicine and rehabilitation.
For example, the late physicist Stephen W Hawking, who suffered from muscular dystrophy lateral sclerosis, was paralyzed, unable to speak, and was confined for years? confined? in a specially designed wheelchair, with only three fingers and two eyes to move. But he is able to speak through an exclusive robot? language synthesizing computer? that converts his limited, tiny, localized body movements into an electrically signaled language to communicate with others. His combination with this robot has allowed Hawking to attain the most basic level of human dignity.
The example of Hawking's union with a computerized robot is just one example of a physics-based human? machine? elementary engineering? The technology of combining man and machine is now becoming a discipline based primarily on molecular biology.
Professor Rodney Brooks, director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, admits that they have programmed DNA sequences that combine to form genomes to cultivate bacterial robots, with the goal of precisely controlling the genetics of living systems. Cultivating muscle cells can act as drivers in simple machines, such as prosthetic limbs that fit seamlessly into the bodies of disabled people.
Silicon, steel, and living-cell robotics have now made their way into the human body. Earlier clinicians who worked on these experiments endeavored to repair disabled and degraded bodies. We had pacemakers early on, and later artificial hearts.
Today more sophisticated neuroprosthetics are becoming commonplace. Tens of thousands of deaf people have permanent hearing devices implanted in their cochlea. The device delivers waves of more than six frequencies that directly stimulate a nerve at a location in the cochlea. Patients can hear through the direct stimulation of peripheral nerves by electrical currents? more specifically, to feel sound through a combination of silicon and neural circuits.
Professor Brooks describes how patients with retinopathy would be the biggest beneficiaries if similar visual transplants were just as effective. Researchers are testing the idea of implanting a silicon camera chip into a person's retina and then, either linking the image elements directly to the retinal nerves, or sending the images via wired or wireless to areas of the visual process in the back of the brain. Experiments with implantation of such miniature robotic organs have progressed, and technically, successful visual transplants are more difficult to achieve than cochlear transplants. However, the research team believes that retinal transplants will eventually become as unusual as cochlear transplants.
Some disabled quadriplegic patients with even severe damage to their vertebrae can't speak, have trouble breathing, and need breathing machines. Now, with nerve transplants in the brain, patients can command a computer mouse simply by thinking about it. In this way, they are able to communicate with the outside world again and have some control over that communication. They can also choose what they want to see on the computer monitor, and perhaps give commands and send e-mails. In one deep experiment, they were able to control robots that helped them in their daily lives. Researchers are optimistic that as these combined human-machine technologies evolve, their applicability and adaptability will continue to evolve with the times.
Many of the experiments are still being conducted in MIT's AI labs, such as a system that trains the muscles of people with spinal cord injuries to reconnect neural signals in patients with Parkinson's disease and other similar disorders, where doctors have implanted silicon and steel into patients' bodies. All of these experiments offer hope that patients will be able to reclaim adaptations in key areas of the brain. For example, after a quadriplegic woman had sensors implanted in her brain, she was able to maneuver her arm to pick up a teacup.
An experiment aimed at reinforcing our biological instincts is under way in MIT labs. Implant extra layers of nerve cells in the brains of rats at a certain critical growth stage, and it will become smarter than its peers who haven't undergone cell transplantation. We're more familiar with the hormonal balance that controls our brain growth in childhood, and perhaps we can add a little neuron to our adult brains to boost some of our intelligence quotient (IQ) and restore our ability to remember as children.
Scientists also predict that soon the technology that combines humans and machines could put clinical tools to selective use. For example, anyone with healthy eyes could choose a device sensitive to infrared or ultraviolet radiation and install it in one of their eyes. We might also be able to install radio-connected Internet directly in the brain? Of course, there's no telling what the experience of browsing the Web with it would be like.
The accompanying technological advances will allow us many new biological capabilities. It is not unusual for medical professionals to be able to intervene and choose not only the sex of a baby at the moment of fertilization, but also many physical, mental and personality traits. We have already seen that the mere determination of the sex of a fetus has led to serious gender imbalances in some areas. It is to be expected that the new abilities will have a profound effect on the composition of the world's population.
We will also have the ability to alter existing bodies. surgical plastic surgery and biochemical cosmetic procedures (such as the use of botulinum toxin) became commonplace at the end of the twentieth century; biotechnology now makes it possible to genetically alter a person's body. These changes are, of course, intended to extend life and improve health, but many are also made simply for entertainment and style of life.
With the growing technology of combining man and machine, aided by molecular biology and genetic engineering, we are confronted with a bewildering array of questions: Is it ethical to manipulate human life? What is the responsibility of scientists to manipulate life? Half flesh, half machine, the future of the combination of man and machine, we are still? human? Are we still human beings?
Once upon a time, we only changed our perception of our own environment, our place in nature. Now, we are moving away from our role as passive observers of life and the order of all things, and want to become manipulators of life and order. We will not want to see ourselves confined to Darwinian evolution.
Now we can choose to participate in this new evolution in an explicit way, as a species. The combination of man and machine and the manipulation of human life in the name of science will inevitably create questions and problems, so where are the legal and ethical boundaries?