Kevin Warwick - I want to be a cyborg

From What The Wiki?!

Human senses pick up only about five percent of what's going on. According to Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading in the UK, humans should try to benefit from the higher capabilities of computers by linking their nervous systems to these machines.

This he told a large audience in the big tent on the first day of lecturing at WTH. He provided many examples where this technique is used to improve the lives of the handicapped or seriously ill. A man with Parkinson's decease who couldn't lift himself from a chair, for example, not only stood up from his chair at once, but also walked without any problem as soon as the implant in his brain connected to a computer was switched on.

Warwick has experimented with his own nervous system, because he is convinced that unless humans start to improve their own mathematical skills, networking capabilities and memory by using those of computers more effectively, machines might get the better of us and take over the world eventually.

The cybernetics expert started seven years ago with his first experiment on himself. A chip was implanted in his arm and monitored his movements as he walked through the Department of Cybernetics. This experiment made him probably the first cyborg: part human, part machine, achieving a direct link between his brain and a computer.

Also he tried out whether a robot who was linked to his senses would react to his movements long-distance, with himself being in the US and the robot in the UK. The robot did react, and Warwick felt a sensation that was new to him. "I felt what the robot's hand felt in the UK," he recalls to the WTH audience, "a current was running up my index finger as the robot moved."

Taking a step further, Warwick linked his own brain through a computer with his wife's finger tree years ago. This made it possible for them to communicate telegraphically. "There was full communication between us."

For his wife this was a one time experience only, but Warwick himself is still in for more. "I want to be a cyborg again", the Professor acknowledges. "I have been a cyborg in the past, and to quote Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played a cyborg in the movie The Terminator: 'I'll be back'."

Sanne

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