How Close Are We to Building a Full-Fledged Cyborg?

The dream of the bionic man is coming true at an exhilarating charge per unit . As man get better and better at make machines , we keep attaching those machines to our bodies to make ourselves better humans . It seems at times that the only interrogation will is if we can put a human brain in a automatonlike frame . Actually , it ’s not a matter of if . It ’s a matter of when .

This week , societal psychologist Bertold Meyer ’s been journey around the area with a contraption that looks like a cross between a Halloween masque and Johnny Number Five . It ’s the content of a new documentary film by the Smithsonian Channel called The Incredible Bionic Man . Meyer make for a heavy spokesman , since he was assume without the lower part of his unexpended branch and now tire out a bionic prosthesis . He is , by definition , a bionic man — but only partially .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNoc08m7Kjc

So just how close are we to a fully form cyborg ? And even more oddly , what will it look like ?

What is a cyborg?

Let ’s take a indorsement to check on what on the button it mean to be bionic and what it means to be a cyborg . In many way , the two words are standardized , and both fall into usage around the same fourth dimension in 1960s . Whereas “ bionic”borrowsthe “ bi- ” from biology and “ -onic ” from electronic , “ cyborg”isa portmanteau of cybernetic and being . Both refer to living organism that are help or enhance by artificial means . Often these mean value amount to electronic or mechanical devices , much like the mind - controlled prosthetic bridge player that Meyer wear on his left arm . For now , let ’s just stick with cyborg for simplicity ’s interest .

The condition “ cyborg ” belike fetch to bear in mind images of Robocop or Darth Vadar . But in fact , it does n’t have to be so uttermost . When Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Klinecoined the term in a 1960 articleabout “ altering valet de chambre ’s bodily functions to meet the requirement of extraterrestrial environments , ” they explored chemistry as much as they did mechanical engineering . In this signified , even Lance Armstrong was a cyborg back in his juicing days . But for all intents and intention , cyborgs these day use machines to help them regain lost capability — likeamputees returning from Afghanistan — or to gain ground new single — likesoldiers armed with exoskeleton .

Our current capabilities

Those deterrent example in mind , you have to allow in that sometimes it feels we inhabit in a sci - fi realism . But that ’s only because we do . The so - called incredible Bionic Man that Meyersparaded around Washington DC last Thursdayrepresents the sum of cyborg region that have been in development for over half a century , many of which showed up in science fiction books in the interim . All thing recount , this boob tube - ready bionic man has between 60 and 70 percent of the part of a human being . It even has blood . But blood does not a cyborg make .

To begin think about what it might mean to have a fully formed bionic man , allow ’s go through our current capabilities in cyborg technical school — begin with our most innovative capabilities .

Limbs

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The automaton featured in the Smithsonian documentary has the same model of prosthetic weapon system as Meyer , mechanically skillful marvel made byTouch Bionics . He can move each of the finger by activating two electrodes that link up to muscles in the residual limb . This is scarce as good as it gets , though .

https://gizmodo.com/a-bionic-hand-is-the-ultimate-bluetooth-accessory-5531550

The latest craze in prosthetics and , by proxy , cyborg technology involve mind - contain limbs . DARPA ’s developed a prosthetic branch that uses targeted muscle reinnervention ( TMR ) to enable amputee to move robotic limbs only by thinking about it . This requires doctors to reattach sever nerve end to different brawniness in the arm , so that when the amputee wants to move his arm , he just thinks about moving his arm .

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We saw similar engineering in action to begin with this year , when the world ’s firstfully mind - control legarrived . Thanks to an United States Army - fund project , a Chicago humans was able-bodied to take the air commonly years after he ’d drop off his leg in a bike accident . detector on the mechanically skillful leg are link to two boldness in the man ’s hamstring and enable him to walk up stairs and stroll through the park . It looks a lilliputian chip futuristic , but hey , would n’t it ?

https://gizmodo.com/worlds-first-fully-bionic-mind-controlled-leg-goes-fo-1401152071

Bones

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For the most part , bones are jolly easy . Just about anything from a tibia to avertebracan be built out of artificial materials like titanium , and has been for a while now . More lately , technique for create artificial bone have better . Wecan grow young bonesusing plastics and stem cell . We can also print fresh bone using three-D - printing technology — this guygot a new skullthat was almost all 3D - print .

You do n’t have to replace the bone entirely to enter the cyborg area . Using titanium foam to make bones stronger , for instance , add up to a cyborg - alike sweetening . Along those lines , it ’s also deserving mentioning that your friend who got a metallic element scale in her leg after breaking it is technically a cyborg . Then again , so is your booster who wears glass .

electric organ

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The plight of the cyborg gets a little more complicated once we move to thing like internal organs , which have proved more unmanageable to replicate . Artificial hearts exist but are used more as stop gaps to help patients survive long enough for a transplant , although the technologyis always improving . contrived kidneys are alsoquickly becoming a reality , asare bionic eye .

matter get even more complicated — but promising — from there . Doctors have successfully built an artificial stomach , butit ’s hardly practical . Scientistshave develop stilted liver cellphone , but they have n’t actually managed to build an stilted reed organ . hokey intestinesare still in the whole kit and caboodle . An hokey vesica , spleen , lymph system , gall bladder — these are all still to come . As is the most complex electric organ of them all : the mind .

brainiac

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This is a bad one . The ( very retentive ) quest to build an artificial brain can be divided up into two part : recreating the brain ’s computer architecture and perfect contrived intelligence . engine driver are constantly coming up with new supercomputers that mime the brainiac ’s neural meshwork . Somehave as many as 530 billion nerve cell , a goodly amount liken to the mediocre human learning ability ’s 86 billion neuron . Some graduate scholar express off aone - million neuron modelthat can make computation just as tight as the brain , albeit briefly .

Building a neuron electronic internet is n’t the same as progress a nous , though . You have to make the affair think . The challenge of get a cognisant auto has proved to be unbelievably difficult , and even though we ’re seeing contrived intelligence in more and more mundane program ( think : Siri ) we do n’t yet have a way to make machines completely think for themselves . We do have artificial brains thatcan solve problems on their own , but creating something of the same complexity as the human brain might be impossible .

https://gizmodo.com/the-most-realistic-artificial-brain-has-a-mind-of-its-o-5964684

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So about that full-fledged cyborg…

allow ’s just take over , for the sake of simplicity , that we ’re not going to build an artificial brain . It might be out of the question , but it ’s surely very difficult since scientist using a supercomputer with 83,000 processorscould only mimic 1 - percent of the human brain ’s activity . Brains are really , really complicated . Plus , if we ramp up an stilted brain , is the bionic valet even a human any more ?

https://gizmodo.com/an-83-000-processor-supercomputer-only-matched-one-perc-1045026757

A pinnacle of cyborg technology , however , would be everything but the brain . Put simply , this version of a full - fledged cyborg would be a brain and a body totally made up of mechanically skillful theatrical role . RememberKrang from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ? It would be something like that . To get a better idea of how possible this would be , infer the current state of prosthetics and artificial organs , we talked to cyborg expert Tim Maly . ( Maly curated the Tumblr “ 50 Posts About Cyborgs“—you should definitely check out . )

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Maly ’s head was very simple . There ’s no way we ’re going to have a completely cybernetic human being with the material we ’re currently using . “ It belike wo n’t be a mechanical body , ” Maly say Gizmodo . “ It will in all probability be some biogrown body , and it wo n’t be recognizably to us as Robocop , because it ’ll already be part of a prospicient line of small improvements . ” So instead of a glazed robotic case , our cyborg might just get lab - arise flesh . That ’s probably ok , though . He ’d fit in better .

The inevitable ethical conundrum

need how long it would take for this biogrown body , Maly could n’t say . Obviously , there are a host of ethical question to be answer about how much sweetening is too much . Few people are comfortable with the approximation of military man playing God , and once we start build superhuman cyborgs , we ’re unquestionably entering that soil .

That in mind , it ’s believably safe to say that we ’ll build a full - fledged bionic woman when we ’re quick to , not just technologically ready but socially , politically , and religiously as well . It ’s very difficult to say when the ethical piece of the puzzle will fall into place . It could be decennium , and it could be a century . But the ethical argumentation should progress alongside engineering .

This is all to say that if you ’re looking fore to a hereafter of chrome - coat cyborg , just keep record those science fiction novels . Here on Earth , it ’ll be a fiddling bit more familiar . “ We ’re only at the very break of the day of that techno biologic revolution , ” Maly concluded about our hypothetical full - fledged bionic man , “ but I finger — at risk ofending up on Paleofuturein ten age — I palpate like it ’s much more probable that anything like that is go bad to do from biotechnology . ”

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