Is the world becoming a cyborg?

The world is evolving around us, no doubt about it. How are we going to evolve beside it? Surely, not naturally, unless we find a way to speed up our biology. The only other way is by technology and augmentation. Some believe that we must become cyborgs, or cybernetic organisms, to keep up with the progression of society.

Some, like Elon Musk, argue that we’re already cyborgs. The phones that we hold inches away are just informational storage systems for our brains. He even argues that we should go further and find a way to physically merge with digital intelligence. The Neuralink project is one way he is hoping to accomplish the next step in evolution.

One person, and maybe more that I’m unaware of, has already done this. Neil Harbisson, seeking to cure his color-blindness, had an antenna installed that helps him see the wonderful world of color. If we loosen the definition of cyborg, could we also include those that choose to augment their reality with video games or those that need technology to overcome an injury?

When I think about it past my science-fiction fear that A.I. will overtake humanity, the idea of becoming an augmented human doesn’t seem so bad. For one, the possibility of being able to write by simply thinking instead of typing appeals to me. Is there a danger in losing myself to the cybernetic part of the organism?

That’s where science meets philosophy. What exactly makes a human a human? Science fiction that features cyborgs has long shown them struggling with their identities. I can see a world where people would refuse to get augmentations to remain pure. I don’t have to tell anyone that such things snowball downhill rather quickly.

So, are we human or are we dancer? The Killers reportedly took a quote by Hunter S. Thompson and used it as inspiration for their song “Human”. The quote reads, “America is raising a generation of dancers, afraid to take one step out of line.” If the next step in our biology is cybernetic, are we going to follow or step out?

I, for one, find beauty in the imperfections of humanity. It’s easy for me to say most days since I’m not physically or mentally limited, but our struggles are what make us unique. I think augmentation would take that away from some people and they would become “dancers” unable to step out of an automated line.

In any story where the overarching them is “human vs blank”, the human only prevails because of their humanity. Whether it is compassion, or charity, or love, or creativity. We risk losing ourselves if we rely on augmentation too much. As Dr. Ian Malcolm said in “Jurassic Park”, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

The word cybernetic links itself to the word robot in my mind, though they are different. I can’t help but to link the idea of robots to a loss of humanity. Arguably, we have a while until we have to make the choice to step in line with the cyborgs or not. I think in the meantime, if this is the trajectory we are heading as a world, we should work out what things will look like.

Will there be a need for work as technology takes care of our biological needs? What about procreation, is a baby augmented at birth or are they given a choice? How are we going to manage the hardware and software for literal billions of people? Where are we going to get the resources for the hardware and software?

The answer, for now, is undoubtedly “We’ll figure it out”. It could be very well that the answer of survival is in cybernetics. I think we live in a generation of dreamers that are constantly inventing hypotheticals while the pragmatists of the world are stuck searching for the answer to “how?”. To quote Dr. Ian Malcolm once again, “Life…uhh…finds a way”.

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