The death of the cyborg, where is the boundary of human-machine hybrid?

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In 2017, British scientist Peter Scott Morgan was diagnosed with ALS, and doctors told him he had only 6 months to live. Peter, who was reluctant to accept his fate, decided to use the power of technology to become the world's first "cyborg": a half-human, half-mechanical body state . In June 2022, after suffering from ALS for five years, Peter passed away - on June 15, Peter's family announced the sad news via Twitter.

As the world's first "cyborg", Peter's death also brought the seemingly sci-fi concept of "cyborg" into people's field of vision again. From Peter 1.0 to Peter 2.0, Peter showed the new possibility of human-machine mixing in the age of technology, and also opened up a beginning of the coexistence of beauty and risk for the future of human-machine mixing with the accompanying scientific and technological ethical issues.

Become a "cyborg"

"Cyborg" is quite a sci-fi concept. In the 1960s, two NASA scientists, ManfredClynes and NathanS.Kline, first proposed the concept of Cyborg in the study of cosmic travel. The word Cyborg is a combination of cybernetic and organic.

Its idea originates from the cybernetics proposed by Wiener, that is, the human body can operate like a machine based on the principles of control and feedback, so it has the possibility of being embedded with the machine to form a self-regulating human-machine system. Unlike robots, cyborgs emphasize thinking by the human brain and enhance capabilities through mechanical accessories.

For a long time, people have only stayed in the stage of imagination about "cyborg". After all, in the age when intelligent technology is not yet complete, combining with machines is more like a whimsical idea. With the advancement of technology, "cyborg" began to approach people's real life at an unprecedented speed, and Peter made a creative contribution in it.

Before 2017, Peter was an accomplished robotic scientist with a Ph.D. from Imperial College London, published 8 related books, and gave more than 1,000 speeches around the world. In 2017, Peter was diagnosed with ALS. 6 months left to live.

You must know that ALS is a terminal disease that is even crueler than cancer. As the disease progresses, the motor neurons in the patient's brain and spinal cord will gradually degenerate, causing muscle atrophy, and eventually the body will be as "frozen" as unable to Move, talk or eat, not even breathe. Famous physicist Stephen Hawking was trapped in a wheelchair for most of his life because of this disease.

As a result, Peter, who was reluctant to accept his fate, transformed himself into a "cyborg" through multiple surgeries, and evolved into "Peter 2.0" with the help of technologies such as eye tracking, speech synthesis, and virtual avatars.

The first thing Peter needed was a life support system, and for this he proposed a "triple ostomy" to the doctor: a gastrostomy, a colostomy and a cystostomy. The tubes were inserted directly into his stomach, colon, and bladder, respectively. But this plan was opposed by many doctors because it was too radical, and the operation itself could aggravate the development of the disease.

People couldn't understand why he wanted to harm his own healthy organs; at the same time, doctors refused to operate on him because of the risks of breathing obstruction and exacerbation of surgical anesthesia. Finally, after layers of persuasion, in July 2018, after 3 hours and 40 minutes of operation, Peter had a life-sustaining external system. This unprecedented three-in-one operation has also subverted the medical field's treatment direction for ALS, bringing new thinking.

After the operation, Peter stayed in the ICU for only one day before being transferred back to the general ward. Fifteen days after surgery, Peter was discharged home. The documentary "Peter: The Human Cyborg" by Channel4, a British TV station, filmed the real state of Peter before and after the operation. The operation was also written into a medical paper, published in the Oxford Medical Case Reports journal in 2019.

After completing the "input and output project" of the body, Peter also needs a set of equipment to complete his "input and output" mentally . In 2018, Peter approached Dr. Matthew Aylett, an expert in speech technology research and development, and CereProc, where he worked, to develop a speech synthesis system - compared to the rather rigid-sounding speech synthesis technology used by Hawking from 1986, Peter wanted to keep his voice.

In addition, because the muscles in Peter's face will gradually atrophy, causing him to lose facial expression, he contacted the artificial intelligence company Embody Digital in advance to create his own 3D virtual avatar after facial motion capture.

The whole project took over a year before and after. When the "virtual avatar" was finished, Peter was already having a hard time speaking, and he will undergo a total laryngectomy in 3 months. But fortunately, the effort paid off: the synth sound was pretty good, and the synth can even sing "Pure Imagination" with a sound similar to Peter's

Finally, Peter needed a "bridge" that would allow him to express his ideas. At the beginning, he thought about a brain-computer interface, but the efficiency of the brain-computer interface was too low, so he chose Hawking's solution: eye tracking. Peter found Lama Nachman, director of Intel's Anticipatory Computing Lab, who had developed a contextual aided awareness toolkit (ACAT) and upgraded Hawking's speech synthesis system. ACAT can learn from Hawking's expression. In the end, he only needs to input 20% of the letters, and the system can quickly predict his words. This greatly improves Hawking's communication efficiency and naturally helps Peter communicate with the world.

One month after the operation, Peter announced on social networks: "Peter 2.0 is live". With various AI blessings, Peter has become a complete cyborg, which is also the first complete cyborg in the world.

Cyborgs Are No Longer Far Away?

Although Peter's "cyborg" transformation is unique and shocking, in fact, today, "cyborg" is not as far away as we imagined. After all, according to the definition of cyborg, any self-circulating system that integrates the human body and the inorganic body is a cyborg.

Based on this, at present, the more common and practical cyborgs - even if they are local, at least include "exoskeletons", cochlear implants, cardiac pacemakers, etc.

Especially the exoskeleton, as a wearable mechanical device, the exoskeleton can assist the movement of human limbs, just like Iron Man's armor, providing superhuman strength. The operation of the mechanical exoskeleton is mostly based on the pickup of electrical signals from the muscles and nerves (EMG): in the process of movement, the brain sends instructions, and the trunk nerve sends signals to the muscles in the corresponding parts. The mechanical exoskeleton can be attached to the skin. The surface electromyography sensor detects the corresponding signal, and cooperates with the user to complete the action through the "exoskeleton".

However, the current exoskeletons still generally face the problem of energy consumption. Most of the exoskeletons can maintain the "superhuman ability" for only 1-2 hours. This defect makes the exoskeletons only used in medical rehabilitation and labor support. For commercial use in limited fields such as these, it is still a long way from the extensive enhancement of the human body.

The cochlear implant is an implanted hearing aid device. Its working principle is not to amplify the sound, but to convert the sound into electrical stimulation. The electrodes implanted in the body stimulate the auditory nerve, so that the patient "hears" the sound. The design makes the human body and the mechanical device interdependent to form a cooperative system.

Of course, the more distant cyborg is a very popular brain-computer interface in recent years . As a communication control system that does not depend on the normal efferent pathways of peripheral nerves and muscles, the brain-computer interface can collect and analyze brain bioelectrical signals, and build a direct communication and control path between electronic devices such as computers and the brain.

Today, the brain-computer interface has also entered the stage of progress from the laboratory to the market . In 2006, a Brown University research team completed the first implantation of a brain-computer interface device in the cerebral motor cortex, which can be used to control a mouse. In 2012, brain-computer interface equipment has been able to perform more complex and extensive operations, allowing paralyzed patients to control the robotic arm, drink water, eat, type and communicate with others.

At the opening ceremony of the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, Juliano Pinto, a high-level paraplegic youth, scored a goal with the help of brain-computer interface and artificial exoskeleton technology; in 2016, Nathan Copeland used his mind to control the robotic arm and shook hands with US President Barack Obama.

In 2017, the BrainGate team realized the control of an implantable functional electrical stimulation device through an implantable brain-computer interface, which is equivalent to using an external computer to repair the connection at the fracture of the original neural circuit, so that patients with spinal cord injury can control themselves through brain activity. arm and perform some daily activities autonomously.

In the same year, Musk established Neuralink, a brain-computer interface company, which added fire to the development of brain-computer interfaces. In 2019, Musk and his Neuralink team released their first product, a new technology called "back of the brain intubation" -- a neurosurgical robot that can safely and painlessly perforate the head like minimally invasive eye surgery , quickly implant a chip into the brain, and then directly read brain signals through the USB-C interface, and can be controlled with an iPhone.

In 2020, Musk showed new results on brain-computer interfaces at a press conference, including a simplified coin-sized Neuralink implant and a surgical robot for device implantation. The new device launched by Neuralink is named the Link v 0.9. Compared with the original device, the implantation steps are not very different, but the upgraded version of the brain-computer interface is smaller in size and better in performance, and is compatible with smart watches such as Apple Watch. It can also stand by all day, and wirelessly charge while sleeping.

At present, NeuraLink is actively seeking FDA approval for human experiments, but whether it is "exoskeleton", cochlear implants, pacemakers, etc., or brain-computer interfaces, cyborgs are no longer far away from us - Cyber Grid is moving from sci-fi imagination to real applications, and breakthroughs big and small are sketching a predictable future of human-machine hybrid.

the boundaries of technology

However, in addition to the surging cyborg technology, there are still "hidden corners", which is also a prominent feature of the technology era - the birth of any key technology is accompanied by the subversion of human thinking and even ethical norms. This is especially true of grid technology.

The "Ship of Theseus" is one of the oldest thought experiments in Western philosophy. It describes a ship that can be at sea for hundreds of years, and as soon as a piece of wood is broken or rotted, it is replaced, and so on, until all parts are no longer what they were. It raises the question: Is the final ship still the same ship, or a completely different ship?

This question can also be extended to the discussion of cyborgs: If the whole body is replaced, and only the neurons in the brain are left, are "us" still us? Or, although technology under the blessing of modern science has amazing powers that were once unimaginable to human beings, what have we become when we accept and adapt to these amazing powers?

You know, when we choose to transform ourselves and replace the physical body that depends on us with neat mechanical parts, we may gain superhuman abilities, but at the same time, we will also lose a part of our existence forever. When people are reduced to the signals flowing in the nervous system, the human spirit will also flow away.

Throughout the history of civilization, from the Code of Hammurabi on clay tablets to today's artificial intelligence, to the future of human-machine hybrids, humans have been doing everything they can to transcend the constraints of the human body. The ultimate alienation is nothing more than that humans are increasingly inseparable from machines, and this world operated by machines is more and more suitable for the survival of machines themselves, and such a world where humans and machines are mixed is driven by humans themselves. Created by hand.

In a sense, when we are more and more connected with machines, we hand over the memory of the road to the navigation and the memory of knowledge to the chip, and even the emergence of gender robots can help us solve our physical needs and spiritual needs Therefore, behind the seemingly continuous advancement of a more convenient and efficient way of life, the uniqueness of being a human has also achieved irreversible "degeneration" with the assistance of machinery. The more we can do with technology, the less we can do without it.

The goal of the mechanization of the human individual is not difficult to understand: to transcend the shackles of nature, avoid the fate of death, and realize the "next evolution" of human beings, but it also means a departure from the natural existence.

Paradoxically, while humans are afraid of implanting machines to materialize themselves, they fundamentally forget that materialization and immortality are two sides of the same coin, and the preciousness of life itself may lie in its rapid decay. While rejecting death, we also reject the value of life; while embracing information transformation and realizing physical evolution, the uniqueness of human beings is also stripped away with biological attributes.

From the perspective of application, or from the perspective of special scenarios, human-machine hybrid undoubtedly shows a practical hope and great social value, which requires further research and more technical support. But at the same time, human-machine hybrid also carries an ultimate myth about "people", which is related to the boundaries of technical needs and the limits of technical logic.

The ultimate meaning of the enthusiasm for technology is how to use an increasingly embodied technology, which also involves a deeper question: how big our bodies and brains really want Control range? Or, how prepared are we to relinquish control?