We, cyborgs

Twelfth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society
18-19 February 2016
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Buenos Aires,
Argentina
"WE, CYBORGS. HOW HUMANITY IS
INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY IN ITS BODIES
AND LIFE"
Susana Finquelievich, Ph D
CONICET – University of Buenos Aires

Respectfully dedicated to Prof.
Stephen Hawkins, my favourite
cyborg
Twelfth International Conference on
Technology, Knowledge & Society

How will technology affect our
species?
How will humans be 200 years from now?
How will technologies enlarge our capacities?
Can we live forever by incorporating artificial devices to
our bodies?
Would you transfer your brain to other human being?
Is 120 the new 40s?
• («+Humans: The Future of Our Species»)

What are tecnological changes of our
bodies, our minds, our lifes?
• Improvements?
• Unforeseeable changes?
• Is there a limit?
• Examples:
• Neil Harbisson (from colour blindness
to an anthena which uses audible
vibrations in his skull to report
information to him)
• Aimee Mullins (from missing fibula
bones to athete and fashion model)

Possible futures
Kurzweil predicts an exponential
increase in technologies
like computers, genetics,
nanotechnology, robotics and AI
Year 2045: Technological singularity
A point where progress is so rapid it
surpasses humans' ability to
comprehend it
Technological creation of
superintelligence

Two combined fears: technology and
knowledge
• Technological advances will
transform people as they
augment their minds and
bodies with genetic
alterations, nanotechnology,
and AI
• AI will be infinitely more
powerful than all human
intelligence combined
• Intelligence will radiate
outward from the planet until
it saturates the universe (!)Twelfth International Conference on

Other opinions
(Noam Chomsky, Paul Root Wolpe)
• Knowledge and technology are advancing at a rythm
we´re not aware of
• There is an increasing convergence between humans
and technologies
• We will go on discovering new complex phenomena
• The reference to robots is a reference to programs;
programs are designed by humans
• Can we design advanced AI if we have not achieved
that degree of intelligence?

Interactions societies – technology
are more complex than we think
• Societies are much more complex than we think in
their interactions with scientific fields
• Not A singularity, but a series of moments of change
• Universities have to change their structure to adapt
to new converging, interdisciplinary knowledge

Fear of intelligence and knowledge

Wanting more knowledge is punished
Irina Spalko: All she wanted
was total knowledge
But knowledge burned
her out

Fear of technology

Pre-humans had already incorporated
technology to their lives

A cascade of «mindware upgrades»
First revolution: language

A species defined by symbols
The human species can be defined by its special
ability to manipulate symbols
Each great augmentation in this skill has brought
enormous economic, social, political, religious,
epistemological, educational changes

Symbolic thinking
• Artifacts retrieved in South Africa—pigments,
pierced shell beads, engraved shells - have
located the origins of symbolic thinking at more
than 70,000 years ago
• In some cases, as early as 164,000 years ago
• Modern cognition was probably in place
when Homo sapiens emerged
Twelfth International Conference
onTechnology, Knowledge & Society

Accumulation of knowledge
• In most species, knowledge is stored in
individual brains. When the animal dies,
knowledge dies with it
• In human societies, knowledge is stored in the
group and transmitted to the next generations
• Knowledge accumulation is one major engine
of culture and progress

Successive cognitive upgrades
• Spoken language
• Written text and numerals
• Early printing (without moveable typefaces)
• The printing press
• Digital encodings that bring text, sound and image into a
uniform and widely transmissible format

Each phase produced improved
technological tools for our bodies and
minds

What´s a cyborg?
• Cyborg: derived from cybernetics and organism
• Term coined by Manfred Clynes in 1960
• It described the need for mankind to artificially
enhance biological functions in order to survive in
the hostile environment of Space

Yes, we are cyborgs
A Cyborg is:
Anyone who incorporates to his/her body, temporarily
or permanently, electronic technologies and
biotechnologies
Anyone who uses a computer or other electronic
device to work, socialize, create, study

The cyborg in my mind
• Not only our bodies use electronic devices
• Our minds reach throughout the world to generate,
exchange and co-create information and knowledge

Potent machinery linking
people to an ever more
responsive World Wide
Web
Steady smartening-up and
interconnection of the
everyday objects which
crowd our homes and
offices

A reinforced human species
• New potentials contributed by S&T and
machines make us more capable, more human
• We live longer, have children in older age and
rely on artificial intelligence to do routine
tasks

Collective intelligence
• Collective intelligence is not new
• Inovative knowledge has always been built on the
existing mass of knowledge
• ICTs—especially the Internet—now allow enormous
numbers of people all over the planet to work
together in new ways

People + knowledge + technologies =
Improved Humans
• The successes of systems like Google and Wikipedia
indicate that the time is now ripe for many more
such systems (MIT Center for Collective Intelligence)
• How can people and computers be connected so
that—collectively—they act more intelligently than
any person, group, or computer has ever done
before?

Evolution is incessant
• Human evolution takes its own time,
independently of machines
• There can be artificial manipulation of genes
• But…
• Evolution has its own ways that no one can
predict for sure
• We may add artifical parts, but we will not
become androids

This will not be our future

This MAY be our future
• The enhancement of capacities
• New capacities
• Why should there be a limit?

Which is the limit to intelligence, to
knowledge?
• Knowledge bears more knowledge, as it generates
increased human capacities for aprehending it
• Who wants to prevent the democratization of
knowledge?
• Who wants to appropriate knowledge?
• We may think of many social actors: churches,
bussiness, governments, the military… even the
scientists

The necessary condition to the
democratization of knowledge in KS
Acting, working, being,
as humans interacting
with machines, as
ciborgs
Leaving fear behind

QUESTIONS?
• Now we will hold a Garden Conversation, an
informal question and answer session
• Thank you!

We, cyborgs

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