A look at our future selves

Among the known cyborgs (people who have technology implant into their bodies), Neil Harbisson is the first human being to implant a cyborg antenna in his skull to augment his vision. He is born colour blind, and the antenna implant detects and relays each colour into different sound waves, helping him to determine colours in the physical environment. And with that, Neil’s brain learned to recognise colours with sound.

Have you ever gave this a thought: given the chance, would you use biotechnology to ‘upgrade’ yourself? Digital implants that would aid you in making better decisions within a shorter time frame; enabling you to navigate; and to some extent bestowing upon us the capability to control the physical environment through a seamless human-machine interaction.

I was in a lighthearted chat about technology, enhanced beings and intelligent machines, and how in the not too distant future, artificial intelligence might become superior to human in problem-solving.

A likely scenario.

It is also probable that as scientists continue to experiment and push the envelope, human will adapt and adopt to new ways of living and perceiving — through human augmentation. In the case of Neil Harbisson, his brain adapted to a wholly different way in comparison to how the brain is originally wired in perceiving its surroundings.

This got me thinking. A lot has been said and narrated in films, of a futuristic setting where human would enhance their bodies, made possible by breakthroughs in the field of biotechnology.

Human augmentation enables us to go beyond physical and mental limitations. Amal Graafstra, founder of Dangerous Things who believes in ‘biohacking’, would sell you D.I.Y. kits to enhance your body. Think about an implant that will help you unlocking a door with a wave of your hand.

I can’t help but wonder, in what direction will our society evolve in the wake of newly enhanced beings? When ‘biohacking’ or ‘human augmentation’ become mainstream, what happens to those who choose not to be augmented?

While I may jokingly say “I do not have enough RAM to process this” whenever I feel drained of energy after a long day at work, I cannot yet picture a future where it is a norm to having conversations about upgrading our brain’s physical memory which could be as convenient as applying a free 5TB cloud storage on the Internet.

High-tech prosthetics and neural implants is already paving the way for the larger society to embrace the notion of augmenting human abilities using biotechnology. Who knows? Fifty years from now, a chip implant in the brain will connect us to the Internet and access to our very own memory storage!