Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve cameray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff Works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pellette,
Speaker 1: and I am an editor here at How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: and sitting next to me as usual as senior writer
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Come with me if you want to live.
Speaker 1: Oh no, you went there, did you? I did? Already
Speaker 1: We're gonna We're gonna talk about cyborgs. And first of all,
Speaker 1: I would like to apologize to the anonymous listener out
Speaker 1: there who sent me the request that we do an
Speaker 1: episode about cyborgs. I did a search because I know
Speaker 1: I had seen it, but does searching my email could
Speaker 1: not find that request. So to whomever it was that
Speaker 1: sent that request, I apologize, but hopefully you'll enjoy what
Speaker 1: we have to tell you. All right, then, so where
Speaker 1: should we start. Let's let's start by defining what a
Speaker 1: cyborg is. That's good because the first thing I had
Speaker 1: was the definition from Miriam Webster, which was, uh, a
Speaker 1: cyborg is a bionic human, which really didn't tell me anything.
Speaker 1: So I had to look up bionic, because I figured
Speaker 1: that would give me a clue, And they do say
Speaker 1: that bionic means quote having normal biological capability or performance
Speaker 1: enhanced by or as if by electronic or electro mechanical
Speaker 1: devices end quote, So basically a biological person who is
Speaker 1: enhanced in some way by technology. Interesting. When I did
Speaker 1: a search for a good definition of cyborg, the first
Speaker 1: thing I got was cybernetic organism, which, like your definition,
Speaker 1: does not help you out a whole lot um. However,
Speaker 1: cybernetics is a study of human control functions and a
Speaker 1: mechanical and electronic systems is designed to replace them, involving
Speaker 1: the application of statistical mechanics to communication engineering. So really
Speaker 1: cybernetics is more and just just computers or computing systems.
Speaker 1: It's also biology, um, neuroscience, that kind of thing. Also,
Speaker 1: if you're curious as to where the words cybernetics comes from,
Speaker 1: it has a Greek origin meaning terminator. No, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: it means helmsman or steersman, so someone someone who who
Speaker 1: pilots a ship. Okay, then you know it's funny because
Speaker 1: you're all terminator. But when I started thinking of cyborgs,
Speaker 1: I was thinking more along lines of the six million
Speaker 1: dollar man or the bionic woman. Right, well, you know,
Speaker 1: even even neuromanswer clearly, the six million dollar man is
Speaker 1: science fiction because there's no way you'd be able to
Speaker 1: build that sucker for six million dollars. Well this was
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, right, Well, that's true. Six million dollars
Speaker 1: then was about thirty trillion dollars. So, um, but somebody's
Speaker 1: gonna write in and go, no, it's not so cybernetics.
Speaker 1: That was a term that was introduced by Norbert Wiener
Speaker 1: or Veener if you prefer. I. Yeah, that appeared in
Speaker 1: So uh, let's talk a little bit about No, is
Speaker 1: cyborg really within just the realm of science fiction or
Speaker 1: is this reality? Well that's a good question. Um. I
Speaker 1: would say it's it's reality, but the reality is not
Speaker 1: nearly is exciting and fun as science fiction makes it seem.
Speaker 1: I think it all depends upon the particular cybernetics application
Speaker 1: you're talking about and the purpose for that application, Because
Speaker 1: for some people, I would say that the cybernetics and
Speaker 1: cyborg studies in particular are incredibly interesting, mainly because a
Speaker 1: lot of people are regaining use of certain senses or
Speaker 1: limbs that they may not otherwise be able to use
Speaker 1: due to cybernetics. So we can talk a little bit. Well,
Speaker 1: how did you want to think talk about this? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I did a lot of my research on
Speaker 1: a recent article written for the site. You know, will
Speaker 1: we ever be able to communicate with only our minds? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with that. Yes, well, I mean, um, ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen of the podcast, this is something that Jonathan
Speaker 1: wrote about just a few days ago, and as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, as we are speaking, it hasn't actually
Speaker 1: been published on the site, but probably will be by
Speaker 1: the time that you're listening to this. But it's it's
Speaker 1: fascinating because, you know, the idea that we would be
Speaker 1: able to communicate with our minds, you know, the idea
Speaker 1: was tell, you know, telepathic communication, Because it turns out
Speaker 1: it's more like, can you find some kind of technology
Speaker 1: that will help you do that? In the answer is yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're going by the strictest definition, Uh,
Speaker 1: can we communicate with only our minds? The answer is
Speaker 1: really no, because we we do need something in addition
Speaker 1: to our own minds in order to transmit the thought
Speaker 1: to someone else. Um, But we're actually making progress and
Speaker 1: doing that, and it's all because of what we call
Speaker 1: brain computer interfaces, and it's pretty much what sounds like.
Speaker 1: It's an interface that allows you to control or input
Speaker 1: data into a computer using your brain. Most of these
Speaker 1: use e G. S Um that These those are the Yeah,
Speaker 1: the sensors you see that are hooked up to strategic
Speaker 1: points upon your noggin. Uh, They detect the electric impulses
Speaker 1: in your brain and can interpret those impulses. You know,
Speaker 1: we've studied the brain enough to know, hey, when you
Speaker 1: think lift my left arm, this area of your brain
Speaker 1: lights up. When you think lift my right arm, this
Speaker 1: area of the brain lights up. So by doing that,
Speaker 1: even though we don't technically understand all of the mechanics
Speaker 1: behind it, we know enough where we can build a
Speaker 1: computer interface system to kind of take advantage of that. Now,
Speaker 1: this is in its most primitive form. Right now, there's
Speaker 1: really not Uh. We haven't reached a point where you
Speaker 1: can put on you know, your thinking cap to for
Speaker 1: lack of a better word, and have someone else put
Speaker 1: a similar cap on and then you think, hey, I'm hungry,
Speaker 1: would you like to go get some pizza? And then
Speaker 1: the other person receives that thought and can understand it.
Speaker 1: We're not there yet. Uh. The experiment that I wrote
Speaker 1: about within that article was fascinating, but it involved actually
Speaker 1: thinking I want to lift my left arm or I
Speaker 1: want to lift my right arm. The computer would receive
Speaker 1: the electric electric signals that were zapping around in the
Speaker 1: subject's brain and could interpret that. And so if you
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't don't have the article in front
Speaker 1: of me, but I think left arm was a zero
Speaker 1: and right arm was a one. So if the subject
Speaker 1: thought I'm going to lift my left arm, the computer
Speaker 1: interpreted it as a zero. If the subject thought I'm
Speaker 1: going to lift my right arm, the computer interpreted as
Speaker 1: a one. The computer then sent this series of zeros
Speaker 1: and ones to a second machine that was in a
Speaker 1: remote location, and that would interpret it as you know,
Speaker 1: it would get a zero or one. It would then
Speaker 1: send a series of signals to a a lamp, an
Speaker 1: led lamp, which would flash in a very very fast
Speaker 1: series of flashes depending on whether it was a zero
Speaker 1: or a one. It was two different series, but it
Speaker 1: was such almost random looking and quick series of flashes
Speaker 1: that humans wouldn't be able to say, oh that was
Speaker 1: zero or that was a one. They would just see, oh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of flashes. That was a different, slightly
Speaker 1: different set of flashes. Um, well, the brain is enough,
Speaker 1: can can actually record you know what the different series
Speaker 1: of flashes are. You're not conscious of it, but your
Speaker 1: your brain is picking it up. And by wearing by
Speaker 1: the subject be wearing an e G setup uh, the
Speaker 1: e G would detect the signals in the brain that said, hey,
Speaker 1: this is the series of flashes that lit up. That
Speaker 1: means that it was a zero, or that means it
Speaker 1: was a one. And so without using any kind of
Speaker 1: keyboard or anything, subject one could send a series of
Speaker 1: zeros and ones to subject to or subject and b
Speaker 1: I think is what I said originally, Um and uh,
Speaker 1: and you and the subject you would receive them. Now
Speaker 1: you're not again you You would need a separate, a
Speaker 1: third computer really to interpret those brain signals so that
Speaker 1: subject being knows what kind of message they got. It
Speaker 1: would almost be like if I wrote to you using
Speaker 1: a language that you weren't familiar with. You could read it,
Speaker 1: but you have no idea what the meaning is. You
Speaker 1: should have to have something translated. So we're not quite
Speaker 1: to the point yet where we can send an actual
Speaker 1: thought and have someone consciously understand it. But the progress
Speaker 1: has been remarkable. Yeah. Yeah, Actually in another um, not
Speaker 1: exactly similar, vein, but I read an article in in
Speaker 1: Wired magazine by Clive Thompson, uh, and it's it was
Speaker 1: about what he was calling the cyborg advantage. And this
Speaker 1: makes it. This is kind of you know, the title's
Speaker 1: waiste here than the content, but it's about chess actually,
Speaker 1: and um, you remember Gary Kasparov, who who you know,
Speaker 1: beat and then lost to uh the IBM computer deep Blue. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: he he won I think in ninety six and then
Speaker 1: in a rematch in nineties seven lost in a series
Speaker 1: of six games. Well, according to Thompson's article, he's been
Speaker 1: working on a situation in which he pairs computers and
Speaker 1: humans because basically the humans know how to make sense
Speaker 1: of the computer decision. So it's like playing chess with
Speaker 1: the laptop and you you, um, you make the laptop
Speaker 1: your partner and you say, okay, well you know the
Speaker 1: other the other player just made this move. What do
Speaker 1: you think computer? The computer says, the logical move is
Speaker 1: to do this, and the human can either accept that
Speaker 1: decision and play that piece or say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I have the feeling he's up to something and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm not gonna make move. I'm gonna make this move.
Speaker 1: And so he uh, you know, the the other player
Speaker 1: is able to you know, make a decision based on
Speaker 1: the computer intelligence. It's sort of like it actually kind
Speaker 1: of reminded me of meteorologists going, well, you know the
Speaker 1: computer models say, um, but basically there was a there
Speaker 1: was a two thousand five tournament in which basically anything went.
Speaker 1: So it was possible to participate in this tournament as
Speaker 1: a computer human pairing and uh, there were a couple
Speaker 1: of twenties somethings with and off the shelf PC essentially
Speaker 1: who did better than the really you know, like the
Speaker 1: grand masters of chess or you know, the heavy duty
Speaker 1: computer models. So basically that the two of them were
Speaker 1: stronger than a computer or a really talented chess player. UM.
Speaker 1: So you know, I don't know how scientific that is,
Speaker 1: but it's it's an interesting thought to think, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the augmentation of a human with computer technology, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, as a nice balance in between the too.
Speaker 1: That's actually, uh, that reminds me a lot of what
Speaker 1: Professor Kevin Warwick talks about in his in his various
Speaker 1: papers and and experiments that he's performed. Um. He's a
Speaker 1: professor at the Cybernetics Institute at the University of Reading
Speaker 1: in the UK, and you mentioned him in your article,
Speaker 1: right and Warwick, Um, he's actually he was known for
Speaker 1: doing some things that some people have kind of called stunts,
Speaker 1: but he was sort of using them as a way
Speaker 1: of a proof of concept form for a cybernetics cyborg future. UH.
Speaker 1: Back in he did this experiment where he had a
Speaker 1: doctor implant a essentially in UH an r f i
Speaker 1: D chip in him and UH the chip would allow
Speaker 1: him to walk through the laboratory and do things like
Speaker 1: open doors and turn on lights and whatever without without
Speaker 1: actually having to move a muscle because it just detected
Speaker 1: the chip and then the system reacted. Now, this really
Speaker 1: has limited use when you think about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: the risks you're taking by having something implanted in your
Speaker 1: body just to turn on lights, that seems like that's
Speaker 1: not really a good use of your time. I mean,
Speaker 1: most of us can achieve this by carrying around a
Speaker 1: little card has a chip in it that doesn't require surgery.
Speaker 1: True but he was doing this as a proof of concept,
Speaker 1: and um, I don't think it's still in him. I
Speaker 1: think he's I think in every single case he's had
Speaker 1: the various things removed after the experiment was over. Also,
Speaker 1: just aside benefit of that, if he runs away from home,
Speaker 1: they'll be able to track him down. Yeah. So in
Speaker 1: two thousand two, he had a one electrode array surgically
Speaker 1: implanted into his um left arm, and this allowed him
Speaker 1: to plug it into a kind of look like this,
Speaker 1: this plastic collar almost that would that would close around
Speaker 1: his arm. Um. It looked very much like a sort
Speaker 1: of Star Trek kind of device, and uh, some wires
Speaker 1: would attach to the the color plastic color around his arm,
Speaker 1: and he would be able to do things like control
Speaker 1: robotic hands remotely. And what was happening was that, you know,
Speaker 1: your nervous system works through electrical impulses, like we're talking
Speaker 1: about in the brain, Well, the same is true all
Speaker 1: throughout your nervous system. So you you are a walking
Speaker 1: electrical being, um, at least as far as your nervous
Speaker 1: system is concerned. So by pairing these electrodes with the
Speaker 1: nerve endings in his arm, he was able to send
Speaker 1: electric signals through his nervous system, which the the computer
Speaker 1: could interpret as, oh, this means open the robotic hand,
Speaker 1: this means closed the robotic hand. And to keep it simple,
Speaker 1: they pretty much kept it the same as opening and
Speaker 1: closing his own hand. Um, but that meant that it
Speaker 1: showed that you could control various mechanical devices through your
Speaker 1: own nervous system. Now, granted, this is not a brain
Speaker 1: computer interface. This is this is her computer interface, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it seems like that would be much simpler
Speaker 1: to organize compared to a brain computer interface. It as
Speaker 1: much simpler. However, it's still incredibly complicated, and of course
Speaker 1: you have lots of things to worry about. I mean two,
Speaker 1: whenever you're surgically implanting foreign materials into a human body,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different things you have to
Speaker 1: worry about, like infection, rejection, that kind of thing. I
Speaker 1: have to worry about rejection every day in my life.
Speaker 1: Uh at any rate, So that's a sidebar. The He
Speaker 1: then went on to have another interesting experiment where his
Speaker 1: wife had a similar, slightly more primitive implant and put
Speaker 1: into her arm and then the two were connected. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder how he talked her into that. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I can never talk my wife into doing
Speaker 1: something like that. She'd be like, yeah, whatever, um. But
Speaker 1: but at any rate, the way the the connection worked
Speaker 1: was that whenever his wife opened or closed her hand,
Speaker 1: he would get an impulse through his nervous system and
Speaker 1: would he said, feel a pulse. He did not really
Speaker 1: define how it felt, so I'm really curious to as
Speaker 1: to what kind of sensation is he talking about, Like,
Speaker 1: how did he perceive? I know that he did perceive,
Speaker 1: or at least he claims to have perceived his wife
Speaker 1: opening and closing her hand, And that seems like it's
Speaker 1: an easy enough thing to test. You know, you could
Speaker 1: keep them both separate and as long as the connection
Speaker 1: was good, um, you know, just have him indicate whenever
Speaker 1: she opened or closed her hand, and if it matched up,
Speaker 1: then you know, all right, there's something there. But he
Speaker 1: did not go into how what it felt like, So
Speaker 1: I don't know what his actual perception was. But this
Speaker 1: was another way of saying, hey, you know, maybe we'll
Speaker 1: get to a point where again we'll be able to communicate.
Speaker 1: Actually they could theoretically, at least she could communicate to
Speaker 1: him remotely just through morse code opening and closing her hand.
Speaker 1: But yeah, maybe that's is good robust enough. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I don't know how good that connection was, like
Speaker 1: how far away they could be from each other, or
Speaker 1: if it was through the Internet connection or anything like that.
Speaker 1: That I got the least amount of information about that
Speaker 1: particular experiment. But Warwick's point is that cybernetics can give
Speaker 1: us a lot of enhanced abilities that we otherwise would
Speaker 1: never have access to. So not just the ability to
Speaker 1: communicate remotely, which is phenomenal, but imagine being able to
Speaker 1: tap into the network of information on the Internet through
Speaker 1: your brain. Yeah. That that again sort of reminds me
Speaker 1: of like the matrix and neuromancer, where you know, you
Speaker 1: plug something in and suddenly you have access to all
Speaker 1: this information neither stored well in those cases, more like
Speaker 1: like an e book where you can you know, just
Speaker 1: have access to that without being connected to the Internet.
Speaker 1: Now what's interesting here is you would you would remember things.
Speaker 1: It's like memory, right, Like you would be able to say, huh,
Speaker 1: when was you know, uh, when was the Magna Carta signed?
Speaker 1: And then you access the Internet through your brain and like,
Speaker 1: oh it's twelve fifteen. But no, that's not it's a
Speaker 1: three oh oh the year got it? King John Magna
Speaker 1: Carta work with me here. So um. But but yes,
Speaker 1: you could. You could recall facts, but you wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: be smarter. You would just remember a lot more stuff. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: that would sort of be like the chess versus uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the chess situation where the computer is acting
Speaker 1: on logic and it was you know, this is a
Speaker 1: logical move it. You know, in the past many people
Speaker 1: have used this and in the the end result was
Speaker 1: a win. But two percent of the time that people
Speaker 1: use this move, they went on to win the match. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And and you know the human is using intuition and
Speaker 1: is able to use human intelligence to make sense of
Speaker 1: that information. So you know, having the opportunity to use
Speaker 1: that information from you know, downloaded online. But you're right,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to do anything other than just
Speaker 1: simply know the act. You might win a lot of
Speaker 1: Jeopardy games, right, but you wouldn't be able to Let's
Speaker 1: say you needed to to look up a particular formula
Speaker 1: for some sort of mathematical equation. You might be able
Speaker 1: to find the formula, but that doesn't mean you would
Speaker 1: understand it, right, So there's there's that barrier there. Now,
Speaker 1: that's not to say that there wouldn't be other developments,
Speaker 1: cybernetic developments that would allow you to have much more say,
Speaker 1: processing power in your brain as well, where maybe you
Speaker 1: don't have to understand it. You've got the computer working there,
Speaker 1: which Warwick's point was that frees up your brain to
Speaker 1: do other things like create poetry or you know, watch
Speaker 1: the Simpsons at any rate. Uh, other ways you could
Speaker 1: enhance it, and not just not just through being able
Speaker 1: to access information, but to sense things that human beings
Speaker 1: are unable otherwise to sense, like ultrasonic frequencies or light
Speaker 1: that's outside of the visible spectrum. Right. You know, you
Speaker 1: would be able to maybe create a cybernetic implant that
Speaker 1: would allow you too, uh see X rays, provided of course,
Speaker 1: your eyes are capable of seeing them. Well, again, why
Speaker 1: would it have to be an eye. You could build
Speaker 1: a sensor like let's say that you don't do it
Speaker 1: through your eyes. Let's say that you have a sensor
Speaker 1: placed somewhere else on your body that you know, we
Speaker 1: think of it as seen, but it doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: to be seeing that's that's that's Warwicks point is that
Speaker 1: we we already think in such a narrow set of
Speaker 1: parameters that cybernetics really goes blows all that out of
Speaker 1: the water, and suddenly you become this machine or slash
Speaker 1: human that's capable of sensing uh, you know, a significant
Speaker 1: more information about your environment and even be able to
Speaker 1: interpret it more because you could tap into, say the
Speaker 1: Internet remotely. Now, this this raises a lot of ethical problems.
Speaker 1: I sent us treading closer to the singularity with this conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does kind of get it definitely goes to that
Speaker 1: same sort of area. But one of the ethical issues
Speaker 1: is who is able to to do this? Should they?
Speaker 1: Should they do it? And if they can do it
Speaker 1: and they want to do it, what does that mean
Speaker 1: for the people who either cannot do it or don't
Speaker 1: want to. Are they left behind? Do we become two
Speaker 1: different species of creatures because you would have the cyborgs
Speaker 1: who would suddenly have access to all this information and
Speaker 1: sensory uh, information that otherwise they wouldn't have, and the
Speaker 1: rest of us would just be bags of meat sees
Speaker 1: sneeches without Yeah, so there you go, like, you know,
Speaker 1: these are questions we don't have answers to right. For
Speaker 1: one thing, the technology is nowhere near there yet. And uh,
Speaker 1: some might argue that, hey, since we can't do it yet,
Speaker 1: why are we Why are we wasting time worrying about it?
Speaker 1: But my point is it's better to think about these
Speaker 1: things ahead of time before they become a real issue,
Speaker 1: you know. And and and it may turn out that this
Speaker 1: is one of those things where science leaps far ahead
Speaker 1: of ethics or the law and it only becomes a problem,
Speaker 1: you know, or it becomes a problem and then we
Speaker 1: address it as opposed to let's think about this now
Speaker 1: and trying to address it ahead of time. Um. But
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you were about to say, well, no, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say that, you know, it hasn't stopped it
Speaker 1: from becoming a reality in other circumstances. Very good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's just not again as as flashy, um, and
Speaker 1: as those experiments that we were we were just discussing,
Speaker 1: I mean things like you know, Barney Clark's first artificial heart,
Speaker 1: you know, that was a technological advancement. Or a pacemaker,
Speaker 1: for example, is an electronic device that is implanted in
Speaker 1: somebody to uh, to help people monitor their heart rhythms
Speaker 1: and make them more regular. Um. Yeah, there's some really
Speaker 1: phenomenal technology that's already in fairly common use out there
Speaker 1: that um that really kind of falls right into this
Speaker 1: cyborg uh category. I mentioned cochlear implants earlier. That's definitely
Speaker 1: something that would fit. So a cochlear implant. That's an
Speaker 1: electronic device, and it's designed to help people who have
Speaker 1: severe hearing loss or who are even deaf um be
Speaker 1: able to perceive sound. Now they're perceiving it differently than
Speaker 1: the way people who have normal hearing would perceive it.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly the same thing. A cochlear implant. It
Speaker 1: has a microphone, so that's what's picking up the sound
Speaker 1: from the environment. UM. It usually has a speech processor
Speaker 1: which kind of helps arrange that sound to to help
Speaker 1: the listener makes sense of it. Um. And then the
Speaker 1: transmitter sends signals to an electrode array, which sends the
Speaker 1: impulses to various regions on the auditory nerves. So you're
Speaker 1: getting the signals sent directly to the auditory nerve. It's
Speaker 1: not passing through the regular organs of the ear, you know.
Speaker 1: And uh so people who have cochlear implants can actually
Speaker 1: perceive sound. Again, it's not exactly the same kind of
Speaker 1: sound that we perceive, but with training, they can completely
Speaker 1: hear and be able to hold conversations and uh, differentiate
Speaker 1: different sounds. It's just it's it's almost impossible to really, like,
Speaker 1: I can't I can't compare the two because clearly, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just have normal hearing. I don't have a cochlear implant,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't tell you what the differences are, like,
Speaker 1: I couldn't give you any kind of meaningful description between
Speaker 1: the two. But it is it is a common well
Speaker 1: not common might not be the right word, but it
Speaker 1: is in use. It is not uncommon. Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not like there's only three people walking around experimentally.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are thousands of these um and it's
Speaker 1: really revolutionized that, you know, the way we treat people
Speaker 1: who have severe hearing loss. But it's not like people
Speaker 1: are walking around like Victor Stone from the Teen Titans,
Speaker 1: otherwise known as Cyborg, who has you know, detachable hands
Speaker 1: that you can refit with lasers to fight bad guys
Speaker 1: with no cucklear implants don't do that. Well, no, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying it's not flashy or showy or something like
Speaker 1: that where you have a lot of that going on. Well,
Speaker 1: and then there's um, did you read up on bionic eyes?
Speaker 1: Bionic eyes? Yea, cybernetic eyes. Actually, well, I mean six
Speaker 1: million million dollar man in one right, Uh, this is
Speaker 1: not as flashy as that. I exactly. So the current
Speaker 1: the current state of the cybernetic eye, it's it's still
Speaker 1: really fascinating, but it's one of those things where when
Speaker 1: you hear the term, you immediately kind of imagine what
Speaker 1: it must be like, and chances are your imagination is
Speaker 1: already jumping leaps into bounds of of beyond technology. Yes,
Speaker 1: exactly so, currently the state of cybernetic eyes. It's usually
Speaker 1: a system that involves a pair of glasses that the
Speaker 1: side impaired person wears, and there are cameras mounted onto
Speaker 1: the glasses. The cameras are the one things that are
Speaker 1: picking up the images, uh, sending signals to UM a transmitter,
Speaker 1: which then transmits it to a an implant. UM. There's
Speaker 1: actually an implant that is surgically attached to the rear
Speaker 1: of the retina and that sends the signals to the
Speaker 1: the visual cortex of the brain. So you're basically bypassing
Speaker 1: your biological eyes. Yeah, you're using the eye as a lens,
Speaker 1: but that's about it. No, well, no you're not. You're
Speaker 1: using the cameras a lens, but the eye. Yes, you're
Speaker 1: the you're essentially saying, okay, well the eyes are not
Speaker 1: working the way they should. You've got the the kind
Speaker 1: of a bionic retina attached to the back of the eye.
Speaker 1: So yes, you are bypassing the normal um, the normal eyes,
Speaker 1: and you don't really get an image the way we
Speaker 1: think of images. You get a difference of light or dark,
Speaker 1: and it's made up of just a few dozen pixels.
Speaker 1: So really it's good for detecting light environments, dark environments,
Speaker 1: and motion. Um, you don't really have a lot there
Speaker 1: to to really be able to recognize actual shapes, or
Speaker 1: at least not not really distinctly. I mean, with training,
Speaker 1: people who have these have been able to recognize certain shapes,
Speaker 1: but it takes a while because it is it's not
Speaker 1: a very high resolution picture. In fact, it's abouts low
Speaker 1: resolutions you can imagine. But the the hope is that
Speaker 1: maybe in the future you would be able to develop this.
Speaker 1: Not you, Chris, because you've got other things to do,
Speaker 1: but that scientists would be able to develop this to
Speaker 1: the point where people who were using them would be
Speaker 1: able to recognize faces or perhaps even read large print books. Um,
Speaker 1: we're well away from that right now. But but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of work going into it, and it also
Speaker 1: sounds a little bit like some of the work that
Speaker 1: Dean Cayman has been doing, right, Like we talked about it.
Speaker 1: Of course, we talked about that in the previous podcast,
Speaker 1: right that was last year. Yeah, we talked about that
Speaker 1: was a focus on Cayman. We haven't done a focus
Speaker 1: on a very long time. Yeah, I love to do
Speaker 1: that at some point. But he's been working with UH
Speaker 1: with cybernetics and and uh ways to create artificial limbs
Speaker 1: that are basically respond to uh, you know, nerve impulses
Speaker 1: and and get people to move. And he's been very
Speaker 1: successful as far as designing the limbs and and having
Speaker 1: them be uh, you know, a good weight and have
Speaker 1: a lot of articulation, less successful with the nerve interface.
Speaker 1: He's been using other interfaces in the meantime while while
Speaker 1: there the scientists have been trying to perfect the nerve
Speaker 1: device interface. So things like you know, foot pedals that
Speaker 1: are in that you wear in your shoes, and you
Speaker 1: use your toes to actually, you know, control the arm. Interesting,
Speaker 1: so you can make the wrist turn or or the
Speaker 1: fist open or close just by moving your toes a
Speaker 1: certain way. Um. But yeah, the goal, of course is
Speaker 1: that eventually you would be able to implant uh wires
Speaker 1: within the nervous system and be able to control the
Speaker 1: arm without having to use some other like extra control system. Now,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of other issues that I think
Speaker 1: of when it comes to cybernetics and cyborgs. It's not
Speaker 1: just you know, should we do it. I think of
Speaker 1: things like my electronics tends to right down. I would
Speaker 1: hate for my eye to stop working. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: but for a lot of people it does. I mean
Speaker 1: biologically it can. And you might even argue that, hey, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: if your eyes were mechanical, you could have them fixed,
Speaker 1: whereas when they're biological that may not be an option.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you got you got a good argument there.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I don't want to be like, you know,
Speaker 1: piloting my flying car while I get the blue screen
Speaker 1: of death over both eyes. Now, I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: my eyes would necessarily be running Windows twelve, but who knows.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting thought though, well, and I mean I
Speaker 1: do there are other things you gotta worry about. Like
Speaker 1: I said, though, with the just the whole introducing any
Speaker 1: kind of foreign object into the body, there are all
Speaker 1: these concerns you have to have the go beyond just
Speaker 1: the ethical implications. I mean they're actual, like you know,
Speaker 1: biological health implications as well, but un and all the
Speaker 1: lead that would be in the soldering for that, right. Yeah, anyway, Well,
Speaker 1: moving on then, I think I think this was a
Speaker 1: good discussion about cyborgs. So yeah, I think we're on
Speaker 1: our way to seeing at least a variation of the
Speaker 1: cyborg and science fiction become a reality. It may not
Speaker 1: be quite as sexy as the Terminator, No, probably not,
Speaker 1: at least not in the short run. No, but you
Speaker 1: know Skynet's coming, so don't worry guys. Well, I guess
Speaker 1: that's pretty much wraps up this discussion. If any of
Speaker 1: you have any comments, questions, suggestions, things like that, you
Speaker 1: can write us. Our email address is tech stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, and we have articles on
Speaker 1: the website right now that cover things from bionic eyes
Speaker 1: to cochlear implants, and being able to communicate telepathically with
Speaker 1: the use of computers. Hopefully that'll be up by the
Speaker 1: time this this episode goes live, so you should check
Speaker 1: that out. Remember that's how stuff Works dot com and
Speaker 1: Chris and I will talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: For moralness and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com and be sure to check out the
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