Are We Becoming a Race of Cyborgs?

Ever meet a cyborg? Most of us will quickly answer "no". After all, cyborgs are mythical creatures: Terminators with human skin, Robocops and Morphin' Power Rangers, Borgs, and bionic men and women with super-mortal powers.

Think again.

The cyborg is no longer restricted to science fiction, television, and film. It has become a social reality. A cyborg is a simple hybrid of machine and living organism. American Heritage Dictionary defines a cyborg as the combination of cybernetic and organism. The result is "a human being who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices."

Using that definition, many of us are already cyborgs. Dr. George P. Landow, author and professor, has been estimated that nearly 10% of the U.S. population are technically cyborgs because they have pacemakers, artificial joints, drug implant systems, implanted corneal lenses, and artificial skin. This does not include what he refers to as "metaphoric cyborgs" or people who join with machines for specific purposes like playing a video game, surfing the net, using fiber optic microscopy to perform surgery or working with computer-generated images to make movies. It's a "merging of the evolved and the developed," he explains, "this integration of the constructor and the constructed, these systems of dying flesh and undead circuits, and of living and artificial cells." Artificial organs, a prosthetic limb, chemical agents that alter our physical or psychological processes, computer chips embedded beneath the skin to regulate everything from medications to birth control, make cyborgs of us all.

According to Newsweek, this trend will continue well into the third millennium. Some of the innovations that are expected include bioengineered skin, bone and cartilage; lab-grown organs; and brain and eye devices "incorporating living tissues and electronic gadgetry a la cyborgs". Many companies are already working in these areas, with devices such as LVES (pronounced Elvis), a low vision enhancement system that uses wide angle cameras, zoom lenses, and other video and computer feeds that enable people with poor vision to see. The LVES looks oddly similar to Geordi LaForge's visor on Start Trek: The Next Generation. On the not-so-bright side of cybernetics technology, tomorrow's cyborg soldier can be an ominous creature. New "battle gear for cyberwar", might include such things as headgear that collects and disseminates information, equips soldiers with night vision sensors, video panels, and voice activation of a computer built into the lumbar region of body armor. Other strategic visionaries see cyberwar as infowar, or a systematic destruction of communications and computers that some might call a virtual battlefield.

Landow suggests that there are four categories of cyborg technologies:

• Restorative: where lost functions, organs, or limbs are replaced.
• Normalizing: where a life form is restored to its standard configuation, shape or appearance.
• Reconfiguring: where modifications are made to create a "posthuman" or "protohuman".
• Enhancing: where superhumans are created.

Cyborg fantasies usually flirt with enhancement, creating mythical visions of power, endurance, beauty, and immortality. Cyborg realities are reflected in your contact lenses, hearing aids, and pacemakers. Of course, the fastest way to metaphorical cybernetics is online. Will metaphorical cybernetics threaten the way we define ourselves? Will it allow our cyborg fantasies to be as deeply rooted as our cyborg realities? Will it lead to a total immersion into simulation and the consequent erosion of reality? These are only a few of the issues being raised as we venture into the new millennium. Right now there seems to be no answers only questions.

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