We probably now have a closer relationship with our technologies than we do with pets. Some may be willing to forego them, and some communities prosper without them, but in the West, most would feel a distinct loss if they were denied a mobile phone, car or networked computer. Where a separation has been enforced many experience an emotional void, as of the loss of a friend or even a limb. Few people are troubled by this relationship because it appears at arms length and discretionary.
One day Michael Chorost suddenly and unexpectantly went proundly deaf. In his autobiography Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human he describes this experience of restoring his hearing through a digital cochlear implant. Through first hand experience he describes the increasingly blurry distinction between artificial and human intelligence, and gives a unique perspective on the difficult relationship between humans and technologies. He talks lucidly of his cyborg identity on AfterTV.
But what about Chorost’s claim that his digital implant made him feel more human? Restorative prothesis such as Chorost’s have a long history that includes spectacles and pacemakers and so on, so his experience maybe uncontroversial. But why wait until you’ve lost something? The most common cyborg development is the technology that augments or enhances human powers, such as enhanced vision systems used in combat to prevent so-called ‘friendly fire’ killings. In fact most consumer technologies fit into this category. Mobile phones augment our power to communicate, ICTs connect us to eBay and extend the market into our homes.
We thereby technologize the environment we live in and become low-grade cyborgs ourselves in order to thrive in it. Obvious examples are the communication and transport technologies that have transformed the world so radically throughout the past century. Less obvious candidates are vaccinations and immunizations that transfigure our bodies to allow us live live in high population densities without risk of genocidal plagues of diseases. Timothy Luke calls this the ‘end of nature’ or ‘denature’: humans are no longer confronted by a vast realm of autonomous, unmanageable, non-human wild activity, but a ‘planned habitat’ that requires scientific management.
