REVIEW • COMPUTER SCIENCE Discovery Science, Volume 2, Number 4, October 2012 REVIEW • COMPUTER SCIENCE 77 54 – EISSN 2278 85 54 cience S – ISSN 2278 CYBORGS: Reinvention of nature Akshay sharma1*, Deepak Basora2 1. Computer Science Engineering, Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon, Haryana, India 2. Computer Science Engineering, Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon, Haryana, India *Correspondence to: Computer Science Engineering, Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon, Haryana, India, E-Mail: [email protected], Ph: +91-9540828287 Received 04 September; accepted 13 September; published online 01 October; printed 16 October 2012 ABSTRACT Humans have limited capabilities. Can we use technology to upgrade humans? The possibility exists to enhance human capabilities, to harness the ever increasing abilities of machine intelligence, to enable extra sensory input and to communicate in a much richer way. From its inception as a technology, neural networks have promised to revolutionize the way. We interact with our computers and each other. Neural interfacing as an evolving trend in wireless communications by taking into account one of its important application i.e. cyborgs. A cyborg is a cybernetic organism (i.e. an organism that is a self-regulating integration of artificial and natural systems) part human part machine; it thrives on the inputs both from the living senses and from the machine interface, which acts as an enhancement module. Brain-machine interfaces (invasive and non-invasive) represent the most likely pathway. In this paper, we intend to tell, how exactly the cyborgdom is achieved and what are the future aspects and prospects? Are we witnessing a true revolution in human futuristics or is it going to be just a flight of fantasy? That the future will tell. But for now let us understand what Cyborgs are all about? Keywords: Neural interface, cyborgology, technophobiacs, brain-computer interface, Exoskeleton. Abbreviations: Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS). Cybernetics: 1. INTRODUCTION Cybernetics is Fictional cyborgs are a transdisciplinary approa Attachments and interfaces mediate our interaction with the portrayed as a synthesis ch for exploring of organic and synthetic regulatory systems, environment and usually are positioned on the surface of the their structures, body. Physical things would be called tools or attachments, parts, and frequently pose constraints, and while information utilities would be called interfaces. A neural the question of difference possibilities. Cybernetics interface allows human brain converse directly with a between human and is relevant to the study of computer, without any other equipment. That class of machine as one concerned mechanical, physical, interface allows any illusions to be input to human nervous with morality, free will, and biological, cognitive, empathy. Cyborgs in fiction and social systems. system. Neural interfacing fantasies have mainly grown out often play up a human of science fiction. This human computer interface may now lead to a revolutionary organism called as “cyborg”, which contempt for over- was notion of as a science-fiction earlier [1]. dependence on technology, Cyborg Soldier: The particularly when used for “Cyborg” is a science-fictional shorting of “cybernetic cyborg soldier often refers Organism”. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred war, and when used in to a soldier whose ways that seem to weapons as well as the Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems threaten free will. Cyborgs survival systems are are also often portrayed integrated into the self, shown in fig.1. in outer space [2]. Cyborg is defines as an Figure 1 with physical or mental creating a human- organism that is self-regulating combination of artificial and A Cyborg abilities far exceeding a machine interface. natural systems [3], an organism that has enhanced abilities due to technology, though this perhaps oversimplifies the human counterpart (military forms may have inbuilt necessity of feedback for regulating the subsystem. weapons, among other things) [5]. “Cybernetic organism" has also been applied to networks, such as road systems, corporations and governments, which 2. ORIGIN have been classed as such. The concept of a man-machine mixture was popular in science fiction before World War II, and began with the A cyborg is essentially a man-machine system in field of cybernetics in the 1940s. which the control mechanisms of the human “As early as 1843, Edgar Allan Poe described a man portion are modified externally by drugs or with extensive prostheses in the short story "The Man That regulatory devices so that the being can live in an Was Used Up". In 1908, Jean de la environment different from the normal one [4]. Hire introduced Nyctalope (perhaps the first NEURAL INTERFACING The Society for Neural interfacing (SNI) actively promotes research on innovative approaches dedicated to Neural Interfacing (NIF). Evaluating current technology and its intrinsic limitations it is possible to outline an almost perfect 10 Neural Interfacing technology, however, predictions are largely based on current visions and one's imagination. Akshay sharma et al. Cyborgs: Reinvention of nature, Discovery Sci., 2012, 2(4), 10-14, www.discovery.org.in www.discovery.org.in/ds.htm © 2012 discovery publication. All rights reserved REVIEW • COMPUTER SCIENCE true superhero was also the first literary cyborg) in the we interface humans with sensors then up to date novel L'Homme Qui Peut Vivre Dans L'eau (The Man Who information would be sent to the cyborg Can Live in the Water). Edmond Hamilton presented space for instantaneous analysis of the status where ever he is. explorers with a mixture of organic and machine parts in his Even in medical field cyborgs would be of great use novel The Comet Doom in 1928. He later featured the because any disease could be analyzed in terms of talking, living brain of an old scientist, Simon Wright, floating the neural impulse signals. This technology would be also around in a transparent case, in all the adventures of his used to establish intercommunication between two or famous hero, Captain Future. He uses the term explicitly in peoples without using speech. the 1962 short story, "After a Judgment Day," to describe the Latest technology: At present Cyborgology concentrates "mechanical analogs" called "Charlies," explaining that on the development of Conditional cyborgs. That is living "cyborgs, they had been called from the first one in the being with a mechanical body part which is replaced for the 1960's...cybernetic organisms." In the short story "No damaged or lost body part. Among them has prime Woman Born" in 1944, C. L. Moore wrote of Deirdre, a importance, it has functioning similar to our leg. These dancer, whose body was burned completely and whose brain external mechanical parts works by the stimulations was placed in a faceless but beautiful and supple mechanical received generated from our neural system. body”[6]. “In1960, NASA scientists Manfred Clynes (a computer theorist) and Nathan Kline(a psychiatrist) delivered a paper 4. THE PROJECT CYBORG 1.0 in which they suggested that an enhanced human being The question that erupted in the minds of Professor Kevin could survive in extraterrestrial environments in space Warwick and his team at the department of Cybernetics, without space suits if modified with implants and drugs. They University of Reading intend to answer with 'Project coined the term in refer to their conception of: Cyborg'. For the exogenously extended organizational What happens when a man is merged with a computer? complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic On Monday 24th August 1998, Professor Kevin system unconsciously, we propose the term Warwick underwent an operation, using local anesthetic ‘Cyborg'. Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline only to surgically implant a silicon chip transponder in his [7]. forearm. This experiment allowed a computer to monitor Their concept was the outcome of thinking about the need Kevin Warwick as he moved through halls and offices of the for an intimate relationship between human and machine as Department of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, the new frontier of space exploration was beginning to take using a unique identifying signal emitted by the implanted place. A designer of physiological instrumentation and chip. He could operate doors, lights, heaters and other electronic data-processing systems, Clynes was the chief computers without lifting a finger. research scientist in the Dynamic Simulation Laboratory at The transponder consists of a glass capsule containing Rockland State Hospital in New York. an electromagnetic coil which generated an electric current when a radio frequency signal is transmitted to the transponder and a number of silicon chips. It is 3. SOCIAL CYBORGS approximately 23mm long and 3mm in diameter. This "Cybernetic organism" is used to describe larger networks of electric current is used to drive the silicon chip circuitry, communication and control. For example, cities, networks of which transmits a unique, 64-bit signal. A receiver picking roads, networks of software, corporations, markets, up this signal can be connected in an Intelligent Building governments, and the collection of these things together. A network. corporation can be considered as an artificial intelligence that On picking up the unique, identifying signal, a com operates makes