We Are Cyborgs
RoboCop, the Bionic Woman, Darth Vader—what do these characters have in common? They are all cyborgs—humans who are made more powerful by advanced technology. You might think that cyborgs exist only in fiction, or are a possibility only in the distant future. But cyborg technology already exists.
The word "cyborg" was first used in 1960 and defined as an organism "to which external components have been added for the purpose of adapting to new environments". According to this definition, an astronaut in a spacesuit is an example of cyborg, as the spacesuit helps the astronaut adapt to a new environment—space. More recently, the word has evolved to refer to human beings who have mechanical body parts that make them more than human.
Although super-humans like RoboCop are not yet a reality, advances in real-life cyborg technology allow some people to compensate for abilities they have lost, and give other people new and unusual abilities. An example is filmmaker Rob Spence and his bionic eye. Spence injured one of his eyes in an accident. A camera was implanted in his prosthetic eye(假眼).The eye is not connected to his brain or optic nerve(视神经), but it can record what he sees. Spence has used his camera eye to record interviews for a documentary about people with bionic body parts.
Some types of cyborg technology replace a lost ability by connecting directly to a person's nerves. Michael Chorost completely and suddenly lost his ability to hear in July of 2001. Two months later, doctors placed a cochlear implant, a kind of computer, inside his skull. This type of implant connects to auditory nerves and allows a deaf person to hear again. Around the world, over 300,000 people have now been fitted with cochlear implants.
These examples of cyborg technology have enabled people to enhance or change their abilities and improve their lives. But does everyone want to use cyborg technology? It might be too late to decide. Cyborg scientist Amber Case argues that most of us are already cyborgs. Anyone who uses a computer or a smartphone, Case claims, is a cyborg. Consider the data that you have in your smartphone. It keeps information for you so you don't have to remember it: notes, phone numbers, email addresses, messages. It also allows you to communicate with friends and family via telephone, text messages, email, and social networks.
The potential benefits of cyborg technology are evident, but can this new technology be harmful, too? Could we become too dependent on cyborg technology—and become less than human? These still remain questions.
