From wearable devices to human implants, future medical treatments will become like this...

Release date: 2016-03-29

When I was a child, I was particularly fond of watching an animated cartoon called "Ghost Shell" (exposure of age). The era based on this cartoon is dominated by computers, artificial intelligence and the Internet. The development of technology has made it possible to implant communication terminals into the human body, and humans can interact directly with computers and networks. Not only thought, but also the rapid development of prosthetic technology, which makes "all organs are artificial" possible.

赛博格 is the transliteration of English "Cyborg", which is a unified and unified function composed of human and man-made objects. It is essentially "the human nervous system is connected with the computer." "Chassis Agent Team" is the initial source of the cyborg concept, and has a significant impact on sci-fi works such as "The Matrix." With the continuous development of science and technology, it is impossible to achieve the state of "all organs are artificial" in real life, but there have been many advances in research such as chip implantation. Software developers, students, and entrepreneurs are the first to be interested in body implant technology.

"The first electronic person in the world"

Professor Kevin Warwick is currently the Vice President of Coventry University in the United Kingdom. He is known as "the world's first electronic man." Back in 1998, Warwick successfully implanted the chip into his arm, making him the first person in the world to carry a chip in his body. The chip is placed in a small glass tube of 23 mm in length and 3 mm in diameter. In addition to the silicon chip, there is an electromagnetic coil in the tube.

In 2002, he again took the knife and implanted a chip with 100 electrodes on his wrist and connected it to the computer through wires. When he wants to clench his fist, the brain's electrical signals pass through the nervous system and pass through the wrist to the palm of his hand. The wafer electrode is in contact with the nerve cells, so it also receives electronic signals from the brain. The chip transmits the signal to the computer, the computer records and analyzes the signal, and copies the same signal, which is then transmitted to the robot, and the robot makes a punch.

In a later experiment, Warwick also implanted a wafer electrode for his wife that could be connected to Warwick's brain. When his wife clenched his fists, Warwick's brain received a pulsed current that he described as "a very basic form of telegram communication between our nervous systems." Most implants now do not communicate with the human body, but instead communicate with subcutaneously implanted sensors and external interaction technologies. This may change.

Bio-hackers: chip implants are quite valuable

One of the cyber hackers who claim to be “bio hackers”, Tim Cannon is a co-founder and CTO of the Pittsburgh company called Grindhouse Wetware. The company specializes in developing products for bio-hackers, and Cannon often acts as an experimenter for his own products. "We hope to see that cyberspace can really be described in science fiction. It is inevitable that we will experience a research period of about 10 years for this wish. Although members are not professionally engaged in scientific research, doing all this depends on Passion is for the public science."

Their prototype was released in November 2015 and is called the Northstar V1. It is a 2 Euro coin-sized device that can be embedded under the skin. When the user approaches the magnet, the 5 LED lights on the device will be set. Lights up and automatically turns off after 10 seconds. Updated versions may record biometric data or respond to gestures. The previous device, called Circadia, had a soap size, and Cannon implanted it as a mouse, but because of panic disorder, the implant was removed when the battery was dead.

Tim Cannon & Jowan ?sterlund

Magnets allow users to perceive magnetic and electromagnetic fields; radio-frequency identification (RFID) and near field communication (NFC) chips wrapped in biocompatible glass can be programmed with Android or other devices. Communication, allowing users to unlock the phone, open the door, switch lights can even buy beer by waving.

Hannes Sj?blad is the founder of bio-hacking company BioNyfiken and also worked at Epicenter. In 2015, Epicenter made a headline. They developed a rice-sized RFID chip that can be implanted in the hands of employees. When you walk to the front of the office, you can open the door with a handful of hands. Sj?blad pointed out that the researchers implanted chips on pets a few years ago and the safety was confirmed. And he believes that chip implantation has medical potential: Japanese toilets have been based on urine analysis to assess a person's blood pressure, BMI and blood sugar levels. It is impossible to use only one person in a public restroom, and the long-term monitoring signs become complicated. But if everyone has an RFID chip, they can save their personal information each time the user presses the flush button.

This type of implantation is generally outside the clinic or hospital as a parallel to standardized medical experiments. Body modification artist Jowan?sterlund, who runs a tattoo room in Sweden, is also the surgeon of Cannon implants: "We don't implant for patients, it's medical behavior. But we can 'upgrade' healthy people, Let them predict health problems. This must be the direction of the future." Cannon also said that the Northstar series hopes to access user behavior data, just like wearables. “The brain is unreliable, but the data on the body response is reliable. The Northstar V1 looks very tasteless, but when everyone can replace the biological heart with an electronic heart in the future, our products will be welcomed.”

Controversy: The current effectiveness of chip implantation is not as good as prosthesis

You might say, then what? The iPhone can do the same thing as implanting a chip. Warwick believes that implants have a philosophical impact on users and feel different from using common tools. The technical difference between using external devices and implanting into the body is slight, and the psychological impact is very significant. "For those who have undergone an implant, whether the implant is an artificial hip or a cochlea or something else, these implants and techniques are part of their body."

For many cyberspaces, convenience is a key word: you can live seamlessly, wave into your house instead of looking for keys everywhere, and use a gesture to sell coffee instead of looking for change in your wallet. And it's in your body, they'll never be lost or run around in the body (although it's impossible not to have problems). "We are constantly witnessing the realization of miniaturization technology, and maybe the computer can be carried around like our body organs."

University of Southern California professor Jack Halberstam said at a 2015 conference on semi-mechanics and superhumanism in Berlin that these implants represent "superstitions about embedding technology, yet they are not as effective as prosthetics." Halberstam claims that there is nothing really new about arm or palm implant technology, and he believes that more interesting work takes place in tissue engineering. "People have implanted things in the body. Knees, artificial ligaments, pacemakers, etc. So, we are all cyberspace."

The cyberspace culture is one of the branches of superhumanism. The so-called superhumanism is that we believe that science and technology will surpass ourselves, improve our ability and prolong life as much as possible. Be aware that not all people who believe in Saiboge can accept this idea. Cannon considers himself to be an actual superhuman, and cyberspace is only a transitional phase.

Cannon's view of human enhancement is optimistic. He believes that human enhancement can enable humans to create a more sustainable and easy-to-share world. There is very little war in the world due to food and other resources, and a higher brain will make people more friendly.

There are many critics of this idea for Cannon. Halberstam fears that just as other advances in science and medicine are only available to a few wealthy people, semi-mechanics may expose world inequalities and question resource allocation.

Warwick talks about the future of semi-mechanical people, who will see ordinary people as lower humans, just like we are now watching chimpanzees. The future semi-mechanical people have excellent data processing capabilities because they have implanted chips in their brains. "Humans may become a subspecies, and electronic people will obviously be superior in many aspects such as intelligence."

Cannon believes that the human body is actually poorly designed, which can easily lead to deception. Under this premise, there is a lot of room for discussion. “Many times our bodies and brains are lying to us. The brain doesn't always give you a complete story, but the data doesn't lie.”

For ordinary people, chip implants need more temptation

If the data is a gold mine in the 21st century, it is difficult for companies to stop reaching the data. The more private the data we generate, especially if the device is in our body and sends our health information to the phone or the web, it is more valuable for advertisers and other businesses. Patrick Kramer works at IBM during the day and runs Digiwell in his spare time, a company that provides connectable and wearable devices for Europe. Use the unique private data from the smart toilet to send a warning about the bad habits to the user. “The data is profitable,” Kramer said. For the UK, which already has 4 to 6 million transcripts, we have been monitored. “It’s just an illusion that data is safe.”

This is bothering. If you want to put a foreign object into your body forever, you need to bring me more benefits besides novelty and convenience. Just letting us get on the subway faster is not enough. It must be more useful, such as tracking and recording my biometric data and sending it to my doctor. In addition, I need to believe that data is secure and won't be taken by governments, hackers, and companies—it won't expand their already strong power to track everyday interactions.

Most of the optimism about the future of bio-hackers and cyberspace is supported by ideals. “We don’t get paid from big companies, we don’t fund the government,” Sj?blad said. “We really want to be an independent force.” The project is open source and the tools run on the Android system. In Düsseldorf, Sj?blad urged listeners to take back their physical data. “We are citizens and users, and each of us physics people should recycle all of our digital people’s data so that advertisers and other companies won’t know all of our data.”

What makes devices mainstream, Sj?blad thinks it is: relevance and usability. “I think the use of public transportation by implanting chips will be a feature that will make this technology attractive to a large number of people. However, the biggest business opportunity is in the medical industry, as this technology will enable people to measure and monitor their own body data. After a generation, people will be surprised how we survived without this technology," he said.

The advances in cheaper medical technology are similar to the computer revolution that took place in the 1970s, Sj?blad said. He puts implant technology and mobile phones in the same position. Mobile phones existed in the 1980s, but they were huge and cumbersome and were only used by businessmen or people working in remote areas. "If you ask in 1985 if you need a mobile phone, they will say 'No, my family has a phone number, and now there are phones everywhere.' But as time goes by, when technology becomes cheaper and more practical, it becomes Everyone has it.

Warwick believes that the process of merging humans and machines has actually begun, and the best evidence is that the devices such as pacemakers and cochlear hearing aids are constantly emerging. Further development, using infrared radar to help blind people "see" things, through the ultrasound to let the deaf people "listen" to the sound, etc. are not dreams. He once said in his speech: "Connecting humans and machines seems to be a natural development process, which is full of the possibility of using machine wisdom to create superhuman. In the short term, many medical problems will be improved. In the long run This will enhance the quality of human beings and enhance our ability.

Source: Singularity Network

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