*Article* **Cyborgs and Enhancement Technology**

### **Woodrow Barfield 1 and Alexander Williams 2,\***

1 Professor Emeritus, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, DC 98105, USA; Jbar5377@gmail.com

> 2017


Academic Editor: Jordi Vallverdú Received: 12 October 2016; Accepted: 2 January 2017; Published: 16 January

**Abstract:** As we move deeper into the twenty-first century there is a major trend to enhance the body with "cyborg technology". In fact, due to medical necessity, there are currently millions of people worldwide equipped with prosthetic devices to restore lost functions, and there is a growing DIY movement to self-enhance the body to create new senses or to enhance current senses to "beyond normal" levels of performance. From prosthetic limbs, artificial heart pacers and defibrillators, implants creating brain–computer interfaces, cochlear implants, retinal prosthesis, magnets as implants, exoskeletons, and a host of other enhancement technologies, the human body is becoming more mechanical and computational and thus less biological. This trend will continue to accelerate as the body becomes transformed into an information processing technology, which ultimately will challenge one's sense of identity and what it means to be human. This paper reviews "cyborg enhancement technologies", with an emphasis placed on technological enhancements to the brain and the creation of new senses—the benefits of which may allow information to be directly implanted into the brain, memories to be edited, wireless brain-to-brain (i.e., thought-to-thought) communication, and a broad range of sensory information to be explored and experienced. The paper concludes with musings on the future direction of cyborgs and the meaning and implications of becoming more cyborg and less human in an age of rapid advances in the design and use of computing technologies.

**Keywords:** cyborg; enhancement technology; prosthesis; brain–computer interface; new senses; identity

### **1. Cyborgs and Prostheses**

The human body is in the process of experiencing a rapid transformation from a completely biological entity created based on instructions provided by human DNA to a body becoming far more "computational and technological" [1]. While this paper focuses on the theme of "human" enhancement technology, we also review some computational enhancements to animal subjects because such studies provide examples of the future direction of enhancement technology and in some cases these very technologies will be implemented into the human body and likely within one or two decades. Generally, body-worn and implantable technology serves to identify cyborgs as a constellation within which the identities of the members of cyborg groups "negotiate" their individual significance. We describe "cyborg culture" or "cyborg being" as a particular way of life, or set of beliefs, which expresses certain meanings in the context of cyborg technologies; particularly in the case of many self-imposed cyborgs that "way of life" is to become transhuman [2,3]. Broderick describes a transhuman as a person who explores all available and future methods for self enhancement that eventually leads toward the radical change of posthuman—which is to ultimately become nearly unlimited in physical and psychological capability (i.e., to go beyond human) [4].

Using a semiotic framework, cyborg enhancement technologies can be viewed as signs which are subject to the criteria of ideological evaluation [5] which for self-enhanced cyborgs is a culture of "technologically savvy" and to some extent nonconformists, and, as noted, transhumanists. In general, we use the term "cyborg technology" to refer to technology integrated into the human body which not only restores lost function but enhances the anatomical, physiological, and information processing abilities of the body [6]. With this definition in mind a person with a heart pacer is a cyborg as is a person with an artificial arm controlled by thought. In terms of scope and content, the focus of the paper is not on drug enhancements to amplify human performance or methods of genetic engineering to enhance the body, nor does the paper focus on mobile consumer products such as smartphones or tablets which some refer to as a cyborg enhancement. Instead the paper focuses more so on the body itself—which we theorize is becoming an information processing technology based on the implantation of computing technology directly within the body. Finally, we use the term "cyborg prosthesis" to refer to artificial enhancements to the body providing computational capability, one example is an artificial hippocampus another is a brain–computer interface.

Table 1 provides an overview of cyborg technologies and enhancements designed to augmen<sup>t</sup> human abilities and is organized around: (1) technology which "externally interfaces" with the body; (2) implants within the body; and (3) technology which modifies in some way brain activities. The last category may include devices like Google Glass and other types of "eye-worn" technology, that while not directly implanted within the body, do in fact help to augmen<sup>t</sup> the world with information and thus enhance the information processing abilities of humans. Further, many refer to people wearing such devices as "cyborgs" therefore the following table includes a brief section—"Computing Attachment as Enhancement", to more fully represent the range of technologies available that help create what to some is the "common view" of a cyborg. And, to a lesser extent, enhancements to aid mobility in the form of exoskeletons are included in Table 1 to provide a more complete range of cyborg technologies that are emerging now. Additionally, there are currently a large number of enhancement technologies that are available either as commercial products or as emerging technologies, to review them all would be beyond the scope of this paper, therefore Table 1 is provided mainly to motivate discussion on the topic and to provide some organizing principles and categories to frame the debate on our future as cyborgs. Finally, two examples in Table 1 are of animal studies, again to show the direction of cyborg technology and to give the reader a more complete overview of the cyborg future which awaits us.

Similar to our Table 1, Kevin Warwick in this special edition on *Cyberphenomenology: Technominds Revolution* [7] presented a four-case description of enhancement (or cyborg) technologies. Case 1 represents technology positioned close to the human body, but not integrated into the body; case 2 is technology implanted into the body but not the brain/nervous system (whether for therapy or enhancement); case 3 represents technology linked directly to the brain/nervous system for therapeutic purposes; and case 4 is technology linked to the brain/nervous system to create "beyond normal" levels of performance. We present Warwick's classification as an alternative method for parsing distinctions between cyborg enhancements keeping in mind the fluidity of some of these, and our, categories—namely that Warwick's case 3 technology may only be a matter of a software rewrite away from a case 4 technology and that a prosthesis in our table may also have direct neural links.

**Table 1.** Overview of Cyborg Enhancement Technologies.



### **Table 1.** *Cont*.



**Table 1.** *Cont*.


### *1.1. Medical Necessity Creates Cyborgs*

With Table 1 as background for the discussion which follows, recently people's bodies have become enhanced by use of technology with computational capabilities (that is, have become more "cyborg"), based on medical necessity; for example, debilitating disease affecting the central nervous system in the case of Parkinson's patients, or due to accidents or injuries (see [46] for additional examples of cyborgs). One example of a current cyborg is Jerry Jalava who, after suffering injuries sustained from a motorcycle accident, embedded a 2 GB USB drive on the tip of his prosthetic finger, essentially converting his finger into a hard drive; however, unlike other cyborg technologies, the USB drive isn't permanently fused to his finger, instead its inside a rubber tip that fits directly onto the nub of his prosthesis [12]. In contrast, another DIY cyborg, Tim Cannon, has integrated technology directly into his body by implanting a computer chip in his arm that can record and transmit biometrical data [26]. The above devices compute and provide information to the wearer, both characteristics of cyborg technology and of being a cyborg.

Considering cyborg enhancements (Table 1), as indicated by Dietrich and Laerhoven [47], interesting questions are raised related to how technology mediates the relation of person to the "world and self" as reflected in Verbeek's work, which is a postphenomenological approach that technology only bears meaning in a use context (e.g., how cyborg technology is actually used), and specifically the concept of embodied interaction [48]. In fact, the concept of "embodiment" is at the center of phenomenology, which rejects the Cartesian separation between mind and body on which many traditional philosophical approaches are based. In place of the Cartesian model, phenomenology explores our experiences as embodied actors interacting in the world, participating in it, and acting through it, in the absorbed and unreflective manner of normal experience. In terms of our identity resulting from the use of cyborg enhancements (see [3] and [48]), Locke's discussion of personal identity is relevant [49] to the technology presented in this paper. To Locke, personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity, a person psychologically evolves from "an adventure" (that is, becoming cybernetically enhanced) to a new evolved identity (say a transhuman), afterwards, the person's desires, intentions, experiential memories, and character traits may reflect the reality of a new cyborg identity.

Considering the above discussion, an interesting question is how one's perception of their body, that is, their embodiment, is affected by cyborg technologies—for example, are cyborg parts considered an extension of the body, or as separate from the body creating a new sense of identity for an individual? And will one's sense of identity change with the use of neuroprosthetic devices that allow memories to be edited, stored, and transferred? Surely one's sense of identity will be radically altered if one's experiences and memories become artificial and not necessarily tied to actual experiences. Additionally, in the coming cyborg age, will enhancements to human abilities, for example, in the form of telephoto vision or the ability to detect magnetic fields, change not only our functionality but our sense of experiencing the world?

On the point of increasing the computational capabilities of the body, for Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence, loss of vision was the motivating factor for converting him into a cyborg [16]. After an accident left him partially blind, he decided to create his own electronic eye in the form of a camera, which can be used to record everything he sees just by looking around. Even more interesting, though, the eye-camera has wireless capability; the system could allow another person to access his video feed and view the world through his artificial right eye. Unlike with a biological eye, Spence can upgrade the hardware and software of his cyborg enhancement. In our view the ability to upgrade the body is a major benefit of becoming a cyborg (and is likewise a fundamental characteristic of a cyborg) and essentially allows people to transcend human abilities resulting from evolution. It would be easy to imagine fundamentally new ways of seeing, experiencing, and feeling the world through these enhancements.

Given that necessity spawns invention, people paralyzed from spinal cord injuries are beginning to receive brain implant technology which may allow them to move again. How does the technology work? Generally, the "cyborg technology" bypasses the patient's severed spine by sending a signal from the brain directly to technology placed on the patient's muscles [36,45,46]. In the procedure, the surgeons first map the exact spot in the patient's motor cortex that control the muscles in a particular part of the body, then implant a tiny computer chip at that location. The next step is to "teach the chip" how to read the patient's thoughts. This is done by placing the patient inside an MRI machine where the patient watches a video of a hand moving in specific ways and at the same time imagines moving his own hand that way. The implanted chip reads the brain signals, decodes them, and translates them into electrical signals where they are transmitted to the muscles of the patient's forearm. Next, the patient is "plugged into" technology by running a cable from his skull to a computer and then to electrodes on his arm. Effectively, when the patient focuses his mind on moving his hand, it moves. This aspect of cyborg technology—creating a feedback loop between the body and technology—is not only a characteristic of what it means to be a cyborg but a potential "game changer" in connecting our senses and mind to external technology (especially to control the technology using thought), and, given

appropriately powerful new technologies, may even influence our sense of experiencing that world. However, this experimental and developing cyborg technology, still needs improvement before it will become common treatment for paralyzed patients and accessible to other populations (for different reasons than medical necessity); for example, it needs to be wireless so there is not a cable plugged into the skull and researchers need to figure out a way to send a signal from the body back to the brain (that is, close the feedback loop) so the patient can sense when his body is moving [6].

As another example of an implantable device which is used due to medical necessity, Setpoint, a technology company, is developing computing therapies to reduce systemic inflammation by stimulating the vagus nerve using an implantable pulse generator [24]. This device works by activating the body's natural inflammatory reflex to dampen inflammation and improve clinical signs and symptoms. Thus far, the company is developing an implanted neuromodulation device to treat rheumatoid arthritis, a disease currently afflicting over two million people in the U.S. alone. Each advance in cyborg devices spurred by medical necessity is leading to advances in technology which make the body more computational, with closed-loop feedback and upgradeable technology, and in some cases controllable by thought—these are all characteristics of the future direction of cyborg technologies.

### *1.2. Enhancements, Thought Control, and Communication*

Even with the brain's tremendous complexity (estimated to be 85–100 billion neurons, with 100 trillion synaptic connections) as shown in the table above, progress is being made towards the integration of the human brain with machines and sensors—this idea will ultimately allow the brain to be "cognitively enhanced" and to have additional computational capabilities [6]. For example, researchers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, have developed a thought-controlled bionic leg which uses neuro-signals from the upper leg muscles to control a prosthetic knee and ankle [50]. The prosthesis uses pattern recognition software contained in an on-board computer to interpret electrical signals from the upper leg as well as mechanical signals from the bionic leg. When the person equipped with the prosthesis thinks about moving his leg, the thought triggers brain signals that travel down his spinal cord, and ultimately, through peripheral nerves, are read by electrodes in the bionic leg, which then moves in response to the proceeding thought.

Among other things, what's interesting about the human enhancement movement is that it's not just major research centers that are developing thought controlled prosthesis and other enhancement technologies, hackers are beginning to enter the fray which will increase the speed at which the body will become computational (from a digital sense) and will challenge our sense of identity as a new technologically enhanced person. Take body hacker and inventor Shiva Nathan, a teenager, who after being inspired to help a family member who lost both arms below the elbow, created a robotic arm which can be controlled by thought [51]. The technology uses a commercially available MindWave Mobile headset to read EEG waves and uses Bluetooth to send the data to a computer which then translates them into limited finger and hand movements. In addition, in Sweden, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology are developing a thought-controlled prosthesis for amputees in the form of an implantable robotic arm. And in the U.S., the FDA has approved a thought-controlled prosthetic limb invented by Dean Kamen that provides multiple degrees of freedom, is the same size and weight as a natural human arm, and works by detecting electrical activity caused by the contraction of muscles close to where the prosthesis is attached [8]. The electrical signals, initially generated by thought are sent to a computer processor in the prosthetic arm, which triggers a specific movement in the prosthesis. In FDA tests, the artificial arm/hand has successfully assisted people with household tasks such as using keys and locks and preparing food [8].

Researchers at Brown University and *Cyberkinetics* in Massachusetts, are devising a microchip that is implanted in the motor cortex just beneath a person's skull that will be able to intercept nerve signals and reroute them to a computer, which will then wirelessly send a command to any of various electronic devices, including computers, stereos and electric wheelchairs. In this case a person's sense of identity will expand to accommodate feedback not only from the body's sensors, but from sensors on external devices. And consider a German team that has designed a microvibration device and a wireless low-frequency receiver that can be implanted in a person's tooth [28]. The vibrator acts as microphone and speaker, sending sound waves along the jawbone to a person's eardrum. Given that our sense of identity in the world is derived partially through mind-world interactions, developments extending our body's reach and methods of influence upon the world may create a new, or at least significantly different, human phenomenology.

Further, there is also research on brain-to-brain communication, including major efforts in this area from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the U.S. But in a university research laboratory, University of Washington researchers have created a system that represents a noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, allowing one person to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of another person at a different location [52]. The system uses electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, in which one person wearing a cap with electrodes is hooked up to an electroencephalography machine (which reads electrical activity in the brain) that sends a signal to another person with a cap equipped with the stimulation site for a transcranial magnetic stimulation coil which is placed directly over the person's left motor cortex, (which controls hand movement). As a proof-of-concept study, Professor Rao looked at a computer screen while playing a simple video game with his mind. When he was supposed to fire a cannon at a target, he imagined moving his right hand, causing a cursor to hit the "fire" button. Almost instantaneously, another person who wore noise-canceling earbuds and wasn't looking at a computer screen, involuntarily moved his right index finger to push the space bar on the keyboard in front of him, as if firing the cannon. The technologies used by the researchers for recording and stimulating the brain are both well-known. Electroencephalography, or EEG, is routinely used by clinicians and researchers to record brain activity noninvasively from the scalp. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a noninvasive way of delivering stimulation to the brain to elicit a response. Its effect depends on where the coil is placed; in this case, it was placed directly over the brain region that controls a person's right hand. By activating these neurons, in a proof-of-concept study, Rao and his team concluded that the stimulation convinced the brain that it needed to move the right hand [53].
