Cyborgs are among us
Chip in the headDmitry Chernikov, The Secret of the Firm magazine No. 6-2009
Published on the website DeafNet.RuThe biological renewal of man has two strong enemies: nature and the state.
While cloning and tissue cultivation are stalling, resourceful engineers and chip manufacturers are expanding the boundaries of the human, giving rise to new technology markets.
The uprising of the masses"When I move my left hand, I feel that he is moving in the same direction.
Somewhere there, in the heart," says 17–year-old Kairat Disinbayev, hanging on a basketball basket. His heart is controlled by a new generation pacemaker that independently regulates the frequency and strength of electrical impulses to the organ. The implant turns on only when a heart rhythm disturbance is registered – the rest of the time the teenager's heart works in the usual independent mode.
Until the beginning of 2008, the Moscow schoolboy did not know that he was ill: "He lost consciousness when they took blood from his finger. But this happens to many." Disinbayev is not used to going to hospitals. From the age of four, he was engaged in taekwondo, athletics, general fitness. When the blood was taken from his vein for the first time, he passed out as usual. But a device specially installed before the procedure showed that the teenager's heart stopped for 10 seconds. "They explained to us that my son's heart is contracting badly. At the next stop, it may not start. Sports are strictly prohibited," Kairat's parents recall the shock they experienced. They saw a terrible future: a split chest stuffed with implants, lifelong disability. Now Disinbayev shows a small scar on his collarbone: "This is all that remains after the operation."
Already in May 2008, three months after the Medtronic stimulator was implanted in the Moscow Research Institute of Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery, Disinbayev resumed training, and in October Kairat, who had previously won only regional competitions, won the Moscow cross-country championship among schoolchildren born in 1991-1993.
Implants, which previously imposed restrictions on a person's habitual lifestyle, are now increasingly pushing the boundaries of his capabilities. Companies have felt the emerging trend: ordinary people who want to upgrade their body and intellect are ready to replace the sick and pensioners as the main customers of high medical technologies.
The electronic reengineering industry is gradually getting rid of its marginal image. The market leader, American Medtronic, is soon preparing to present an implant to the mass market that can alleviate the fate of tens of thousands of patients suffering from Parkinson's disease. Now the neurostimulator will also be used to treat depression. The same path – from a niche device to a blockbuster – has to be taken by an electrode that helps with gastroparesis. At the moment, it is being tested as a means to treat obesity. "The implant will cause a feeling of satiety. A person will eat as much as it is useful, and not as much as he wants," says Arsen Kubatayev, a representative of Medtronic.
The End of Biology
"It takes two to three years to wait for a donor heart, so 30% of patients waiting in line for a donor heart do not live to surgery," says Paul Vogt, professor of cardiovascular surgery at the Im Park Clinic, "Another 18% die during transplantation." According to Vogt, clinics compete fiercely with each other for new hearts. If it is not possible to reach an agreement, it comes to arbitration courts. Six months ago, the Swiss Transplant Society appointed Vogt as a referee in such disputes.
"The biology show is ending: our organs will control the electrodes, the electrodes are controlled by "software" that we will invent ourselves," said Michael Korist, author of the bestseller "Rebuilt", which tells about the rebirth into a cyborg. Korist calls himself Mike 2.0.
He proudly carries an Advanced Bionics hearing computer in his skull. Having regained his hearing with the help of a processor similar to the Pentium 286 and controlling the irritation of the auditory nerve, Korist believes that the implant turns people from victims into creators: "The new sensations were strange – for fun I played with fridge magnets that stuck to my head. But then came complete emancipation and triumph." Michael felt his body as a space for creativity.
"It would be wrong to consider everyone in whose body there is some kind of mechanics as cyborgs. For example, a Vietnam War veteran with a metal plate in his head," says Korist. A real implant should be electronically stuffed. When it is a computer, its carrier can consider itself a cyborg, Korist insists. From time to time, he upgrades the software on which the stimulator's microprocessor runs. His hearing gets better every time. "The last time the improvement was so serious that it allowed me to listen to music with pleasure without straining." Nevertheless, the SF correspondent, who communicated with Korist via Skype, had to shout to be heard. "Yes, I would still be among the hearing impaired on the tests, but let's talk in twenty years. Your natural hearing will deteriorate all this time, and with the help of upgrades I will be able to hear the foliage flying around," the cyborg suggested.
To date, there are 150 thousand owners of hearing implants in the world. Most of them are in the USA. "My implants were the last squeak of innovation in 2001, but science is still on the way to improving them - nothing has appeared fresh on the market," says Korist.
A real implant has an important feature: it should perform not a trifling, but an important function in human interaction with the world, reminding the wearer that his existence in the world is largely subordinated to the machine. Korist is currently working on his third book, The Universal Mind: The Future Integration of People and Machines, in which he explores brain implants – how they change communication between people and stimulate the carrier to a new self-determination. For example, when scanning the brain of volunteers using magnetic resonance imaging, it is possible to predict whether they will prefer to add or subtract the numbers that are called to them at this time. "Of course, this is still far from mind reading as such," Korist admits.– But it's a start. Experiments to control the activity of neurons are currently being conducted on mice and monkeys using fiber-optic implants. The result of further experiments may be the appearance of devices that can read thoughts."
"Telepathic implants have an important social function," says the famous "pop cyborg" Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading.– As soon as they are invented, first of all it will be necessary to allocate a batch for the blind. Reading the thoughts of passers-by will orient them in space no worse than the eyes."
The Other Silicon Valley
Modern pharmaceuticals is aimed at identifying effective molecules of future drugs. This requires huge laboratories with a 15-17-year test cycle of the active substance of the drug. Gene research is also very expensive. In the first quarter of 2007, venture capital invested $1.5 billion in biotech, in the first quarter of 2009 - only $576 million.
With implants, everything is easier: the main driving force of change is the brains of bioengineers. From the idea to the appearance of the product on the market, four to five years pass, the life of the implant on the market is on average 18 months, after which it is replaced by more modern analogues. Two-thirds of Medtronic's revenue comes from implants that have entered the market in the last three years. A company with $3 billion in net profit for 2008 stands out for its size. "These guys make good money on implants. I saw the Medtronic CEO's house in Hawaii, it's located next to the villa of actor Harrison Ford," Kevin Warwick grins. However, the main shock power of the market is formed by garage startups. According to the AdvaMed Association of Medical Technology Manufacturers, which also covers the implant market, 80% of the staff of almost 40 thousand companies does not exceed 100 people. Medical geeks all dream of putting together a company through one, in order to then sell it to one of the leading companies. They are gladly supported by venture funds like Oxford Bioscience Partners. "This fund invested $4 million in my friend John Donahue's Cyberkinetics company. She makes chips that control the failed areas of the brain," Warwick says.
Approximately 10 thousand implants are available on the market at a time (AdvaMed data). At the same time, the geography of consumption is gradually being reshaped in favor of Europe. If in 2003 the European share was 23%, then by 2008 it had grown to a third, since the growth rate of the main and most developed market - the American one – had significantly decreased. Only the "massization" of the function of implants and other medical technologies can spur advanced consumption.
Evaldas Chesnoulis, one of the world's leading neurosurgeons, a specialist at the Swiss clinic Hirslanden and the Russian company MedInterSwiss, told SF that the startup model of the industry is making progress: "Implantology as an industry has existed since the late 1990s. The main achievement during this time is the miniaturization of devices. The first batteries for the implant, usually sewn into the abdomen, were five or six centimeters long and designed for a year. Now such batteries, like the implants themselves, have become five times smaller in size and last five times longer." However, Chesnoulis does not count on a fundamental update of the line of implants and global cyborgization, since he does not see a request from society.: "Do you remember how in the "Heart of a Dog" Professor Preobrazhensky was indignant, why is it necessary to artificially fabricate Spinoza, when any woman can give birth to such at any time?"
The fears of society are not a hindrance to cyborgization, Warwick is sure. "Medical ethics has nothing to do with it. Implants are made by engineers, and not always by order of medical companies. My research is funded by companies such as British Telecom, Nortel Network, Fujitsu, in general, companies that are interested in human–computer interaction," he says. "A breakthrough to an electronic person in the next five to seven years is inevitable." Warwick devotes the summer weeks to preparing for the autumn superexperiment. In an incubator with a nutrient medium, he intends to place the neuronal cells of a human embryo and connect them to the control electrodes of the robot Gordon using Bluetooth. Warwick did a similar experiment with rat neurons in 2008. Then the robot showed learning skills: when encountering objects, the next time it bypassed them. "The goal of the experiment is to understand how human memory functions and how we can expand its capabilities by connecting it to a computer," Warwick explains.
Alternative Cyborgs
To expand your memory and be known as a cyborg, you don't have to stick electrodes or a chip into your brain. Alternatives to the rapidly growing implant market are other devices. "During a conversation with a person, I have a habit of "Googling" his name. But he doesn't notice that I'm distracted," says Ted Starner, a professor at the University of Georgia. In 1993, he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and suddenly panicked. "I realized that I had forgotten almost everything I studied and paid $20 thousand a year for!" he recalls. He diagnosed himself with the syndrome of absent-minded attention, which affects 2-4% of adults and 5-7% of children. However, to one degree or another, absent-mindedness is known to be inherent in most people. From that moment on, Ted carried everywhere with him a construction of a computer strapped to his body, a monocular display fixed at eye level, and a keyboard. On the day Wi-Fi appeared, he was the happiest man in the world.
The preacher of computing as a lifestyle Ted Starner (left) and one of his followers "Google" each other during a conversation
"I put the most interesting links in a separate directory along with a file where I outline the key ideas and moments of our conversation," says Starner.– So for several years I have accumulated a huge database for each interlocutor, and when I meet a person again, I just open the catalog, and all the information is in front of my eyes, even if we met ten years ago." Starner preaches a complete everyday fusion of man and computer, studying its capabilities for himself together with other members of the Contextual Computing Group.
"Formally, there is a big difference between me and Ted Starner: my device is implanted in the body, but his is not. But he did an amazing thing," says Michael Korist.– Ted began to answer the question "How will it be – to write emails and surf the Internet with the help of technologies enclosed in your body?" " Now the main task of Starner is to find a way to "power" the computer from the surface of the body: "Then we will be truly inseparable."
Two cyborgs met at a lecture by Korist. The applied part of Starner's idea is to facilitate the lives of the deaf and hearing impaired people. According to his plan, "contextual computing", that is, the inseparable life of man and machine, will help the deaf to learn sign language recognition perfectly.
Dr. Todd Kuiken from the Chicago Institute of Rehabilitation also followed the path of "external" cyborgization of patients. Since the early 2000s, he and his team have been using reinnervation techniques in prosthetics of patients with amputated hands. The first "test subject" in 2001 was electrician Jess Sullivan. The nerves from his forearm were transplanted to his chest, and the nerves controlling the pectoral muscles were removed. "Touching Jess's chest feels like touching her hand," Kuiken tells SF correspondent. Electronic hand sensors were attached to Sullivan's chest. When he wants to move his finger or hand, the "manual" nerves cause the pectoral muscles to move, the movement of which is detected by the sensors of the hand. Bionic hands, unlike traditional prostheses, allow owners to perform all the usual operations and feel power over an artificial organ.
Due to the high cost of manufacturing ($ 6 million), bionic hands of various modifications received a little more than two dozen patients. "Implants are becoming more and more reliable, but still, if they break down or expire, you have to climb back into the brain, heart or somewhere else. Our technology is safer," says Todd Kuiken.
While genetic engineers are looking for arguments in a dispute with the authorities about cloning, ordinary engineers have already begun to turn humanity into cyborgs.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru/16.06.2009