Prof. Kevin Warrick with his wife Irena. If no problems are discovered, Irena will also undergo a similar implant that will allow the two to communicate chip-to-chip 25/03/2001
Dafna Levy
The first transplant. We get used to changes, and so we will also get used to becoming cyborgs
March 25, 2001
This summer, the English professor Kevin Warrick will have a chip implanted in his body that will connect his brain to his computer system and thus become the first model of a man-machine. This is going to be a big step for Warrick (and his wife) and an even bigger step for humanity. or catastrophe
Prof. Kevin Warrick with his wife Irena. If no problems are discovered, Irena will also undergo a similar implant that will allow the two to communicate chip-to-chip Professor Kevin Warrick is convinced that the time has come, that the days are the days of a decisive turning point and that evolution is about to make its clear voice once again: the human race is going to grow out of it "cyborgs", those creatures that they are a man integrated into a machine. Sophisticated, successful, fast, precise and more wonderful than the ordinary man, these futures, according to Warrick, will inherit the place of man as the ruling species. Warrick himself, of course, has far-reaching plans for this change: he intends to be the first cyborg, or at least the one who will upgrade himself on the way to perfect cyborgness. He intends to merge, gradually, with the computer, thereby perfecting his abilities to degrees that no one is yet able to imagine. It doesn't scare him but excites him, very much. He is convinced that with the help of his research a great evil will grow between man and machine.
Warrick, 47, is a professor of robotics at the University of Reading in England. His office, in the university's computer science faculty, does not even hint at scenes of science fiction events from literature or cinema. The building is modest,
The first transplant. We get used to the changes, and so we will also get used to becoming cyborgs in an even more modest campus where most of the buildings almost disappear in a green sea of lawns and trees, at the edge of a small and almost dormant town, studded with typical English red brick houses with lace curtains decorating their windows.
And yet, in his laboratory, and even earlier in his head, a revolutionary experiment is taking shape these days, which will help him take the leap towards the coveted title of "the first cyborg". Warrick is about to serve as his own guinea pig, in order to test how man and computer will behave when they merge. This merger, it must be said, will be tiny but very significant, and probably also dangerous; Already at these stages of planning the experiment, he brings to Vrik a wave of warm and stormy adoring reactions on the side of a wave of derisive criticism, no less stormy, from colleagues in the profession.
In a few months, a chip will be implanted in Warrick's body, which will serve as a transmitter and receiver, and connect the man directly to his computer system. The chip should allow him to receive and send data to the computer without having to use a keyboard, mouse or any other intermediary means, and record his brain activity so that he can translate it into a language that the computer understands. This information Warrick and the members of his robotics lab will later try to transmit back to the brain, in order to test the possibility of activating the professor's body by activating the computer.
Part of the peripheral equipment connected to it.
Warrick is a tall and somewhat frantic man. My looks of wonder, sent to him during the interview, not only make him laugh but fill him with joy. He likes the attention, and he tries to shock fellow researchers with more implicit statements that it's time for those like him to think about really important questions and be ready to cross new boundaries in search of answers.
It was clear to him, he says, that he would volunteer to be his own guinea pig. "You never know what this experiment will do to my brain," he says. "Could happen to me
All kinds of very unpleasant things. The brain might say 'hey, I don't understand this data' and go completely crazy, and I don't know exactly how I'm going to get out of it. So it was clear to me that I couldn't let anyone else in the lab take it
the risk".
Me, my wife and technology
At the end of August 1998, Warrick performed the first step in the system of experiments that should provide him with the answer to the question of what happens when a person and a computer merge. "The cyborg project," he calls it, and then, in the first phase of the experiment, a silicon chip, contained in a tiny capsule, was implanted in his arm. Dr. George Bolus, the surgeon, lightly numbed the area and implanted the chip in Warrick's body, which allowed him to communicate with the computer system of the Reading Faculty. The experiment allowed Warrick's computer to track his every movement. Signals transmitted by the implant allowed him to open and close doors. In the building, control the lighting and heating and other computers in the building, without having to lift a finger for this.
Warrick sees that experiment as the humble beginning that allowed him to dream of his future as a cyborg and the upcoming experiment, in which such a chip would be connected directly to his nervous system and allow him to communicate with other computers, in other places, or with people
Others will have such chips implanted in their bodies. All of this should work in two-way communication - that is, not only will he be able to activate the computerized systems around him, they will be able to activate him, or try to activate him, without collapsing his body systems.
"For the first day or two, the feeling was a little uncomfortable," says Warrick about the first transplant surgery he underwent in the name of scientific research. "But it wasn't a big problem. The big thing was that I quickly learned to treat the chip as if it were a part of me. I talked to people who had pacemakers implanted in their bodies, for example, or who have an artificial hip joint and I realized that they feel just like me. When you implant the technology in your body it It's not like wearing glasses or wearing a watch, it's a real contact with the machines. I and the computer were one. The computer sent signals to the doors in the room, for example, and I felt like I belonged to the computer."
Warrick points to the computer in his room fondly. "I feel a great closeness to the computer, just as if I were part of a machine. It's a bit like a deep friendship, but a strange friendship, because it doesn't resemble friendship in the human sense. Each of us works separately, but in cooperation. It's a bit like Siamese twins. We're not just An attitude of mutual respect, but a great affinity."
This great affinity, he says, was so evident that his wife, Irena, began to worry. "I didn't go crazy or anything," he says, "but in our marriage during that experiment there were three people - my wife, me and the technology. It's okay, it wasn't illegal infidelity."
Irena, by the way, who is not one of the researchers in the faculty but certainly one of the enthusiastic supporters of Warrick's experiment, is going to join him in the new experiment. Warrick will undergo the complicated transplant, try to function in his new status as a man-machine and after a few weeks, if no special problems are discovered or worse, Irena will also undergo a similar transplant operation. The couple transplant will allow the couple to communicate chip-to-chip - without words, without movements, and even through the computer - while they are many kilometers apart. Irena plans to travel to New York after her transplant. He'll have a beer at the pub in Redding, and she, if all goes well, will get a little drunk on Fifth Avenue. She will be sexually aroused, and he will immediately feel it at home.
"Irena agreed immediately," Warrick says. "The idea of sending direct signals to her nervous system excites both of us very much. I suppose if I move my fingers and try to make her fingers move, the movement will not be the same, but she will feel something, something basic, like Morse code for example. I am very intrigued to check what She will feel if I try to convey my pain signals to her. Will a woman and a man experience things in the same way? Will each of us be able to receive transmissions from the other, and feel what he is feeling? Obviously we are not doing this experiment Only in the name of science, we still enjoy our sex. But my wife is afraid that after we have sex with each other, we will reach heights of excitement that we have never had and we will not be able to return to our sex routine at the end of the experiment."
We will do and see
Implantation of such a chip, even a first-generation one like the one implanted in his arm three years ago, could have a far-reaching social impact. Such chips can contain a lot of information about the bearer, starting with medical data such as blood type and diseases that must be taken care of in emergency situations, through data on his credit status to the National Insurance number, the ID card and the passport. Of course, the chip can also function as a database that can be constantly updated by computer. It also makes it possible, theoretically, to follow the person in his body when he is implanted, just like the computer of the computer science department knew at all times where his professor was.
In the second phase of the "Cyborg Project", this summer, the new chip will be more sophisticated, and will be able to remain in Warrick's body for a long period of several weeks. Through it, the possibility of transmitting "movement, thoughts and other feelings" from person to person will be examined. The computer, explains Warrick, will record what is happening in his mind when he is excited, afraid or relaxed, and during the transmission of the data back, will try to make him feel all these emotions once more.
The computer will also record what is happening in the nervous system as he moves the hand, say, and later his staff will try to get him to move the hand in exactly the same way by computer transmissions. As mentioned, Warrick hopes that he will be able to carry out the same interactions with his wife as well, after the chip is implanted in her body, and communicate with her mind-to-mind. "The question is whether the brain will allow me all these," he says, "or will try to stop the flow of information and say to itself: Hey, what is this, I don't exactly know what to do with it." And the answer? Warrick says brain research is at such a stage
No one has a clear answer yet. "And that's exactly the reason why I'm doing the experiment. We'll do it, and then we'll see what happens to me."
Warrick does not operate in isolation. The team of researchers who work with him in the robotics laboratory numbers 20 people. The latest reinforcement is Professor Brian Andrews, a neurologist from the Canadian University of Alberta, and Professor William Harvin, a robot expert from the American University of Delaware. However, Warrick's status as the mastermind behind it
The project is guaranteed. In the corridors leading to his office hang countless articles dedicated to him in the world press, photos of him before and after the transplant and articles he wrote. During the experiment, when the spotlight will be turned on him, the team around him will be responsible for deciphering and storing the information from the chip, and trying to explain what will happen in the human brain and the computer.
The preparation of the new chip took many months. It lies in a glass capsule, to avoid poisoning or blocking the radio transmissions through which it communicates with the computer. In future experiments, Warrick says, such chips will be implanted in more central nodes of neural activity, such as the spine or near the brainstem, but for now he is careful not to move too quickly.
Warrick's chip is supposed to listen to his nervous system. "It's easiest to locate the traffic-related signals," he explains. "If I move my finger, signals of a certain type will reach from my chip to the computer and be recorded there. The next step will be to transmit the same signals from the computer to the chip, hoping that my finger will move in the same way. Pain also sends very clear signals along the length of the nervous system. What will happen If the signals that the computer registered when I felt pain will be sent back to me? Will it be a similar experience to what people feel after their limbs are cut off and yet the pain remains?
"I am looking for the answers to these questions not only in order to get closer to the machine, the computer, and not to lose my human side. On the contrary, I am convinced that these answers can drive revolutionary changes in many fields of research, such as medicine. Research in this direction may certainly help people with Disabilities in the nervous system. Maybe a future development that will be based on the data we discover about the nervous system will help people like Christopher Reeve to walk again or give blind people other senses, such as the ability to sense from a distance using ultrasound, in order to enable them to navigate the world Western medicine is mainly based on chemicals, but our body is electro-chemical, it is activated by electrical signals, and maybe we can use them to get rid of pain, instead of taking a pill?"
Warrick was born and raised as a human, but he is convinced that this is a transitional phase. As part of his role as a robotics teacher, he and his students build non-human beings that operate in the world using instruments, and rely on computers instead of the brain. The combination, he hopes, will create a fascinating new being and make him the cyborg he was born to be.
What is so bad about us as we are?
"Human beings are very limited creatures, in what they are able to do or think. Our vision is fine, but the other senses are very limited and as a result we are not aware of many things in the world. We cannot see ultraviolet light, for example, or infrared, there is a range Sounds are big that we don't recognize from a distance by their temperature. We can acquire all these abilities if we connect our body to our senses. Our brain, for example, is only capable of three dimensions To process information and calculate calculations in hundreds of dimensions, so why not give this ability to our brains?"
Language is a dinosaur
The word "evolution" comes up again and again in Warrick's words. He is convinced that this is a natural process of development from within the human race, of stronger and more successful creatures, which will eventually push the feet of humans as they are known to us. "And I hope I'm not insulting all your religious people there in Israel when I say evolution," he looks at me with concern. "But it's clear that our brain will simply have to develop in other directions in order to survive. Even an old brain like mine, which is already 47 years old, constantly adapts itself to changes in the environment - and I'm not the only one saying this, medicine has also found that this happens. Imagine what would happen if We will be able to connect to the computer's mind, what new forms of thinking will be open to us. Our brains are not great at memory, so why not connect to them, and delete them from there whenever we need them? to use our brains for other things."
So why settle for our memories? Isn't it through the computer that we can connect to completely different memories. "You see, this raises very intriguing questions. But let's take a much simpler example. Why don't we connect the brain to a computer and use its capabilities every time we need to perform mathematical calculations? The computer is capable of performing calculations many times more complicated than we can, and at enormous speeds. Even in the field of communication The computer can help us overcome this strange thing that we use to communicate with each other today."
This weird thing?
"Language, words, speech. This is a very slow process of expression. Technology today allows us to transfer information at much greater speeds, so I suggest that instead of talking to each other, in a slow and imprecise process, we transfer information to each other directly to the brain. Maybe we even switch to using symbols Instead of the language as it is known to us today. The words are just familiar codes, and maybe we don't need them. Maybe we should streamline the whole business by using more technical languages like computer languages and conveying thoughts, symbols, graphics to each other."
And what about the singing? about the art?
"We will have other forms of art, it's very simple. I think we should be embarrassed that there are still people who paint oil pictures in two dimensions. Not that it didn't have a place in the past, it's part of human history, but today? When technology allows us to create works that can be entered It's not clear why it's worth producing more old art. Today, it's wrong for me to be trapped in the old world. People today compose digital operas, sample human voices and combine them with all kinds of other sounds, that is, use technology in a way that sharpens the artistic experience and not Leaves the art consumer passive. Today there is no point in just listening to music through the ears, for example. In my opinion, art should change your perception, make you feel things. We are able to do much more today than we could when we created the great classics , and we expect coaches to extort admiration from us."
Am I supposed to admire more a work that is transmitted directly to my brain?
"You will be able to experience everything with greater powers, and much faster. When we manage to link the computer to the brain, and integrate the two as if they were one system, all the power of the computer will be at the disposal of the brain. At the moment we are already using the powers of the computer, but the contact between us is slow , we use the same technology that was used in the time of Noah and the flood. We activate the computer through touch, voices, body movements. It is clear that direct activation from the brain can bring about countless things that we are not capable of today, so let's do it, upgrade the system ".
Survival, the next generation
As expected, aside from exclamations of admiration from colleagues in his department and at other universities, Warrick has more than once encountered people who view his ideas with suspicion, even trepidation. "Every change that technology brings has good and bad in it," he admits. "Our lives today are very different from those of humans 1,000 years ago, and yet
It is difficult to ask if we are happier than them, because happiness is a personal matter. We get used to things, we get used to changes, and so we will also get used to our gradual transformation into cyborgs."
Warrick speaks in the plural because he is convinced that many will follow him. Even now, he says, the colleagues want to take part in the experiment and he does not agree, at least until it becomes clear whether he will come out of it safely. "Why do I perform my experiments on myself? Because I want to feel what it means, because if one of my students volunteers for the experiment and something happens to him, I will not be able to live with myself. When the first chip was implanted in me, it was important to me to be the one who feels and records what is happening , I was very curious, what would it do to me, how would it make me feel. The first experiment was so amazing that I never stopped asking myself how I could take it forward with the computer, the changes in my body. I jumped from a simple thought of new possibilities in the operation of a computer, to a real change in the human essence. As soon as the implant was inserted into my body, I immediately thought, why not operate computers by thoughts? As a scientist, I constantly strive to ride roller coasters which travel very fast and very scary, and it is not clear what will happen at the end of their journey. I am always looking for experiments that no one has done before."
And what is the next step, computers that will not need the human brain at all to think?
"Not yet. The machine, the computer, is still just a tool, just a storage place. It will be able to give me new senses, like receiving signals from a distance, sensing from a distance. By connecting the brain to the computer I will be able to use waves, for example
Ultrasonics to identify objects I can't see, like the bats do, or to see things in X-rays. I will have a lot of new sensory information, even if it manifests itself in unexpected forms. It's certainly possible that instead of seeing things that I can't see because of my visual limitations, I'll sense them by scratching my nose, but that doesn't matter, it's also the entry of a new kind of information."
How, for example, are you going to record feelings, love, jealousy, hatred?
"These are very abstract, and in the first step I'm talking about physical sensations. Anger or shock, for example, have very clear physical reactions in the nervous system, it's easy to identify different emotions. But in the end, everything happens in the brain and we learn
to locate the appropriate signals for each situation".
The experiment and its results also have a commercial side. A number of companies are curiously following Warrick, assuming that there will be someone who can translate the project results into practical applications, and there will be someone who will make money when human society is ready for cyborgs.
"Will people be willing to implant themselves with a chip instead of taking aspirin? It is difficult to judge the willingness to adopt such a revolutionary technology. In the last two years, we have adopted cell phones with joy, but not the robots that do the housework. We have the appropriate technology, but the price is high, because there is no Enough consumers. We already have technology for more intensive interaction with the computer, but not everyone is ready for brain implants for communication purposes. Maybe we should think about a simple solution like an injection in the leg or hand instead of an implant surgery."
When asked about social-moral problems, loss of privacy, humanity, relationships between people, he does not shake his head. "I hope that people think about this and are concerned about the ethical questions that the issue raises. This natural development must not be stopped for moral reasons, but society should ask itself what it wants and how culturally appropriate it is. As a scientist, I provide the information, and the decisions should be everybody".
In his eyes at least, those who decide not to join the cyborg revolution will eventually become extinct. "Of course we will not be human anymore. In the mental sense we will be exactly the same cyborg that is described in science fiction literature. We will be an improved person, we will take a step forward. Humans are so much more dominant in our world than the chimpanzees, our relatives. What will happen to them when the cyborgs appear? They will be inferior, and who Of those who decide not to move forward, they will not survive."
Warrick and his wife are going to be, as he says, "walking laboratories." for how long? "As much as possible. As much as we can bear it. Some of my colleagues want us to leave the chips in our bodies for ten years, so that they can perform all the experiments that they suddenly realize can be done. This is very unusual and therefore very stimulating. The psychology department has already raised questions such as how do I feel In front of a movie on TV, what happens while driving or just before an accident occurs. Someone even suggested that for the sake of the experiment, I would get my wife pregnant, and I would feel her feelings as a result of the transmissions from her chip. I think we will last two or three months That way we'll go on a long vacation, far away from everyone."
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~318368641~~~204&SiteName=hayadan
