CiS / CMF Day Conference
Technologies of the Future
October 2004
Cybernetics: From Fiction to Fact
John Bryant
In the past few years, we have seen breathtaking developments biotechnology,
and have heard about the potential to modify or enhance humans through
genetics. We are now on the leading edge of something with at least as
great a potential for good and for ill: the group of technologies focused
on nanotechnology and, in tandem, cybernetics. These rapidly developing
technologies will also enable human beings to reengineer and modify themselves,
but without the need to involve genetics or reproductive mechanisms.
Cybernetics technology at its simplest is the integration of man and machine,
or the ‘merging’ of the biological and mechanical. It has
also taken on the meaning of adding prostheses to the human to replace
lost function, or to augment functions.
What drives many of the current developments in this field is the enormous
potential for improving the capabilities of the disabled. In this presentation
I will show how cybernetics technology will help some paralysed people
to operate mechanical prostheses by thought, and how implants will help
blind people to see and the deaf to hear.
However, although this technology is exciting and may well significantly
improve the lives of many, it has potentially dark sides and raises some
important ethical issues. Cybernetics technology will undoubtedly develop
beyond helping people with disabilities, beyond replacing lost functions,
towards augmenting and enhancing abilities, through both external or wearable
computing devices and implantable devices. Other ethical issues we will
face include fairness in access to new technologies, and the desire to
‘remake humans’. This latter concern arises from the philosophical
movement known as transhumanism and raises challenges for our understanding
of what it means to be made in the image of God, to be human.
We need to be ahead of the game and aware where cybernetics can be used
for good or ill. John Cornwell, writing in the Sunday Times, recently
warned: “….this is a science and technology that requires
vigilance and attentiveness to social and ethical consequences. New genetics
and repro-technology caught out the ethicists, as research speedily outstripped
our moral norms. The advent of new ‘interfaces’ could equally
find us napping.”
Philippa Taylor
Associate Director
The Centre for Bioethics and Public Policy
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