When I was reviewing the list of courses offered online by CDIS, the title of this course jumped out at me - “Resistance Is Futile: The Advance of the Cyborg” is too intriguing to ignore.

I knew I wanted to take this course because the its preview lesson illustrated how well it fits both into what I have been/ will be working on and my spare-time interests.

I am studying Electrical and Computer engineering, and recently interned at a firm that specializes in factory automation. I worked on industrial control panels, on “line control” programs, and on designing and programming HMIs (human-machine interfaces), all of which have an “intelligent machine” angle to study. This summer I will be interning at a company that specializes in “mechatronics,” or as my interviewer put it, “smart robots that do stuff.”

I am specifically interested in the artificial intelligence aspect of “cyborgology,” especially its theoretical capabilities and limits. For the last several years I have been reading books on philosophy of consciousness and free will (especially Daniel Dennett), the math behind artificial intelligence (especially Douglas Hofstadter), and the like. After I saw that the preview lesson recommended one of the most interesting papers by John Searle (“Is the Brain a Digital Computer?”), I knew I could satisfy some of my professional and personal curiosities by taking this course.

My original concept of the term “cyborg” comes largely from the Terminator movie – a programmed robot with organic body parts. Lesson 1, and especially The Cyborg Handbook, alter my understanding of the term by proposing a much wider application. This application extends “cyborg” to refer to any enhancement of a human (or even animal, as the osmotic pump-equipped rat shows) body or mind with artificial materials or any endowment of artificial materials with human attributes (as illustrated by the reference to the golem from Jewish folklore) .

Using “cyborg” in this extended sense certainly has applications to deep questions in philosophy. In addition to the ones discussed about human nature and the ethics of human enhancement om the lesson, other questions can be approached with the “cyborg point of view:” Do humans have free will? If human intelligence can be simulated (i.e. pass Turing's test) on a machine, does that machine have free will or ethical obligations? Do we have to posit a soul (if so, what is its nature?) or connection with a Creator (if so, which one?) to separate ourselves from animals and automatons? The cyborg point of view can help shed light on these questions, and help validate proposed answers.

As the lesson's reading suggests, wider application of  “cyborg” risks stripping it of its specific meaning. However, technological advances made since Clynes' and Kline's original definition of the term have kept the original sense useful and relevant. As the lesson discusses, advances in medical technology have led to the fusion of human bodies and machines – there are mechanical hearts, hearing aids, and prosthetic limbs to compensate for disabilities and a host of devices designed to boost human senses beyond their normal levels. These advances may not have all led to humans being able to live in space, but have allowed for humans to adapt to industrial, military, and other hostile environments.

The extended use of “cyborg” is also increasingly useful . Today, the pace of scientific and technological progress makes the cyborg viewpoint more and more relevant. Machines are getting better and better at performing humans tasks - widely available cars can parallel park themselves, for example – and the cyborg viewpoint provides a way of thinking about these changes and their implications. I will be applying this approach myself when I start my work in mechatronics in the coming weeks – “cyborg” is not just for the philosophers.