Engineered Enhancers Closer Than You Think

Roland Piquepaille writes "Happy 2035! Thirty years from now, we'll use bionic eyes giving us 'zoom vision' for faster reactions. Nanobots injected in our bloodstream will complement our immune system. Artificial muscles built with electroactive polymers will help us to be stronger and faster. So you think it's science fiction? Not at all. You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"

Medical needs

[BWJones]

Perhaps in thirty years we could obtain some degree of enhancement for our eyes that would be optically based. However, a more pressing (and needed) benefit will be a cure or fix for folks with vision loss. "Zoom lenses" and such could relatively easily be accomplished with bionically enhanced optics, but the real trick is going to be designing and implementing the hardware/wetware interface and creating true bionic retinas. Bionic implants for retinal degenerations as currently implemented are not going to work for a variety of reasons (read my doctoral dissertation [utah.edu] to find out why), but there are other approaches that can be taken or modifications that will be successful (part of my current work). Also alternative ways of implementing the interface cortically will likely have some success (not my work, but it is of my colleagues). Artificial retinas are going to be harder than artificial cochleas for the hearing impaired or cortical control of motor functions which are both applications that are having some success currently. The retina is a much more complex tissue with (in our eyes) 55-60 different classes of neurons all wired together in a precise manner to generate proper signals for image interpretability. As an interesting aside, I have said this before on Slashdot, but human eyes are pretty pathetic in terms of their sophistication. Birds, fish and many reptiles have much more sophisticated retinas that perceive what we would term a multi-spectral visual world. A visual scene much richer that the simple three-space world we currently see.

Almost a reality

[SIGALRM]

we'll use bionic eyes giving us 'zoom vision' for faster reactions

Indeed many blind or vision-impaired people have hope today from nanotechnology like this. Scientists are experimenting with thin, photosensitive ceramic films that respond to light much as rods and cones do. Arrays of such films could be implanted in human eyes to restore lost vision.

Re:Almost a reality

[drakethegreat]

Will there be some way to provide a view beyond just zoom? Will it be possible to create a tool that allows you to have better horizontal coverage and be more aware of stuff that isn't right infront of us?

Steroids?

[kaedemichi255]

There are athletes being "enhanced" right now. In my opinion, although those certain biotech innovations are probably not realistically going to arrive in the mass market in just a few decades, perhaps the use of technology in the medicinal/health sectors will spur the development of new ways of practicing traditional medicine that may ultimately have the same effect as the sci-fi-ish inventions we dream about.

Such things as this could cause war.

[Punboy]

Gene Roddenberry predicted a war between enhanced humans and regular humans. Remember? Khan? And then there was another war like that later in the 21st century I think. Either way, both sides had significant casualties. I wouldn't be surprised if it actually happened, would you?

Re:Almost a reality

[BWJones]

What we are going to need however is 1) a way of understanding how the retina is currently constructed (believe it or not, but after 150 years of study, we still don't know exactly how the circuits in the retina are constructed) and 2) how to interface the new films or chips to the cortex to make sensible visual signals. I am optimistic this can occur but we are still a number of years out.

We won't have a choice

[omnirealm]

Nanobots injected in our bloodstream will complement our immune system.

Actually, I do not think we will have a choice in the matter on this one. Before too long, there will be hostile (or just poorly designed and self-replicating) nanobots that will kill us when they get into our bodies. We will need some sort of immediate defense against this new threat; if anything, an outbreak caused by a malicious type of nanobot will spurn the development of the nanobot that complements our immune system and defends against the malicious nanobot. This sort of thing has long been addressed in science fiction novels, but it seems like something that is closer than we might imagine.

Sporting is like that now - just make it official

[Zarhan]

...all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"

Judging by the number of athletes that get caught for using different kinds of doping substances at every major event, this is reality right now.

I have been wondering if we should do a split now; ie. have separate races for "boosted" athletes and another series for "traditional". The boosted version could have all kinds of medical companies as sponsors...Think of that bodybuilder with Pfizer tattooed on his muscles. Of course, life expectancy drops to around 30 years until the heart explodes, but at least you get famous.

Maybe they could even have separate points for "athletes" and "teams" like in motorsports. Teams would have loads of MDs coming up with better and more powerful stuff...

Since I really don't care about traditional sporting events at all, but this version might be fun to watch from an (bio-)engineering point of view.

The Two I'm Looking Forward to are

[ewanrg]

Personally, the two enhancements I'm looking forward to are:

1) Augmented memory. No more forgetting names or passwords. Though it does add some real interesting issues for DRM (can you force me to forget a movie after remembering it X times)

2) Direct connect to the net - the ability to check GPS to figure out what I might be looking at, or the apocryphal doing google searches when asked a question would be very useful.

Just my .02 worth...

---

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a blog [blogspot.com]

Huh?

[Gyan]

You'll see that some people are so convinced that this kind of human enhancements will happen that they predict than in a few decades, all sporting events 'will be split up to accommodate enhanced and unenhanced athletes.'"

What's the difference between enhanced and unenhanced?

Isn't the athlete from a rich country with well-equipped training facilities, tailored nutrition and good trainers already an enhanced athlete compared to an athlete from some small 3rd world country?

This dichotomy to what constitutes enhancement and what doesn't smacks of a medieval perspective of the human condition.

Re:STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you blind? His name _is_ a link to his website. Maybe you're the one who should wake up.

who will watch the non-boosted events?

[SuperBanana]

I have been wondering if we should do a split now; ie. have separate races for "boosted" athletes and another series for "traditional".

...and who's going to watch the non-boosted events? Will companies choose to sponsor the athletes setting records, or those who "just" take first place? Who will the networks cover?

Do you think that Major League Baseball is asleep at the switch, when they tell their players months in advance about an upcoming drug test, and 50+ players STILL get caught doping, and MLB does nothing? Do you think the government is asleep at the switch when they don't subpoena the hell out of MLB and throw every druggie baseball player into the slammer?

Phhbt. Dream on- MLB is thrilled at the doping. They "hate" it publicly, but privately they squeal like little children when Joe Dope smashes the baseball out of the park. Home runs and high scores bring in the crowds. Singles and scoreless games don't.

...And god forbid the government should interfere with baseball. It's a 'national pasttime'. It'd be like...messing with Apple Pie.

Removing physical requirements from jobs

[Nine Tenths of The W]

IF this article is correct, this will have an interesting effect on jobs which require physical as well as mental characteristics. Everyone will be able to have 20/20 vision, the muscle and endurance to perform the most gruelling types of manual labour or pass the entry requirements for elite military forces, the physique necessary for certain types of "acting"* etc

*On this note, does anyone know how I could reserve the name Robocock?

Re:The Two I'm Looking Forward to are

[flamechocobo]

The direct connection to the net would pose some problems in schoools, where the richer kids would have that acess to Google and basically get answers subconsciously. Would this be fair? No. It would be just like the cell phone text messaging situation today.

No More Evolution for Humans

[shirai]

One idea that I rarely, if ever, see addressed is that we may very well have seen the end of natural human evolution. Before you reject this idea, think about it for a moment.

I'm sure we all know how evolution works, by killing off the least efficient *versions* of our species and allowing the most efficient to breed.

Well, in first world countries anyways, EVERYBODY can breed, and live and breed again. In fact, one might argue that some of the most intelligent of our species either (a) have difficulty breeding (ahem) and certainly in many cases (b) breed later in the game. And (b) is just as significant for if one group breeds 50% more than another group, the former group becomes dominant.

Now, I'm not saying smart people necessarily breed less and that unsuccessfully people breed more and earlier but there has always been a cultural tie between career oriented people marrying later in the game.

And certainly, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of natural selection. Until the next epidemic comes out and wipes out the non-immune half of the population, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of natural selection going on anymore. I wonder how this will affect our species a thousand, ten thousand or hundred thousand years from now.

Perhaps these human augmentations are the new form of evolution for humans.

Re:It's not a bug, it's a feature

[BWJones]

Yes, and whats ironic is that the sensory overload of modern life is precisely what causes vision loss.

Nonsense. And why yes, I am a vision scientist.

Re:2010.. No more V1agr4

[BWJones]

Your subject line might be more appropriate than you think. I am actually concerned about the use of Viagra, because it is a phosphodiesterase inhibitor.......If you read about how photoreceptors work, phosphodiesterase does have a role in the transduction of vision and there is overlap with the activity of Viagra with the phosphodiesterase subtypes found in photoreceptors. Are we setting a bunch of folks up for vision deficits down the road a few years?

Re:But at what point do you lose your humanity?

[PsiPsiStar]

We've had folks 3-4 times stronger than other folks for generations and nobody asked whether one or the other might not be human... okay so maybe they have, but they shouldn't have.

The questions for whether someone is human include; can they interbreed with humans? Are they sentinent? Are they responsible to themselves and a threat to others. If so, they should be legally and biologically be considered humans. Driving a car doesn't make you less human. Having an artificial heart doesn't make you less human. Having a bionic adaptation shouldn't either.

If you're going to exclude someone from the category of human you should have a functional moral, ethical, legal or biological reason for doing so, and your categorical exclusion would only be as broad as your reason was.

My question (borrowed from the X-Men) is; when should enhanced abilities be considered weapons or threats, in the same class as firearms or knives? Do you not let certain people into an area because they're unusually strong or capable?

Re:Kurzweil foresaw this.

[LGEKoji]

Would it not make more sense to prefer augmentation, for it is MAN'S achievement, MAN'S success, and MAN'S work to take pride in, not something happenstance? What pride can be taken in the luck of the draw? What have you to be proud of, when you have done nothing but been left victim of evolution, given a body inferior to your passions and desires, simply because of bad luck? And what greater way to be proud of mankind's accomplishments than to BECOME it's accomplishment?

I think you just fear being dehumanized. But you shouldn't. Machine's are the most human things there are, for they are the children of humanities efforts, not nature's. Nothing can be more human than that which nature has failed to do but we have. Nothing. Every cyborg, every AI, everything we create, THEY are who and what we are. Not our bodies, not are flesh and bone, that's incidental.

Re:It's not a bug, it's a feature

[Haydn Fenton]

I can remember in the news a while back there was a russian girl who was able to see in either normal vision, or a kind of x-ray-stylé vision. Anyway, she was learning to be a medical student and there were several tests done to prove the authenticity of it all, she correctly managed to predict that somebody was going to catch cancer, amonst other seemingly impossible feats. I can't recall the best source so I'll leave a google link [google.com] so you can read for yourselfs. She seemed to be coping pretty well for someone with xray and normal vision, capabilities to swap between the two easily and learn to be a medical student.