The long run isn’t an accident, it’s something we create and it seems our goal is to hack what it means to be human. What was once science fiction is now reality: the primary cyborgs are here. A revolution is unfolding in operating rooms, labs, artist, and designer studios internationally. 

Scientists and entrepreneurs are on a quest to unlock the secrets of the human brain through implantable technology. The documentary “I am Human” by Elena Gaby follows three individuals with various degrees of disabilities who’ve been implanted with brain-computer interfaces allowing them to attain what was once unattainable. Programmes comparable to BrainGate, Synchron, and Neuralink are among the many neurotech organisations working to revive communication, mobility, and independence in individuals who have lost movement attributable to paralysis, limb loss, or neurodegenerative disease. 

Within the documentary, Stephen, who’s blind, has a retinal implant which connects to electrodes in his brain. Elsewhere, Anne – who suffers from Parkinson’s Disease – is considering whether to have deep brain stimulation through inserted electrodes. These brain implants include great societal implications as groundbreaking neurotechnologies could step by step branch out into the overall population when people adopt how transformational they might be. 

A future where we will type or control our cars with our mind is nearby and if the technology were to make it outside the medical domain, the long run is one in every of brain-to-brain communication, enhanced memory, and cognition where even talking to one another is probably not as essential. In her recent article for the Guardian, Zoe Corbyn features Dennis Degray, a paraplegic man who was in a position to send text messages, shop on Amazon, and stack blocks by controlling a robotic arm through the neurons of his mind. Brain implants could revolutionise the best way we hook up with the world around us. If harnessed, for instance, within the military, in retail, the workplace or train stations, they might change into the brand new standard for interactions between people, machines, and products.

But cognitive enhancements, although still in experimental stages, should make us query the deep implications of self-governance and privacy. In our cyber future, will humans or technology prevail? Daniela Skill’s short film featured on Nowness portrays a future where humanity battles with cyborgs and robots in a quest for co-existence. This appears to be a far-fetched scenario, but when we observe the signals of today and operate as cultural listeners, we will see a tipping point between humanity and machines through the rise of neurotechnology. 

Bionic humans and intelligent robots are here, and also you higher get used to them; you may even change into one in every of them in the long run. Corporations comparable to Youbionic goals to democratise smart prosthetics in an effort to reinforce the human intellect and physiology – its recent invention, the “Youbionic Paw Arm”, is now available through open sourcing. Another open-source, artificially intelligent prosthetic leg designed by scientists Levi Hargrove and Elliott Rouse on the University of Michigan and Shirley Ryan Ability Lab will probably be released to the public and scientific community. This naturally redefines the changing boundaries between the human and the machine, the animate and inanimate, controller and controlled, and the way accessible this may occasionally all change into. 

In our quest to merge the physical, digital and machine, ancient themes of Animism dating from ancient civilisations and religions comparable to the Golem are being played out with today’s toolbox. Creatives like Princess Gollum illustrate our fascination with giving life to non-living things. Humans cannot help but explore their power and their fears in a bid to take control of the inevitable: the degradation of the human body and mind. This need for eternity has inspired us to create human-like creatures with special abilities from Frankenstein to today’s alien Avatars such as Galaxia.

In her art installation “Homemade RC Toy”, Geumhyung Jeong questions our relationship with machines by interacting naked with homemade robotic sculptures. “Flowing Water Standing Time” by dressmaker Ying Pao is a robotic garment which moves in keeping with color and is inspired by the work of neurologist Oliver Sacks. We could see the event of clothes that could be a tool for navigation, communication, and as an amplifier for VR spaces with projects like Ava Aghakouchak’s soft wearable “Sovar”.

Meanwhile, Ai-Da, the world’s first humanoid robot artist, has had her first solo exhibition of eight drawings, twenty paintings, 4 sculptures and two video works. There was debate about granting personhood to AI within the EU courts in 2017. This was ultimately rejected; nonetheless, recently two professors from the University of Surrey filed patents on behalf of an AI system. They’re arguing it should be recognised as inventor, and although the Patents offices within the UK, EU and US insist innovations are attributed to humans only, this now appears to be an outdated notion. 

So, what does this mean for the human body, intelligence and emotions? In ‘What humans will appear to be in the subsequent 100 years’, we discussed the acceptance of baby androids in our society and the manufacturing of cyborgs by 2048. The project Replika by Pleun Van Dijk, commissioned by Roskilde Festival, echoes this transhumanist concept. By staging a human production-line, designers act as gods and stage a future where human shells are reshaped by industry and capital. Latest research shows that we may give you the option to regenerate human tissue and body parts, as scientists have discovered the human body can renew like salamanders. The paper, published in Science Advances, explains we have now the identical healing process as amphibians and this previously unknown ability “may be exploited to reinforce joint repair and establish a basis for human limb regeneration”. 

Science fiction artist Esmay Wagemans explores a parallel concept of re-creating body parts in a race to “res-culpt humanity”. This concept, paired with the developments of sentimental computers comparable to “the Octobot,” a chemically powered robot which might essentially take any shape, points to the potential for merging soft wearables with Augmented Reality, social media, and Artificial intelligence. This could lead on to a recent way of communicating and representing ourselves through which our skins would change into screens reflected in Aposema, a facial prosthesis which acts as an external emotional indicator. The project speculates on our ability to empathise in an age where people prefer technological devices over in-person interactions. Built using soft robotics prosthetics, biometric sensors and an augmented reality digital layer, Aposema would translate facial expressions once we aren’t any longer in a position to understand emotions.

How we relate to other humans and our own physicality is changing deeply as we race to “virtualise” and reinvent our body. The democratisation of technologies starting from robotic limbs to mixed realities, coupled with the progress of 3D scanning and modelling, are suggesting the potential of a human body that’s modifiable, customisable and open source. Latest beauty standards will emerge out of this transhumanist scenario through which mutant creations would colonise our current traditional sense of reality. 

We’re creating one other dimension, one other human nature before our eyes. The speculative design studio Imprudence explores future beauty products with their online store selling items starting from cat eye DNA, nano filter make-up to a skin scanning soap. Face filters are a key illustration of the viral desire for wearing 3D makeup as seen in Ines Alpha’s recently launched collaboration with the fashion brand Bimba y Lola. Through her digital creations, digital artist Ksenia Trifonova engages with a future where images will probably be projected onto our faces and provides us the flexibility to remodel and communicate data, style, social media posts on our skins. 

Our clothing won’t be resistant to the changes in our reality paradigm. Rflctv Studios’ streetwear collection transforms into interactive hyperreal dichroic garments through augmented reality. Moin Roberts-Islam of the London-based Fashion Innovation Agency recently featured a prototype scanner for human body augmentation and customisation created by Cyberpunk 3D artist Rafe Johnson. It could offer recent ways of trying on jewellery, accessories and tattoos. 

And with “Virtual” humans, avatars won’t only populate our feeds, but they will even enter customer support applications as we are actually in a position to replicate human emotion and mimic meaningful and authentic interactions. Soul Machines enables highly realistic Autonomous Animations of humans through an AI-powered Digital Brain. The avatars are already planned to be rolled out in customer support for Natwest. Concurrently, Facebook has outlined its plans to turn us into holograms in a future communication where as an alternative of using Skype, we may very well be teleported to our parent’s lounge for dinner internationally. The holographic avatar in Blade Runner or the loveable operating system in Her are here. 

Western philosophy makes an absolute distinction between the living and the non-living. We presumed that humans were the one pondering things but now machines think, they are going to sense, feel, reflect, also have a sense of self, through avatars like Josefin Jonsson’s virtual humans, cyborgs and humanoids. As we use advanced technologies to push the sides of humanity, machines have gotten like us. The query now could be, where will we end and where do they start? And is that this a real advancement for society?