Leading Humanity Forward
From: Star (Malaysia) - 10/14/2003
By: A. Asohan

Reading University cybernetics professor Kevin Warwick - who gained notoriety
by exploring "cyborg" technology through surgical implants in his own
body - says the purpose of cybernetic research is twofold: To help disabled
people better control their bodies or manipulate objects, and to enhance the
performance and capabilities of humans in general. He says his goal is "to
upgrade [people], to take humans as we are now and to give ourselves extra
abilities." Warwick's first experiment, Project Cyborg 1.0, involved the
implant of a transponder chip in his arm, one that could interact with an
intelligent building system to enable Warwick to turn on lights and open
doors without any manual action. The follow-up experiment, Project Cyborg
2.0, was based on the implant of an electrode microarray connected to his
nervous system, which was then attached to a radio transceiver to establish a
two-way link between his nerves and a computer; the implant allowed Warwick
to remotely control devices such as a robotic hand, but much more ambitious
plans for Project Cyborg 2.0 were abandoned or scaled back because of
bureaucratic red tape, ethical concerns, or unexpected results. The professor
had wanted to see if thought communications between two people with similar
implants was possible, and he enlisted his wife to be a guinea pig, but he
did not receive ethical approval for the experiment unless his wife's nerve
implant was external rather than internal. The attempt to communicate
physical emotions to one another was also limited by the complexity of the
emotions themselves. A much more successful Project Cyborg 2.0 experiment
proved that Warwick, when blindfolded, could navigate by ultrasonic signals
fed to his implant through a sensor-studded baseball cap. The ultimate goal
of these experiments is a brain implant, Project Cyborg 4.0, which Warwick
hopes will dramatically expand human communications, perhaps even support
telepathy. Warwick also subscribes to the belief that machine intelligence
will inevitably overtake human intelligence, if one defines intelligence as
"the mental ability to sustain successful life."  

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2003/10/14/itfeature/6414580&sec=itfeature