February 10, 2004, 7PM | Room A118 Pendergrass Library / Veterinarian Hospital [Directions...]
Robotics: [Film] [Issues] [Science] [Resources]

Robotics: Into the Body

Writer/Director Brian Knappenberger
Produced by Joe Arnao
Ambrose Video Publishing, 2002
45 minutes
Platinum Award, Houston Film Festival

This is the age of new technology - robotics, gene therapy, artificial intelligence, genetically modified foods, cochlear and other body implants. We are developing the potential to fundamentally change ourselves as a species. But what is appropriate and inappropriate? What does it mean - and what will it mean - to be human?

In Into the Body, experts from top universities, corporations, medical and biotech research teams discuss the new frontiers that blur the lines between science fact and science fiction, and between man and machine. Hugh Herr at MIT extols the virtues of his artificial legs which enable him to be a better mountain climber than he was before an accident required double leg amputation. A man with macular degeneration is excited about the possibility of a retinal implant which will allow him to see again after 18 years of blindness. Kevin Warwick, an English researcher, has a silicon chip transponder imbedded in his arm, allowing the computer in his building to monitor him, open doors and turn on lights. He looks forward to his next implant, hooking up his nervous system, emotions, memory and all, to the computer. As author Eric Davis says, "We are a work in progress." But when we replace eyes, legs and internal organs, at what point are we not who we were before? Are we creating a different kind of human?

Robotics is the field in which a different kind of humanity is becoming reality. Many developers believe that robots which move and react as people and animals do are fascinating because they give us clues to how we work as human beings. Kismet, a robot with remarkable social intelligence, reacts and responds as a human would. Is it, therefore, a kind of human? Is it conscious? Cynthia Breazel of MIT believes that human consciousness is unprovable; the test of consciousness is how we treat each other. Will we treat the socially interactive robot as a friend, with the respect we show each other? Is it then, a robot or another species of human?

Many scientists believe that gene therapy, or manipulation, is simply accelerating the pace at which humans have always changed. It will produce a medical revolution, but presents dangers as well. It will allow designer babies, genetic selection and manipulation of gene lines for intelligence, health, athletic ability. But what we consider normal and appropriate behavior is socially conditioned, and changes over time. Tampering with natural genetic evolution can be very dangerous, and quite uncomfortable for many people.

We see this reluctance to tamper with the current "normal" in protests against genetically engineered foods. Some see the abortion controversy as the beginning of the fight to determine to what degree technology will change the nature of what it is to be human. Is a fetus human? Taking this further, Is a patient on life support still human? What about a patient with half his brain replaced by a computer? What if some of us want to alter our bodies in order to increase our potential, and others don't? Will we then have two kinds of humans? Katherine Hayes of UCLA reminds us that science often asks how and why, but seldom asks what it means and whether being able to do something means we actually should do it.

We have to begin to make decisions in new realms and take responsibility for our power. Should new and powerful computers and technology be restricted so that it can only be used for good? But what is good? Some believe that unrestricted technology is suicidal. Other feel that restrictions would require massive governmental intrusion in each life, producing damage far beyond the damage possible from genetic tampering. And what of the genetic manipulation which might vastly increase a healthy life span? Hayes considers the essence of life - its irreplaceable joy and urgency which is predicated on our understanding that we will all die. Mortality is essential to what it means to be human. But Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon University notes that we are adapted for life in a hunter/gatherer society. Our ability to adapt to modern life is stretched almost to the breaking point. We've built a trap, he says, which forces us to use whatever technology tools are available in order to survive.

As we continue on our path to fundamentally alter the human body - our raw material - we have complicated and contentious decisions to make. As one scientist puts it, this is a difficult, critical - and glorious time in the history of human life.