Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: cyborgs – Page 67

In a trial, the scientists were capable of using electrical jolts from microelectronic controllers to make jellyfish swim not only faster but also more efficiently, according to a paper published in Science Advances today.

“We’ve shown that they’re capable of moving much faster than they normally do, without an undue cost on their metabolism,” said co-author and Stanford bioengineering PhD candidate Nicole Xu, in a statement.

“This reveals that jellyfish possess an untapped ability for faster, more efficient swimming,” Xu added. “They just don’t usually have a reason to do so.”

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The world’s first completely robotic heart may end the need for transplants from dead humans in as few as 10 years, the hybrid heart made of soft artificial muscles and sensors is hoped to eventually end the need for human transplants.

The hybrid robotic heart is under development and could clear NHS heart transplant waiting lists and save many lives. It is the first hybrid heart made from soft artificial muscles and sensors which are coated in human tissues that are grown in a laboratory.

There are plans partnered with the British Heart Foundation to transplant it into the first person in 2028; the hope is that this hybrid robotic heart will save thousands of lives who would normally have died while waiting for a human organ donor on global waiting lists.

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Sometimes, being human involves tragedy: unexpected accidents can alter a person’s future, permanently changing how they need to approach their daily lives. Those with traumatic brain injuries suffer long-term mental and physical challenges, such as trouble with their working memory span, which can play a significant role in their education and longevity. However, if used properly, transhuman aids such as prosthetic limbs can provide solutions to human challenges.

Transhumanism, in a nutshell, is the idea that people can use technology to overcome biological limitations. Just as how we use rational means to improve our life experiences and the world around us, we can use such means to improve ourselves as organisms. It is simply a concept, not a tangible characterization of some futuristic cyborg.

There is reasonable fear that using such technologies would be tampering with nature. This is true. However, whether something is good or bad cannot be decided simply by asking whether or not it is natural. Plenty of natural things are horrible, such as diseases and parasites, where our moral interest is to intervene and improve these conditions. The question to ask is not whether the technology is natural, but rather, what are the various possible consequences that would arise from it, both desirable and undesirable, and the likelihood of each. People who are concerned that our species will stray too far away from what it means to be a ‘natural human’ forget how far we have already evolved as a species.

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By Rohit Talwar, Steve Wells, Alexandra Whittington, and Maria Romero

As artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionises work as we know it, how will the software testing and security industry be impacted?

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Continue reading “Here come the robots: intelligent machines could take, make, or reboot software testing and security jobs” | >

Human skin is a fascinating multifunctional organ with unique properties originating from its flexible and compliant nature. It allows for interfacing with external physical environment through numerous receptors interconnected with the nervous system. Scientists have been trying to transfer these features to artificial skin for a long time, aiming at robotic applications.

Robotic systems heavily rely on electronic and magnetic field sensing functionalities required for positioning and orientation in space. Much research has been devoted to implementation of these functionalities in a flexible, compliant form. Recent advancements in flexible sensors and organic electronics have provided important prerequisites. These devices can operate on soft and elastic surfaces, whereas sensors perceive various physical properties and transmit them via readout circuits.

To closely replicate natural skin, it is necessary to interconnect a large number of individual sensors. This challenging task became a major obstacle in realizing electronic skin. First demonstrations were based on an array of individual sensors addressed separately, which unavoidably resulted in a tremendous number of electronic connections. In order to reduce the necessary wiring, important technology had to be developed—namely, complex electronic circuits, current sources and switches had to be combined with individual magnetic sensors to achieve fully integrated devices.

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In response, a number of Japanese tech companies are building exoskeleton suits to give the elderly a leg — or arm — up. One such company, Innophys, developed a backpack-like suit that can be ‘charged’ by squeezing a hand pump 30 times to fill pressurized air-powered “muscles.”

The suit can allow people to lift up to 55 pounds, costs the equivalent of about $1,300.

“One client is a family-owned company which makes and sells pickled radish and uses heavy weights in the process of production,” Innophys spokesperson Daigo Orihara told New Scientist. “The father is in his 70s and was supposed to retire but is still working with our muscle suit.”

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This special issue of ‘Sophia’ aims to reflect upon future evolutions of religions and their related narratives and imaginaries from a critical and generative understanding of our ancient sources. Bodies are locations of creative power and symbolic proliferation. Cyborgian, transhuman, and posthuman embodiments are going to generate visions of the divine in tune with such an epistemic shift, by addressing questions such as: can God be represented as a cyborg? Could robots and avatars be prophets? Is internet a suitable setting for a posthuman theophany? This special issue articulates within the frame of a relational ontological perspective, according to which the notion of the divine evolves, as much as human and non-human persons do. In this evolutionary scenario, the representation of the divine realm may shift from era to era, adapting to new natural-cultural formations. This special issue argues that the posthuman paradigm shift will be followed by a symbolic turn in religious imaginaries as well.

In a posthuman future, human and non-human beings, plants, and minerals will most likely co-exist with advanced artificial intelligence, sentient robots, and conscious humanoids. As futurist Ray Kurzweil affirms: ‘The introduction of technology is not merely the private affair of one of the Earth’s innumerable species. It is a pivotal event in the history of the planet’ ( 1999, p. 35). Religions will need to re-think their theological approaches in order to allow for different types of subjectivities and embodied entities to partake in the religious quest. Religions themselves are material as well as symbolic networks, actualized through words, prayers, metaphors, rhythms, images, and symbols, among many other expressions. The physical, the virtual, and the symbolic are inextricably intertwined. In the era of the cyborg, God is not only human; in the era of the post-human, humans are not the only prophets.

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