Cyborgs are still a staple of science fiction films, books and videogames. Yet recent figures have 350,000 Americans relying on some sort of electronic implant in their body. Mostly medical devices like pace makers or cochlear implants to be sure, but a lot of soldiers coming back from the Middle East are also being fit with state of the art myoelectric prosthetic limbs to replace arms and legs lost to IEDs.
As it should be, surely? Our aging loved ones and the men and women who risk the most for this country should be the first to benefit. Technology is at its best when it's filling in our gaps, destroying our shortcomings and making our lives more dignified. Recent decentralized projects involving 3D printing simple prosthetics for disabled children are a good example of this principle, putting human ingenuity to the task of making the injured whole again.
These limbs operate on myoelectric principles. That means they do not connect to the braindirectly via an implanted chip, as past ecperimental attempts. Rather, the nerves are salvaged from the limb to be amputated and reimplanted in the chest, wherever possible. The sensors which pick up the firing of those nerves (or the same activity in chest muscles if the nerves couldn't be saved) then translate that activity to movement of the limb's motors.
This process of reimplanting harvested nerves is talled "targeted reinnervation". It makes interfacing a motoried prosthetic with your central nervous system vastly simpler, as the nerves you mean to control each function of the limb are far apart, distinct, and their precise function is already known. Compare that to trying to make the same precise connections directly to the brain itself.
This approach also makes possible sensory feedback. The same nerves issuing commands to the limb can also be stimulated when pressure, heat or cold is applied to whichever parts of the limb are set up to receive sensation. Dean Kamen's DEKA arm is the myoelectric prosthetic furthest along in development which boasts this feature.
Other arms available now include the Touch Bionics iLimb series and the BeBionics line. Touch Bionics is the more advanced of the two, their most recent "iLimb Quantum" adding wrist bending to its list of motorized articulation points. BeBionics has an adjustable wrist, but it's performed manually by your remaining hand.
However, preset gestures like pointing, pinching and others must still be indicated using a companion app on your phone. As yet, the fidelity of the connection between the limb and your nervous system is insufficient for more than 3 or 4 discrete inputs, all of which are already taken by the most important day to day motions you will need.
Offerings are not limited to arms and hands however. Ossur was the first to market with a lower leg solution, the "power knee". It senses the movement of your remaining biological leg, and moves in synch with it for natural walking, standing up from a seated position, even climbing stairs. Every step gives you the powered "push off" that your biological calf used to.
But if we're discussing bionic legs and feet, we can't avoid discussing Hugh Herr. Well known in this field by now, he famously lost his legs in a mountain climbing accident. Rather than give up climbing, he fashioned his own prosthetics which, instead of imitating human legs and feet, were instead specially designed to facilitate mountain climbing. The "feet" were instead metal wedges which could fit more easily into even tighter cracks, they were extensible as needed, and many of his competitors soon complained about his unfair advantage.
This is a man who has truly made cybernetics his own. Not merely resigned to his prosthetics as an acceptable restoration of partial function, but determined to improve them until they can do things that his natural legs never could. He is today recognized as one of the foremost innovators in cybernetics, and it's easy to see why.
Starting with the controversy over "blade" type lower leg prosthetics in the Olympics, the prospect of not only restoring natural function with technology but improving upon it entered the public imagination in a big way. But in truth, we've come a long way since then. The best limbs are now not simply shaped pieces of carbon fiber. They move with you. In some cases you can feel through them, albeit currently in a limited way.
Public perception of cyborgs is changing. From freaks and government science experiments to the forefront of human improvement and even fashion. Viktoria Modesta made a huge splash some years back by being the first cybernetic pop star.
Fashion shows dedicated in part to raising money for the disabled have also featueed cybernetic models, whose limbs are often adorned in such a way as to complement the model's clothing. This suggests the possibility of cybernetic body parts as fashion statements, and human augmentation becoming desirable as a new form of beauty.
This emerging trend most recently saw the introduction of two new prosthetic limbs by Open Bionics, deliberately designed to resemble those seen in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Not toys but true, fully functional myoeletric limbs (albeit with just open/close and wrist rotation functions, already obsolete) these limbs make the prospect of replacing a lost arm with machinery considerably more enticing, especially for the adolescent male set.
Though the first of the two limbs looks cool but not really envelope pushing, the second one takes my breath away. A faceted angular work of art in its own right, it looks like something Theo Jansen might've designed. The cultural implications of art which becomes part of our bodies is in many ways more revolutionary than the underlying technological wizardry that makes it work.
To be clear, I am not a believer in the anticipated divide between "pure" humans and cybernetic ones. I think it's a sensationalist comic book take on human behavior. There will be a huge segment of people who, no matter how wealthy, will simply never want machinery surgically integrated into their bodies. Does your mother want to be a cyborg? Your sister? Your grandparents?
That prospect still frightens most Americans . I'm fine with that. What heartens me is that nevertheless, while most do not want it for themselves, their attitude towards individuals with cybernetic body parts is increasingly mature and positive. This may be one civil rights battle which will never need to be fought.