What does it mean to be a cyborg❓

What do you imagine when you think of the word "cyborg"?

If you are like most people you probably have a vision of a human who has had parts of their body replaced by robotic components.

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This view of cyborgs is common in popular media but it limits our understanding of the topic - it assumes that we must physically replace pieces of our body with pieces of a machine. The word cyborg - short for cybernetic organism simply means a being which combines both biological and artificial elements, and if we ditch the requirement that the artificial element must be embedded within the flesh of the biological component, we may start to realize that humans are cyborgs by our very nature.

If someone where to surgically remove their biological eyeballs and replace them with a computerized system, we would no doubt have no issues with describing them as a cyborg. But how is this functionally different than reading the screen of your smartphone? In the case of surgically implanted eyeballs, the computer interfaces directly the optic nerve, where with the smartphone it is first mediated by the lens and light receptors within the biological eyeball. In both cases information is being processed by an electronic system and being fed into our optic nerve. In both, we have used technology to augment our biological abilities. Both can be considered a cyborg.

Technology means more than just electronic circuitry and robotics. Humans have been using artificial technology to augment our physical abilities for millennia. We create clothes which allow us to survive in harsh environments, we use tools to plant and harvest crops to feed massive populations, we sharpened wood and rocks to give ourselves the teeth and claws that we lack. All tools are a kind of technology.

One of our oldest technologies has been around long enough to affect the physical evolution of our bodies. Humans have one of the weakest digestive systems out of any animal, yet we have the widest variety of food sources available to us. How?

We use the technology of fire to cleanse our food of harmful bacteria so our stomach doesn't have to do it internally. We use knives to chop our food into small pieces so we don't need to spend as much time chewing. We've outsourced pieces of our digestion to external technology. And because we have been doing this for hundreds of thousands of years its had time to influence our biological evolution. Without our technology, we are pitiful and weak compared to the rest of the animal kingdom - with it we are the most powerful beings.

In the year 1900 many claimed that humans creating machines which could fly was a fantasy. In 1903 we took to the skies for the first time using powered flight. A mere 66 years later, we could fly so far and so fast that we escaped the gravitational well of our planet and set foot on the moon for the first time in the history of our world.

I wonder how many humans across the millennia have looked up at that bright light within the night sky and imagined what it would be like to visit.

These days technology is changing faster than ever. I've found myself wondering if the 21st century will be the last one where we consider ourselves to be homo sapiens. Gone are the days of the hunter-gatherer tribes from our past. Now we live in mega-cities, with economies and culture that span continents and billions of people. If we keep changing at the rate we have been (all signs point to this change speeding up rather than slowing down) how long will it be before we become unrecognizable to the ancient humans that we once were?

As technology changes, we change with it

I believe we need to embrace our cyborg nature. This is not the start of a new journey, but rather an acceptance of who we already are. Some will want to deny this change and go back to what feels like a simpler, more understandable time. But I believe this denies the very essence of what it means to be human - to exist as a being which recreates itself with technology.

Not all technology is used for good, and this journey is not without risk. In the 1950s we madly rushed to install self destruct buttons on civilization through creating the most powerful weapons humanity has ever seen - weapons that were beyond the imagination of our ancient ancestors. This nightmare scenario of thermonuclear war is now forever a part of us, but it isn't the inevitable end either.

Embracing our cyborg nature means taking responsibility and ownership of the technology we create. It means designing with intention and compassion and recognizing that each piece of technology we use changes us. I hope for a bright future, but I fear we may fly too close to the sun.

I hope that you join me as I struggle through on this journey of becoming an evolving cyborg.