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A cyborg (/ˈsaɪbɔːrɡ/)—a portmanteau of cybernetic and organism—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.
Definition and distinctions
"Cyborg" is not the same thing as bionic, biorobot, or android; it applies to an organism that has restored function or enhanced abilities due to the integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on some sort of feedback. While cyborgs are commonly thought of as mammals, including humans, they might also conceivably be any kind of organism.
D. S. Halacy's Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman (1965) featured an introduction which spoke of a "new frontier" that was "not merely space, but more profoundly the relationship between 'inner space' to 'outer space' – a bridge...between mind and matter."
Biosocial definition
According to some definitions of the term, the physical attachments that humans have with even the most basic technologies have already made them cyborgs. In a typical example, a human with an artificial cardiac pacemaker or implantable cardioverter-defibrillator would be considered a cyborg, since these devices measure voltage potentials in the body, perform signal processing, and can deliver electrical stimuli, using this synthetic feedback mechanism to keep that person alive. Implants, especially cochlear implants, that combine mechanical modification with any kind of feedback response are also cyborg enhancements. Some theorists cite such modifications as contact lenses, hearing aids, smartphones, or intraocular lenses as examples of fitting humans with technology to enhance their biological capabilities.
As cyborgs currently are on the rise, some theorists argue there is a need to develop new definitions of aging. (For instance, a bio-techno-social definition of aging has been suggested.)
The term is also used to address human-technology mixtures in the abstract. This includes not only commonly-used pieces of technology such as phones, computers, the Internet, and so on, but also artifacts that may not popularly be considered technology; for example, pen and paper, and speech and language. When augmented with these technologies and connected in communication with people in other times and places, a person becomes capable of much more than they were before. An example is a computer, which gains power by using Internet protocols to connect with other computers. Another example are social-media bots—either bot-assisted humans or human-assisted-bots—used to target social media with likes and shares. Cybernetic technologies include highways, pipes, electrical wiring, buildings, electrical plants, libraries, and other infrastructure that people hardly notice, but which are critical parts of the cybernetics that humans work within.
Bruce Sterling, in his Shaper/Mechanist universe, suggested an idea of alternative cyborg called 'Lobster', which is made not by using internal implants, but by using an external shell (e.g. a powered exoskeleton). Unlike human cyborgs, who appear human externally but are synthetic internally (e.g., the Bishop type in the Alien franchise), Lobster looks inhuman externally but contains a human internally (such as in Elysium and RoboCop). The computer game Deus Ex: Invisible War prominently featured cyborgs called Omar, which is a Russian translation of the word 'Lobster' (as the Omar are of Russian origin in the game).
Visual appearance of fictional cyborgs
In science fiction, the most stereotypical portrayal of a cyborg is a person (or, more rarely, an animal) with visible added mechanical parts. These include superhero Cyborg (DC Comics) and the Borg (Star Trek).
However, cyborgs can also be portrayed as looking more robotic or more organic. They may appear as humanoid robots, such as Robotman (from DC's Doom Patrol) or most varieties of the Cybermen (Doctor Who); they can appear as non-humanoid robots such as the Daleks (again, from Doctor Who) or like the majority of the motorball players in Battle Angel Alita.
More human-appearing cyborgs may cover up their mechanical parts with armor or clothing, such as Darth Vader (Star Wars) or Misty Knight (Marvel Comics). Cyborgs may have mechanical parts or bodies that appear human. For example, the eponymous Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (from their respective television series) have prostheses externally identical to the body parts that they replace; while Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost in the Shell) is a full-body cyborg whose body appears human. In these examples, among others, it is common for cyborgs to have superhuman (physical or mental) abilities, including great strength, enhanced senses, computer-assisted brains, or built-in weaponry.
Origins
The concept of a man-machine mixture was widespread in science fiction before World War II. As early as 1843, Edgar Allan Poe described a man with extensive prostheses in the short story "The Man That Was Used Up". In 1911, Jean de La Hire introduced the Nyctalope, a science fiction hero who was perhaps the first literary cyborg, in Le Mystère des XV (later translated as The Nyctalope on Mars). Nearly two decades later, Edmond Hamilton presented space explorers with a mixture of organic and machine parts in his 1928 novel The Comet Doom. He later featured the talking, living brain of an old scientist, Simon Wright, floating around in a transparent case, in all the adventures of his famous hero, Captain Future. In 1944, in the short story "No Woman Born", C. L. Moore wrote of Deirdre, a dancer, whose body was burned completely and whose brain was placed in a faceless but beautiful and supple mechanical body.
In 1960, the term cyborg was coined by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline to refer to their conception of an enhanced human being who could survive in extraterrestrial environments:
For the exogenously extended organizational complex functioning as an integrated homeostatic system unconsciously, we propose the term 'Cyborg'.
Their concept was the outcome of thinking about the need for an intimate relationship between human and machine as the new frontier of space exploration was beginning to open up. A designer of physiological instrumentation and electronic data-processing systems, Clynes was the chief research scientist in the Dynamic Simulation Laboratory at Rockland State Hospital in New York.
The term first appears in print 5 months earlier when The New York Times reported on the "Psychophysiological Aspects of Space Flight Symposium" where Clynes and Kline first presented their paper:
A cyborg is essentially a man-machine system in which the control mechanisms of the human portion are modified externally by drugs or regulatory devices so that the being can live in an environment different from the normal one.
Thereafter, Hamilton would first use the term cyborg explicitly in the 1962 short story, "After a Judgment Day", to describe the "mechanical analogs" called "Charlies," explaining that "[c]yborgs, they had been called from the first one in the 1960s...cybernetic organisms."
In 2001, a book titled Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer was published by Doubleday. Some of the ideas in the book were incorporated into the 35-mm motion picture film Cyberman that same year.
Cyborg tissues in engineering
Cyborg tissues structured with carbon nanotubes and plant or fungal cells have been used in artificial tissue engineering to produce new materials for mechanical and electrical uses.
Such work was presented by Raffaele Di Giacomo, Bruno Maresca, and others, at the Materials Research Society's spring conference on 3 April 2013. The cyborg obtained was inexpensive, light and had unique mechanical properties. It could also be shaped in the desired forms. Cells combined with multi-walled nanotubes (MWCNTs) co-precipitated as a specific aggregate of cells and nanotubes that formed a viscous material. Likewise, dried cells still acted as a stable matrix for the MWCNT network. When observed by optical microscopy, the material resembled an artificial "tissue" composed of highly-packed cells. The effect of cell drying was manifested by their "ghost cell" appearance. A rather specific physical interaction between MWCNTs and cells was observed by electron microscopy, suggesting that the cell wall (the most outer part of fungal and plant cells) may play a major active role in establishing a carbon nanotube's network and its stabilization. This novel material can be used in a wide range of electronic applications, from heating to sensing. For instance, using Candida albicans cells cyborg tissue materials with temperature sensing properties have been reported.
Actual cyborgization attempts
In current prosthetic applications, the C-Leg system developed by Otto Bock HealthCare is used to replace a human leg that has been amputated because of injury or illness. The use of sensors in the artificial C-Leg aids in walking significantly by attempting to replicate the user's natural gait, as it would be prior to amputation. Prostheses like the C-Leg and the more advanced iLimb are considered by some to be the first real steps towards the next generation of real-world cyborg applications. Additionally cochlear implants and magnetic implants which provide people with a sense that they would not otherwise have had can additionally be thought of as creating cyborgs.
In vision science, direct brain implants have been used to treat non-congenital (acquired) blindness. One of the first scientists to come up with a working brain interface to restore sight was a private researcher William Dobelle. Dobelle's first prototype was implanted into "Jerry", a man blinded in adulthood, in 1978. A single-array BCI containing 68 electrodes was implanted onto Jerry's visual cortex and succeeded in producing phosphenes, the sensation of seeing light. The system included cameras mounted on glasses to send signals to the implant. Initially, the implant allowed Jerry to see shades of grey in a limited field of vision at a low frame-rate. This also required him to be hooked up to a two-ton mainframe, but shrinking electronics and faster computers made his artificial eye more portable and now enable him to perform simple tasks unassisted.
In 1997, Philip Kennedy, a scientist and physician, created the world's first human cyborg from Johnny Ray, a Vietnam veteran who suffered a stroke. Ray's body, as doctors called it, was "locked in". Ray wanted his old life back so he agreed to Kennedy's experiment. Kennedy embedded an implant he designed (and named "neurotrophic electrode") near the part of Ray's brain so that Ray would be able to have some movement back in his body. The surgery went successfully, but in 2002, Johnny Ray died.
In 2002, Canadian Jens Naumann, also blinded in adulthood, became the first in a series of 16 paying patients to receive Dobelle's second generation implant, marking one of the earliest commercial uses of BCIs. The second-generation device used a more sophisticated implant enabling better mapping of phosphenes into a coherent vision. Phosphenes are spread out across the visual field in what researchers call the starry-night effect. Immediately after his implant, Naumann was able to use his imperfectly restored vision to drive slowly around the parking area of the research institute.
In contrast to replacement technologies, in 2002, under the heading Project Cyborg, a British scientist, Kevin Warwick, had an array of 100 electrodes fired into his nervous system in order to link his nervous system into the internet to investigate enhancement possibilities. With this in place, Warwick successfully carried out a series of experiments including extending his nervous system over the internet to control a robotic hand, also receiving feedback from the fingertips in order to control the hand's grip. This was a form of extended sensory input. Subsequently, he investigated ultrasonic input in order to remotely detect the distance to objects. Finally, with electrodes also implanted into his wife's nervous system, they conducted the first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans.
Since 2004, British artist Neil Harbisson has had a cyborg antenna implanted in his head that allows him to extend his perception of colors beyond the human visual spectrum through vibrations in his skull. His antenna was included within his 2004 passport photograph which has been claimed to confirm his cyborg status. In 2012 at TEDGlobal, Harbisson explained that he started to feel cyborg when he noticed that the software and his brain had united and given him an extra sense. Neil Harbisson is a co-founder of the Cyborg Foundation (2004) and cofounded the Transpecies Society in 2017, which is an association that empowers the individuals with non-human identities and supports them in their decisions to develop unique senses and new organs. Neil Harbisson is a global advocate for the rights of cyborgs.
Rob Spence, a Toronto-based film-maker, who titles himself a real-life "Eyeborg," severely damaged his right eye in a shooting accident on his grandfather's farm as a child. Many years later, in 2005, he decided to have his ever-deteriorating and now technically blind eye surgically removed, whereafter he wore an eye patch for some time before he later, after having played for some time with the idea of installing a camera instead, contacted professor Steve Mann at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an expert in wearable computing and cyborg technology.
Under Mann's guidance, Spence, at age 36, created a prototype in the form of the miniature camera which could be fitted inside his prosthetic eye; an invention would come to be named by Time magazine as one of the best inventions of 2009. The bionic eye records everything he sees and contains a 1.5 mm-square, low-resolution video camera, a small round printed circuit board, a wireless video transmitter, which allows him to transmit what he is seeing in real-time to a computer, and a 3-voltage rechargeable Varta microbattery. The eye is not connected to his brain and has not restored his sense of vision. Additionally, Spence has also installed a laser-like LED light in one version of the prototype.
Furthermore, many cyborgs with multifunctional microchips injected into their hand are known to exist. With the chips they are able to swipe cards, open or unlock doors, operate devices such as printers or, with some using a cryptocurrency, buy products, such as drinks, with a wave of the hand.
bodyNET
bodyNET is an application of human-electronic interaction currently in development by researchers from Stanford University. The technology is based on stretchable semiconductor materials (Elastronic). According to their article in Nature, the technology is composed of smart devices, screens, and a network of sensors that can be implanted into the body, woven into the skin or worn as clothes. It has been suggested, that this platform can potentially replace the smartphone in the future.
Animal cyborgs
The US-based company Backyard Brains released what they refer to as the "world's first commercially available cyborg" called the RoboRoach. The project started as a senior design project for a University of Michigan biomedical engineering student in 2010, and was launched as an available beta product on 25 February 2011.
The RoboRoach was officially released into production via a TED talk at the TED Global conference; and via the crowdsourcing website Kickstarter in 2013, the kit allows students to use microstimulation to momentarily control the movements of a walking cockroach (left and right) using a bluetooth-enabled smartphone as the controller.
Other groups have developed cyborg insects, including researchers at North Carolina State University, UC Berkeley, and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, but the RoboRoach was the first kit available to the general public and was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health as a device to serve as a teaching aid to promote an interest in neuroscience. Several animal welfare organizations including the RSPCA and PETA have expressed concerns about the ethics and welfare of animals in this project.
In the late 2010s, scientists created cyborg jellyfish using a microelectronic prosthetic that propels the animal to swim almost three times faster while using just twice the metabolic energy of their unmodified peers. The prosthetics can be removed without harming the jellyfish.
