Bionic BBC Interview

BBC News is running a series on human enhancement this month. For it, I was asked my thoughts regarding the feasibility of augmentation in the context of a famous 1970s television show. “Is the Six-Million-Dollar Man Possible?” asks whether the bionic capabilities of the Steve Austin character could be achieved in the coming years. In a nutshell, my answer is ‘Yes’.

As far as I’m concerned, most of the necessary pieces are in place. Neuroprosthetic arms, hands and legs are all being developed, providing ever-increasing degrees of motion, sensitivity, feedback and integration. Contact lenses, such as those under development at the University of Washington by a team led by Babak Parviz, will in time provide all kinds of enhancements to vision. Retinal implants designed to restore sight will one day become so capable, they’ll exceed the abilities of natural vision. Likewise cochlear implants that restore hearing.

Of course, there will be those who think such augmentation is unnatural, that it somehow diminishes us or makes us less human. To which my response is: Have glasses, contact lenses, crutches, artificial limbs, or hearing aids made their users somehow less human? Have mental enhancements and prostheses such as books, libraries, and the internet diminished us in some fundamental way? The entire course of human history has always involved the development of tools to improve our abilities, whether mental or physical. Each step has routinely met with resistance. And each resistance has fallen to the realities of necessity. Because ultimately, whatever gives us greater advantage over the environment or over our competition, wins out.