The eugenicists at The Royal Society, in conjunction with Academy of Medical Sciences,British Academy and Royal Academy of Engineering came together this month to discuss the potentials, opportunities and challenges of the melding of man with machine (i.e. transhumanism) under the guise of augmentation technologies.
At the Human Enhancement and the Future of Work conference, and further expanded upon in their published report, explains how science and ethics are coming into conflict as technology promises to replace the faulty human body with an eternal, mechanical replacement.
These transhumanists define human enhancement as everything that “encompasses a range of approaches that may be used to improve aspects of human function (e.g. memory, hearing, mobility). This may either be for the purpose of restoring an impaired function to previous or average levels, or to raise function to a level considered to be ‘beyond the norm’ for humans.”
Rebuilding the human body is being researched in institutions such as Stanford University in California has recently devised a mathematical algorithm, called ReFIT that can decipher neurological signals in the brain that convey movement, speed and accuracy. The public justification for this study is to improve “prosthetic system performance and robustness in paralyzed people”, yet the implications could serve to create super humans and super soldiers.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved ReFIT for human clinical trials as the researchers endeavor to create neuroprosthetics where mind – controlled robotic limbs will become a viable future.