In Brief

Transhumanism: Making the Head Case

There are three roads to neurotech

By Fred Hapgood

January 01, 2005 — CSO — The first is smart interfaces. When artificial intelligence researchers finally solve the general learning problem, it will be possible to build machines that learn to give humans what they want even before they know they want it. This route is the least invasive but is not without its own security issues; a good illustration of these was made forcefully by the classic science fiction movie Forbidden Planet, in which this very technology leaves its inventors fatally vulnerable to attack from "monsters from the id."

The second is building neurocomputers and neuronetworks out of biological elements. While we think of biology as a chemical medium, in fact, it offers a long list of electrical and electronic properties that can be adapted to integrate with other technologies. These bioelectronic materials can then be surgically implanted or "grown" through genetic engineering.

The third is using nanotechnology to upgrade native biology with better materials and designs, such as using nanotubes to make faster and smaller neurons, or enabling the body to communicate with itself via a wireless LAN, thus dispensing with axons.

All these roads are being investigated today and there are no obvious showstoppers on any of them. While the primary incentive for this work is advancing the treatment of conditions such as paraplegia and blindness, neurotech is also central to progress in basic brain research. You can only learn so much about how the brain works by listening from outside.