IRC-Galleria

At this time there are several enhancement projects ongoing, mostly with the goals of bringing those handicapped to the level of others. Several different types of eye-implants to enable the blind to see, ranging from laser projection to chips in your eye and even direct stimulation of the primary visual cortex. Prosthetic limbs are being attached straight into the nervous system or to your brain. Hearts can be replaced with models that are fully inside the human body and the electric current needed to operate it is being led wirelessly through the skin.

These are the very first steps in transhumanism. Replacing malfunctioning parts out of necessity. I predict that in the next century we will be replacing fully functioning bodyparts willingly with artificial, improved ones. We will be requiring new rules to be set on sports either banning improvements altogether or limiting their power. You'll be tapping into the web by an extension on your brain. The internet will transform: It will become the people in it since everyone has a wireless connection to it at all times in their head and will be able to store information on it. Every person on the planet becomes a node on the network.

We will have to start thinking about the implications of technological advancement from the points of ethics as well. When we become more and more metal and silicon, can we draw the line at what is human to where it used to be anymore? When you can simply replace parts of you at will and it is not frowned upon, can you transform into a machine? We will eventually create a substitute for every single part of our bodies, although to get to that point will take more than a few decades. Can you still be classified as a human if every part of you is substituted with metal and clockwork?

What if the secret of consciousness is cracked and we develop an artificial one? Then the line becomes even more diluted of what a human is anymore. We have a whole new race of robots that are self-aware and think for themselves and we have humans who have gone through the morphing process from carbon based to silicon. How can you differentiate? A.I. might not be on one of the most realistic ideas achievable in the near future as it has been 'nearly completed' for the last 30 years. There are some serious mysteries still awaiting in the brain as we learn more from its functions.

Is this realistic? Maybe. Consider that it has only been 20 years since Honda started to develop their bipedal autonomous humanoid robot. Commercial version was introduced to the market last year. Think of the exponential rise in both calculating power and technological advancement made in the past decade and project that rise for the next two or three decades. Whole computers with the calculating power of modern laptops might be embedded on a wristwatch. Even if we hit a bump on the road the idea of enhancing humans with better parts isn't too unrealistic within our lifetime considering the ever increasing advancement in technology.
*200 years ago the first punctuated card reading automated machines were introduced. Prior to that they had to be disassembled in order to change the configurations.
*100 years ago radio was taking it's first steps.
*80 years ago TV.
*60 years ago the computer.
*Only 20 years ago the internet was just barely reaching global global scale and standardizing to TCP/IP protocol. 13 years ago the first Mobile phone went online.
*From -91 when the first 2G mobile telephone network was started in Finland to 2001 when the first non-commercial test run of now global 3G network was tested in Japan, the mobile phone has shrunk from the size of a typewriter to the size of a perfume bottle.
*1956 Harddrives in computers were the size of washing machines and could contain roughly 4 megabytes. In 1973 they were down to the size of a tv and contained 200 Mb. 2002 the 137 Gb address space barrier broken(in a modern harddrive, roughly the size of 3 cd cases). 2009 during the first quarter, the first 2 Terabyte(2048 Gigabytes) drive is commercially available. USB-flash memory sticks will likely reach over 100 Gb this year.

Consider it. Last century you couldn't even own a radio. 50 years ago no one had a pc. 30 Years ago (practically) no one had a cellphone. 15 years ago the internet was limited to your pc.

Today you can work from anywhere over the world, surf the web from any location on your cell phone and order anything from milk to a car delivered right to your doorstep. The blind can see, those with heart conditions can extend their lives by a whole lifetime and limbs can be replaced. Where will we be in the next 20 years? Or 50?