Humans tend to experiment with everything that could be used to enhance life. This curiosity has now led to very different thinking – Human Augmentation which means taking the help of the latest technologies that have been developed over the years like Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things, which will not only enhance our day to day lives but also take human intelligence a step further.
In simple terms, human augmentation (sometimes referred to as “Human 2.0”) focuses on creating natural, artificial, or technological up-gradation in the human body for the enhancement of physical and mental capabilities.
An example of this is using active control systems to create limb prosthetics with characteristics that can exceed the highest natural human performance. The companies that are investing in Human Augmentation: Neuralink, Google, Samsung, Ekso Now the question arises how does human augmentation work?
Human augmentation is a developing field of research that aims to upgrade human abilities by using medicine or technology. This has already been achieved by consuming chemical substances that can improve a selected ability in your body or by inserting implants that require medical operations. Presently, this advancement has been focused on helping help people with disabilities with bionics and prosthetic augmentation and also curing sickness by experimenting with genes.
Types of Human Augmentation
Rob Tracinski a freelance journalist and author have identified 5 technologies for the enhancement of augmentation. In his discussion, he identified both physical and mental targets of these technologies as well as permanent and temporary items.
- Bionics and Prosthetics (artificial limbs)
- Brain-Computer Interfaces
- Neurotechnology (brain implants)
- Nootropics (“mind” drugs)
- Gene Editing (in our scheme, these would be “physical” and “direct”)
Similarly, Elise Bohan a doctoral student at Macquarie University’s Big History Institute has identified 10 “body modification” technologies and predicted that we will be able to see them in the next decade. They are as following:
- RFID Chips
- Exoskeletons
- Real-Time Language Translation
- Augmented Vision
- Smart Contact Lenses
- 3D-Printed Body Parts (she distinguishes these from lab-grown parts)
- Smarter Drugs
- Brain-Computer Interfaces
- Designer Babies
- Enhanced Sexual Organs
http://bigthink.com/articles/10-human-body-modifications-you-can-expect-in-the-next-decade
What The End Result Might Look Like
After going through the changes that augmentation will be bringing bring to the human body, one can't help but wonder how the optimum augmented human might look like, or what will be the final goals achieved by it. That will soon be known to us because as of today enhancing is possible for almost all human body parts.
After knowing what augmentation will offer us, people will still be skeptical about making this advancement in the field of technology mainstream. In addition to everything, augmentation needs the internet to work smartly, so that no serious security issues should occur that will eventually interfere with the actions of augmented humans. This will be the utmost concern for the people when this idea will be brought to everyone's knowledge.
But as time passes, it could be possible that society’s views might change on this. Currently, a similar situation is being witnessed with AI. Thus, whatever human augmentation will bring will be seen in the foreseeable future.
Wrapping up
