In his award-winning nonfiction book ‘To Be a Machine’, Mark O’Connell says that in the future, humans will be a hybrid race, they will be more intelligent, they will have super strength and will live a lot longer. The whole title of the book says it all: ‘To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death.’
So, we will be pretty much a race of superhumans or just living gods, if we solve ‘the Modest Problem of Death.’
Transhumanism – Improving the Human Race and Eradicating Aging
O’Connell is a writer living in Ireland, and he wrote on a theory called “transhumanism”, which will change humans forever.
Some lines in his books argue that “we can and should eradicate aging as a cause of death”, and that we can “use technology to augment our bodies and our minds”, and transhumanists believe it’s all possible.
O’Connell claims that humans will be able in the future to “merge with machines, remaking ourselves, finally, in the image of our own higher ideals”. And seeing so many movies related to these theories and current technology focusing on prosthetics and improving the quality of life, we can say that his theories and claims are not that exaggerated.
It is true what O’Connell claims, we have tried to improve our lives and used technology to replace legs, to help us hear better, we use glasses and have false teeth. And with a rapid development of technology, why stop there? Science will surely create a race of superhumans because we adapt and evolve.
“Replacing Imperfect Bits of your Body…”
Kevin Warwick, from Coventry University, is a cybernetics enthusiast and he thinks that replacing healthy body parts for a better technologically advanced piece is not wrong:
“What is wrong with replacing imperfect bits of your body with artificial parts that will allow you to perform better — or which might allow you to live longer?”
He has some electronic devices implanted in his body. For example, he has one that gives him ultrasound abilities, or as he calls it, “a bat sense”.
And cryonics advances so fast, that in the future we can postpone death forever by freezing our bodies in liquid nitrogen to wake up in the future.
Will artificial general intelligence and machines destroy the human race in the future? This is one risk the book also examines.
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.