Andy Clark’s on annexing technology
“Some fear . . . a loathsome “post-human” future. They predict a kind of technologically incubated mind-rot, leading to loss of identity, loss of control, overload, dependence, invasion of privacy, isolation, and the ultimate rejection of the body. And we do need to be cautious, for to recognise the deeply transformative nature of our biotechnological unions is at once to see that not all such unions will be for the better. But if I am right – if it is our basic human nature to annex, exploit, and incorporate nonbiological stuff deep into our mental profiles – then the question is not whether we go that route, but in what ways we actively sculpt and shape it. By seeing ourselves as we truly are, we increase the chances that our future biotechnological unions will be good ones. “
In Clark, A. 2003. Natural-Born Cyborgs: Mind, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
October 31st, 2007 at 10:21 pm
We are simply not able to be transformative at the increasing pace of change our own technology employs. All the dire dark words can come true (even via Kurzweil) if we are simply left behind, unable to integrate.
Its nice to think we will enter a period of “grandfathering” where our technology will carry on our cultural imperatives and take care of us along the way, but just as each human generation now faces an interface gap, so will that gap exist between parent and technoid daughter, and the resulting missaprehension then becomes scary. I don’t think we have changed much at all in 10,000 years, only our technology has, and so we may find ourselves alienated from our own creation. The best hope we have is to be left behind with comprehensible small benefits of our creation.