Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids [Hardcover]

Sidney Perkowitz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0309089875 | ISBN-13: 978-0309089876 | Publication Date: May 5, 2004 | Edition: 1

Robots, androids, and bionic people pervade popular culture, from classics like Frankenstein and R.U.R. to modern tales such as "The Six Million Dollar Man", "The Terminator", and "A.I." Our fascination is obvious and the technology is quickly moving from books and films to real life. In a lab at MIT, scientists and technicians have created an artificial being named COG. To watch COG interact with the environment to recognize that this machine has actual body language is to experience a hair-raising, gut-level reaction. Because just as we connect to artificial people in fiction, the merest hint of human-like action or appearance invariably engages us. "Digital People" examines the ways in which technology is inexorably driving us to a new and different level of humanity. As scientists draw on nanotechnology, molecular biology, artificial intelligence, and materials science, they are learning how to create beings that move, think, and look like people. Others are routinely using sophisticated surgical techniques to implant computer chips and drug-dispensing devices into our bodies, designing fully functional man-made body parts, and linking human brains with computers to make people healthier, smarter, and stronger. In short, we are going beyond what was once only science fiction to create bionic people with fully integrated artificial components and it will not be long before we reach the ultimate goal of constructing a completely synthetic human-like being. It seems quintessentially human to look beyond our natural limitations. Science has long been the lens through which we squint to discern our future. Although we are rightfully fearful about manipulating the boundaries between animate and inanimate, the benefits are too great to ignore. This thoughtful and provocative book shows us just where technology is taking us, in directions both wonderful and terrible, to ponder what it means to be human.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In ancient Greece and on modern drawing boards, humans have dreamt of changing the limits of mortality through androids, robots, automatons and cyborgs. Perkowitz, a professor of physics at Emory University, catalogues our millennia-long fascination in this ambitious book. The author is at his best illuminating the history of artificial life, starting with Talos, the bronze automaton created by Hephaestus in Greek myth, and touching on every fictional work that has shaped the genre. This ranges from R.U.R. (the 1921 play that coined the word robot) to Asimov's I, Robot, with plenty of room for The Terminator, Robocop and Commander Data. Perkowitz then creates a parallel history of what humans have been able to create, dwelling mostly on prosthetics and 18th-century automatons. The final chapters describe the fascinating robots currently under development, in a manner that reads like a Nova special. The writing is technical, not for the uncommitted reader, and the book bogs down when Perkowitz grapples with the problems of duplicating human perception and self-awareness by artificial means. This is not a philosophical treatise on the nature of the mind-body connection or an engineering manual. Perkowitz fills in the gaps between current knowledge and the philosophical problems posed by advanced artificial life with fantasy-like suppositions, interposing well-accepted philosophical arguments with those that Perkowitz acknowledges have been rejected by the philosophical community. Hence, as a history of humans' fascination with artificial life—both real and fictional—this book is informative. But for a roadmap to the future of robotics, look elsewhere.
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From Scientific American

Perkowitz, professor of physics at Emory University, takes the reader on an absorbing journey through the history of human efforts to duplicate human functions. Robots and artificial body parts represent the current level of achievement; the ultimate achievement may be artificial beings. Although "no one has yet made a completely autonomous being, or one that seems consistently and convincingly alive, or a bionic implant that improves human strength or wit ... there is no doubt that existing technology will carry us further along these paths." And eventually we must face some profound questions. "What is our purpose in making artificial or hybrid beings? What are our ethical responsibilities toward them and theirs toward us? Do we have anything to fear from intelligent and powerful nonhuman beings?"

Editors of Scientific American

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Joseph Henry Press; 1 edition (May 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0309089875
• ISBN-13: 978-0309089876
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,352,951 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #42 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence > Artificial Life

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Analysis of the Rise of Bionic Humans, November 14, 2004

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Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids (Hardcover)

The quest for immortality has been a persistent theme in human history. From the mythology of ancient Greece through the ages to the present we have sought limitless life. Stories of vampires, for instance, are in part predicated on the quest for eternal life. So is the story of Frankenstein. But Sidney Perkowitz, professor of physics at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, demonstrates in this important new book written for a general audience that the quest has taken the form of androids, robots, and cyborgs for millennia. For example, Talos of Greek myth was a bronze automaton created by Hephaestus. More recently, fiction has given us robots, cyborgs, and replicants that all demonstrated this quest for immortality. For the first time modern science has created the possibility that the bionic human might be possible in the twenty-first century.

After an introduction that suggests that androids are all around us, Perkowitz divides his study into two parts--"Artificial Beings: Meaning and History" and "How Far Along are We?"--and proceeds to discuss the evolution of the quest for eternal life and the possibilities that exist at the present. In the process he argues that humans have always been bionic from the point that they picked up the first stick and used it as a club to the ultimate merging of humans and machines in cyborgian symbiosis. We see this all the time with artificial body parts made for amputees or hip or knee or other replacements. We also see it with pacemakers and diabetic pumps and hearing aids and eyeglasses.

Perkowitz believes that this is just the beginning of the merging of human and machines and finds the possibilities for the future truly exciting. He does envision serious moral and ethical concerns that require concentrated and long-term consideration. He does not, however, envision any way of stopping this inexorable movement toward ever-greater symbiosis between living beings and technology.

The quest for a bionic person is well underway in laboratories around the world and Perkowitz takes us on a tour of some of the most inventive people and places, ranging from Rodney Brooks and Cynthia Breazeal at MIT to the Honda Corporation lab to the ROBODEX 2003 exposition where the latest ideas on robotics found expression. There is, in Perkowitz's thinking, a critical mass driving humanity toward a new and different level of life and consciousness. Science is exploiting fast developing knowledge of materials, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and molecular biology to move toward the creation of ever more complex machines that look and act like people. At the same time scientists are incorporating into humans more and more technology to enhance the quality and longevity of life.

As written on the dust jacket of "Digital People": "In short, we are going beyond what was once the stuff of books and films to create genuine bionic people with fully integrated artificial components--and it will not be long before we reach the ultimate goal of constructing a completely synthetic human-like being." Perkowitz asks, will this step lead to reinterpretations of the meaning of life and debase the human spirit? As text on the dustjacket indicates: "Certainly this God-like ability brings us face-to-face with a host of troubling spiritual, ethical, and legal dilemmas."

This is a stimulating book, one that educates and provokes and questions all at the same time. I highly recommend it.