Motherboard TV: The Cyborg
Posted by Motherboard on Tuesday, Aug 16, 2011
Kevin Warwick, the professor of cybernetics at Reading University whom we met in this vintage Motherboard episode, has been very busy preparing for the robot invasion. He has little technology at home, and counts The Terminator among his biggest influences. Also, in 1998, he implanted a radio frequency ID in his arm, which allowed him to claim to be the world’s first cyborg.
And to turn on lights and open doors by snapping his fingers.
Others have made the first cyborg claim (meet one of them, Steve Mann, in this Motherboard episode). But Warwick has more important things to think about. He advocates for a future of electronic body mods that could open up new worlds of mental enhancement. Coming soon, he says, are slimplants, anti-depressants and telepathic communication, so you can know, for instance, precisely how your significant other is feeling. (His wife was also, temporarily, a cyborg.)
To find out what Warwick has been up to since, Derek just interviewed him again – about biological brains that control robots, Michael Crichton, his appearance in 2009’s Transcendent Man, Terminator and (naturally) the future of man and machine.
UPDATE: Ask him any question on Reddit today.
Connections:
- MBTV: ‘Cyborg’ Inventor Steve Mann Builds Instruments Out of Water
- MBTV: Professor Sankai
- MBTV: Ray Kurzweil
- The Cyborg Motherboard
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