Critical Annotated Webliography Question 1 - Benson

Cyborgs, in the past, were always appeared in the Hollywood movies and western media twenty years ago. At that time, people thought that cyborgs are a fantasy, a dream, impossible to happen in this world. Time goes by, nowadays, we live in the technological society. Open your pocket, you must have a mobile phone with you or even have digital music player. Some people claim that we become the cyborg already. Cyborgs are not still any new or transgressive figure to us. However, is this statement ture? Let’s us find out more on cyborgs.

In Susanna Paasonen’s article “Cyborg & Cyclops: the vision of a man-machine”, it provides the notions of anti-human, posthuman and transhumant and tries to clarify these three notions. To define the term “Cyborgs”, she stated that the idea of posthuman is closely related. Also, Susanna refers to Ben-Tov’s work that machines are not going to replace human beings. They are just applied to supplement the human disability. Further, she continued cites that cyborgs are just created as visually fantasy. It is going to destroy the boundary of machines and human beings and strengthen the notion of hybrid. From this statement, Susanna addresses two points to learn cyborgs. Firstly, we need to consider gender and the positioning of the gender as the structure of dualism. It is because cyborgs are just the fantasy which is created twenty years ago. Although cyborgs are not developed comprehensively, it can realize by applying artificial prosthesis or even “digitalization”. Secondly, most of the issues of cyborgs are come from the media texts. These texts may affect the perspective of the audience. To correct the audience’s viewpoint, producers should responsible for their clarity of the fantasy of cyborgs. From this piece of article, it is not clearly show that cyborgs are still a transgressive figure. But the author demonstrates that the figure of cyborgs from the on-screen to realize in the world. Many fantasies in the past have been came true. Cyborgs will have further developed in the future while technologies change.

The transgressive figure of cyborgs can be concretized, Grayson Cooke mentioned in his article. He states that nowadays many industries are going to apply human-machine hybrid products and service to a large extend. This leads cyborgs to terminate human and cyborgs are more realized. But Grayson does not agree that. He claims that some people are daydream that the cyborgs exist as the end of the world. They try to use cyborgs to predict the world end. But Grayson thinks that no one will know the end of the world, although cyborgs are existed. Cyborgs do not mean anything. Therefore, he states that human needs to pay attention to the development of the cyborgs. Understanding what will be happened in the future. Base on Grayson article, we realize that cyborgs are still a new notion to human beings. We think that the existing cyborgs are already powerful and cannot imagine what will go on in the future. Thus, Cyborgs, in this way, is still a transgressive figure.

The article “Cyborgs” ,which is written by Donald A. Norman, narrated how a human being live a life generally. From the moment we born, grow up to receive education, admit the society for work, married, and then born a child, after that retire, until to the last minutes we die which is what a human live in the past. But he claims that since the start of 21st Century, changes in the normal human living pattern should be considered because of the rise of technologies. He raises many different examples to elaborate how technologies alter human life more powerful, such as the invention of artificial organs and contact lens. Donald states that technologies make human life more comfort and long-lasting. However, problem may be raised. He expresses that people may find out those cyborgs are better than their existing bodies. They are going to chase the advanced technologies to replace the current disadvantages on their bodies. He says that the ideology may be continues. Further, Donald also mentions that as technologies more advanced and inset human bodies, our abilities are more power. Human can tackle more tasks which we cannot achieve before. According to Donald, cyborgs are always new to human beings. This new concept bring human thought themselves need to rise their power and abilities through technologies. Becoming cyborgs are what people want to achieve. It clearly reflects that cyborgs are a transgressive figure to us.

In Kevin Warwick’s article, he mentions that human’s abilities are raised by technologies. For example, nowadays nearly everyone may have a personal mobile phone. Human communication becomes more easily because of the mobile technologies. We become the mix of human and machine - cyborgs. People can change our behavior by technologies. But Kevin stated that some features which cyborgs cannot perform same as human, such as “moral and ethical decision making”. There are differences between them. Besides, he also mentions a point that he is concern not only on the body expansion, but more interest on the operation of cyborgs on the human. It is because it may raise a question that is it ethical for human to be a cyborg? People becomes cyborgs can have more abilities than those who do not want to become cyborg. Therefore, he suggests all of us should think twice for this issue. Kevin’s article reflects that Cyborgs are new to human beings. It is because people employ cyborgs to get more abilities to live. But we miss the moral of using the cyborgs. Therefore, people are still having well control on this new human-machine hybrid technologies.

The Rise of Cyborgs is proved how artificial intelligence uses on the patients who suffer brain illness. These patients are locked in themselves. Inside the article, the reporter interviews Philip Kennedy on his research about how to assist the self lock-in patient to communicate with outsider with technologies. Kennedy tries to record the patient speech signals and finds out how it operates. As a result, he finds out large amount distinct pattern from neurons. This can help his patient to have a chance to communicate with others again. From this article, we can see that technologies use on the disable human body can help these people to get back their normal life. Cyborgs may be become the only way to help these patients. It can contribute furthermore on the medical realm in the coming days by conducting more researches continuously. Therefore, after reading this article, it clearly shows that Cyborg is still a transgressive figure.

After reading these five articles about cyborgs. We can draw a conclusion that Cyborgs are still a transgressive figure. Although we have been became a cyborg, technologies change do not terminate in the society. The impossibility at this moment may be possible in the future. Besides, the ethical issues of cyborgs should also be considered. If people misuse the cyborgs in wrong direction, we should conduct policies to control it. Therefore, it can protect those who do not have equal treatment.



Reference

Baker, Sherry. “The Rise of Cyborgs.” Discovery Magazine. 26 September 2008
(http://discovermagazine.com/2008/oct/26-rise-of-the-cyborgs/article_view?b_start:int=3&-C=). (Accessed 3 March 2009)

Cooke, Grayson. “ Human – 1/Cyborg – 0: A Personal History of a Human-Machine Relation.” (http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Cooke.pdf). (Accessed 3 March 2009)

Norman. Donald A. “Cyborgs.” Communications of the acm. Vol. 44/No. 3, March 2001. (http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~comp300/documents/NormanCyborgs.pdf). (Accessed 3 March 2009)

Paasonen, Susanna. “Cyborg & Cyclops: the vision of a man-machine.”
(http://www.translocal.net/susanna/cyborg_cyclops.pdf). (Accessed 3 March 2009)

Warwick, Kevin. “Cyborg morals, cyborg values, cyborg ethics.” Ethics and Information Technology 5: 131–137, 2003. (http://archlab.gmu.edu/people/rparasur/Documents/Warwickcyborg.pdf). (Accessed 3 March 2009)