The recent article by Hannah Williams in CBRonline.com – portal delivering news, reports and analysis on global technology industry, makes for interesting reading, it reports on how two technologies which many consider to be in their infancy is coming together to create a new class of technology - Artificial Sensors. This development is a consequence of two technologies namely IoT and Artificial Intelligence spinning off innovations in various industries which in turn is pushing technologists to seek newer horizons.
In this article, Hannah Williams documents the keynote address of Neil Harbisson – artist and cyborg activist at the annual SAS global forum, in this address Neil Harbisson deliberates on the cyborg project which made possible the development of artificial sensors which were then implanted in humans to transmit senses.
This project started with Neil Harbisson himself getting implanted with antennae in the skull to overcome his inability to identify color, this antennae enabled him to hear the frequencies of light in colors. As Neil elaborates in his address his aim was not to wear or use technology which propelled him to go for a new sensory organ, a sensory organ to sense color, a third eye for color implanted, but then this would have limited his perception of color to what was in front of him. Observing nature made him to create a antennae limited for color perception which enabled to sense colors both in the front and behind just by moving the antennae. This antennae along with its ability to perceive colors was also developed with a feature to send internet transmissions to Neil Harbisson‘s brain facilitating him to receive color from external devices from around the world.
As Neil tells in his address, he sees this as a use of internet as a sense organ or a sensory extension which he feels will become more prevalent in 2020′s and the internet will not limited to be used only as a tool or for communication but also as an extension of senses to perceive colors and other bodies.
And as with everything else nowadays, the aspect of security is one big questions for which answers need to be found since according to Gartner study, 25% of security attacks in enterprises will be from IoTs and as another HP study discovered an average IoT device has around 25 security flaws most of which the enterprises and users are unaware of. And with internet connected sensory devices built to be implanted in human bodies the security fears raises to different level altogether.
Hannah William in this article cites another example of attempt to merge technology with human brain, this one coming from Elon Musk of Tesla fame, launching a company – Neuralink, where the focus is on the development of neural lace with embedding of string of small electrodes in human brain. The company is working on the concept of merging human brain with computer technology.
Accompanying these examples of artificial sensory devices , is the concern about security , since internet as a stand- alone is not secure and how can one be sure when it is paired with human brain.
For more on this please visit : http://www.cbronline.com/news/internet-of-things/cognitive-computing/rise-cyborg-ready-augmented-humans/