A lot of people worry that when people decide to combine with machines, it will be the beginning of the end for humanity and that will be the day when humanity will be extinct. They claim that when we stop being human, we will also stop understanding what it means to be human. When you are mostly human one day and mostly robotic and non-human the next, they claim that you will be led to death by robot or by robotic replacement. Man and machine cannot be meaningfully combined, according to some. Some contend that if God had intended for us to be non-organic, he would have created a world filled with machines and human-like robots rather than people.
A Think Tank participant once asked me about creating an artificial knee because their natural one was damaged and no longer functional despite having undergone numerous surgeries. Since that time, I have thought about the critics of artificial robotic parts from the opposite point of view. You know it works pretty darn well, but I still have a steel rod in my leg from a motorcycle accident.
I had thought about covering an artificial knee with a piece of carbon nanotube foam when I was sitting down and considering how to build an artificial knee. The body, which is joined to the knee and tendons, would develop into foam. Then there would be a dual track “Y” split blood vessel that presoaked the flesh growing in the carbon nanotube foam and through a membrane, which allowed nutrients into the foam piece. Despite the fact that the technology to do this is not quite there yet, it soon will be. In any case, I have been considering this, but nothing is yet sufficiently solid to justify a try. However, I predict that such technologies will be accessible very soon.
I want to kick you in the knee and then the other knee, critics who claim it is impossible to meaningfully combine man and machine. You can see that I support the development of such technologies; Rah Rah Ree! Think on it.
