Surrogates
Mission: Possible
- By Laura CHAMBERS | Culture, User Experience July 19th, 2012
-
What happens when what was only possible in the movies can happen in real life? When the far-fetched technology dreamed up by Hollywood screenwriters becomes the status quo? When the impossible becomes, well, possible?
Ten years down the road, Tom Cruise’s fantastical gesture-based computer system from Minority Report is no longer that fantastic and can easily be replicated with a few downloads and a trip to your local electronics store. If it’s mind-boggling technology you’re in search of, however, look no further than the real world.
A paralyzed woman with an implanted neural interface can use her mind to pick up a thermos of coffee with a robotic arm. The Port Authority of New York has turned to hologram-like avatars to improve customer service and robotic dogs are being used by the army to move gear around the battlefield.
So what’s next? According to Hollywood the future will be a creepy place where personality transplants and robotic surrogates are the norm. What’s creepier is that they may not be too far off.
A Russian media mogul is funding a sci-fi social initiative, Russia 2045, that hopes to see the creation of humanoid robots, artificial brains, and hologram-inspired avatars that will have the ability to host transplanted human personalities. This is oddly similar to the Avatar program currently being conducted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop surrogates for soldiers.
I can’t help but wonder what implications these future technologies will have on the human existence. Will the future be like a giant game of The Sims where you control your body from afar? Will we get to push the ‘restart’ button and pick up where we left off should we ‘fail’ a level? Will we all have our personality and human consciousness backed up should we need to transfer them to another physical entity?
With technological innovation occurring so rapidly, the line between what is and isn’t possible will inevitably become smaller and smaller. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that we dreamed of the gesture-controlled computers that we saw in the movies.
Tags: Avatar Project, Cyborg, DARPA, Future Technology, Hologram, Humanoid, Personality transfer, Russia 2045, Surrogates, Virtual Reality
Michael Malone on How algorithms will dominate the world and how we can beat them
Scary, indeed if left unchecked. While relying on machines to control basic functions, there still needs to be human interaction...Michael Malone on Should we be afraid of Google Glasses?
It will be interesting to see the anthropological effects not only with etiquette, but with everyday activities involving commerce. Will...
Paul Gagnon on Design Thinking, or the art of sparking “positive catastrophes”
Design thinking methodology outcome may even lead to the emergence of disruptive products and/or processes, in line with Schumpeter's...Michael Malone on Embrace the change
Retailers are not ignoring the multichannel trend. Commerce is becoming more personalized as they react faster to market forces. Some...
Recent Comments
Search
Categories
Editor
- Kyle GORDON
Writers
- Jean Pascal MATHIEU
- Jim YANG
- Laura CHAMBERS
Contributors
- Amy MANUS
- Audrey CARR
- Boris PIQUE
- Cassandra GONZALES
- Chiara ANELLI
- Chloé ROUBERT
- David BLISS
- Edouard PLANTE
- Emily BOND
- Faustine FOURDINIER
- Faustine HENRY
- Flora LI
- Gonzalo CORCHON
- Grégoire BARET
- Guthrie DOLIN
- Henri JEANTET
- James NAIL
- Jan ZHENG
- Jean-Sébastien SLADECEK
- Jen CHOW
- Jérémy LUCAS
- Julián SÁNCHEZ
- Julien PHALIP
- Kevin WEBBER
- Kira LEVINE
- Laura RIZO
- Liao CHEN
- Mark WADDEN
- Marta MIRANDA
- Michael MROWETZ
- Mona CHAMMAS
- Nadeem VISANJI
- Nurun Lab TEAM
- Robert MILLER
- Ryan BIGGE
- Tim BARBER
Links
Blogroll
Get Social