Insight: Oct 28

This week on Insight asks what will the human body look like in the future? Jenny Brockie meets people who are integrating technology into their bodies.

Most of us carry computers in our pockets or wear them on our wrists, but some of us are already embedding them in our flesh and brains.

Some are modifying themselves with implantable and attachable devices to overcome disability; others are choosing to enhance themselves to test their bodies’ limits.

The program asks, when does a human stop being a human and to what extent should we adapt the human body with technology? It also explores the ethical and scientific questions raised.

Guests include:

Neil Harbisson
Neil was born colour blind (with anachromatopsia). Frustrated with his grey-scale world, he developed an “eyeborg” that translates colours into sound waves. He recently had it internet enabled and implanted in his skull. He can now receive phone calls to his head from a select few, including a satellite in space. Neil believes we should use technology to extend our senses & that the merging of man and machine is natural and inevitable. “I feel that I am technology,” he says. “Becoming technology is actually something very, very human.”

Darren McKenna
Above the knee amputee Darren McKenna is determined to do the father and daughter dance at his daughter’s year 12 graduation next month. He recently had osseointegration surgery where a titanium implant was fused directly to his bone. “I’ve travelled the world looking for the right socket. This is the only opportunity I am going to have to walk.” The surgery was pioneered and performed by Dr Munjed Al Muderis. Darren & Munjed say technology should be used to give people equal ability, not to create superhumans.

Jonathon Oxer
Jonathon doesn’t need keys to unlock the door to his office – he uses an RFID chip in his arm. At first he says he “had a very strange mental reaction… I felt like I was no longer quite human.” Seven years on, he feels it’s completely normal. Jonathan would love to see a future where we can manipulate the world around us by thinking about it. He embraces the idea of enhancing human ability through technology and would be up for a brain chip that made him smarter.

Brendan Burkett
Brendan is a Paralympic champion, world champion and world record holder in swimming. Now a member of the International Paralympic Committee & Professor of Biomechanics , he’s at the forefront of debate around how to keep competition fair. He says one option would be to have two competitions – one with standard componentry and another “no holds barred race where you can come out with the weird, the wonderful, everything…” He believes disabled athletes will one day run faster than able-bodied athletes but that technology shouldn’t be used to make a typical person bigger, faster, stronger for the sake of it.

Stelarc
Stelarc is an artist of a different kind. His latest work-in-progress is a surgically-constructed ear growing out of his arm. He plans to install a microphone in the ear so people across the world can go online and hear his surroundings. He believes technology is changing what it means to be human. “You might rest your head on your loved one’s chest, they’re warm to the touch, they’re breathing, they’re certainly alive, but they have no heartbeat”.

Tuesday, 28 October at 8.30pm on SBS ONE.