Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids (Hardcover)

Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids Book Description

This thoughtful and provocative book shows just where technology is taking mankind, in directions both wonderful and terrible, to ponder what it means to be human.
In a lab at MIT, scientists have created an artificial being named COG. To watch COG interact with its environment--to recognize that this machine has actual body language--is to experience a hair-raising, gut-level reaction. Because just as we connect to artificial people in fiction, the merest hint of human-like action or appearance invariably engages us in real life. "Digital People examines the ways in which technology is inexorably driving us to a new and different level of humanity. As scientists draw on nanotechnology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and new kinds of materials, they are learning how to create beings that move, think, and look like people. Other researchers are routinely using sophisticated surgical techniques to implant computer chips and drug-dispensing devices into our bodies, designing fully functional man-made body parts, and linking human brains with computers to make people healthier, smarter, and stronger. In short, we are going beyond what was once only science fiction to create bionic people with fully integrated artificial components--and it will not be long before we reach the ultimate goal of constructing a completely synthetic human-like being. It seems quintessentially human to look beyond our natural limitations. Science has long been the lens through which we peer to discern our future. Although we are rightfully fearful about manipulating the boundaries between animate and inanimate, the benefits are too great to ignore. This thoughtful and provocative book shows us just where technology is taking us, in directions both wonderful and terrible, to ponder what it means to be human.

About the Author :

Sidney Perkowitz has contributed to Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids as an author. Educated as a physicist, Sidney Perkowitz has produced dozens of research papers and books, along with four popular science books, works for stage and screen, and numerous magazine articles. "Hollywood Science" combines his science background with his love of movies. Born in New York, he lives in Atlanta and is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University. He's happy to hear from readers at www.sidneyperkowitz.net.

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