/ News
The Cyborg Foundation: we urge you to become part-machine
Moon Ribas and Neil Harbisson from The Cyborg Foundation urged the audience at Pioneers Festival to consider experimenting with cyborgism.
Both Ribas and Harbisson use technology to extend their perceptions. Harbisson, who was born colourblind, has developed a tool involving a head-mounted camera and bone conduction audio, to turn the colours of the world into sounds.
"I was born completely colourblind and always wanted to extend my senses and perceive what colour is," he said. He mentioned the critical culture role that colour, for example with things like Yellow Pages, the Pink Panther, James Brown and countries like Greenland. He showed how the flags of France, Ireland and Italy look identical to him and how frustrating it was when trying to navigate colour-coded maps, such as London's Tube Map.
With his Eyeborg device, he can transform the world around him (as viewed through a webcam) into sound. "Each colour has a specific note," he explained. After wearing the device for many years, his brain "got used to hearing colour and now it's an extra sense". He can even now perceive infrared and ultraviolet.
One of the benefits of this approach is that now every object, painting, scene or even someone's face can become a piece of music. He can walk through the supermarket and hear a symphony. "I can dress as a song," he said, pointing out that his garish tie actually corresponded to a piece of music he liked. "I can now compose music with food. So you can create a specific song [using different coloured ingredients] and eat your favourite song."
"My sense of beauty has changed. Beauty doesn't depend on the shape of someone's face but on the combination of colours," Harbisson explained. "You might look beautiful but sound terrible!"
Similarly Ribas, a choreographer, wanted to augment her senses in some way. She started by developing a device -- Kaleidoscopic Vision -- that allowed her to perceive colour but not shape. But she realised that colour wasn't as important to her, so wanted to investigate movement. Her resulting Speedborg device embedded in earrings used infrared to monitor how quickly people were moving around her. The speed at which bodies shifted was relayed to her with a vibration motor. She also added a sensor to her back to produce 360-degree perception.
After the Speedborg, Ribas experimented with creating a Seismic Sense that would allow her to perceive seismic activity around the world, by linking up to a website that monitors such earthly movements. "Every time there is a small earthquake it makes a little vibration in my arm. I can tell if it's small or big," she said.
The duo concluded their talk by defending cyborg rights: both managed to convince the passport offices (of the UK and Spain) to allow them to feature their equipment in their ID pictures. "It's an extension of my sense and so it should be included. So they allowed me to be photographed with my electronic eye," explained Harbisson.
The pair also believes that cyborgism may help us identify with other species, such as animals that have senses like bone conduction (dolphins), the ability to perceive ultraviolet (insets) or have antennae.
"We can learn a lot from the senses that already exist in our planet. I encourage you to experiment with the use of cybernetics to extend your senses."
Source: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/30/cyborg-foundation
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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