Being CS

Kevin Warwick: A Talk on Cybernetics

This Wednesday I went to a talk by Kevin Warwick on Cybernetics. Warwick, for those who have not heard of him, is one of the chief researchers into Cybernetics and was the first human to have a computer chip implanted into his body.
Warwick's research is quite controversial and I was unsure what to think of him, before going to the talk.
Warwick believes that integrating the human body with computers is a good idea, and unlike others in the field has actually gone ahead and performed experiments on humans, namely himself. Warwick talked about his main experiments and some of the amazing results he achieved.

The first one, performed around 1998 was quite basic, doctors implanted a chip into his arm that broadcasted information about him and him to operate doors, lights, heaters. There was, however, no interaction between his nervous system and the implanted chip, which meant that there was nothing that Warwick could accomplish, that he could not have accomplished with an external device. The experiment did, however, provide data about how well the human body accepts such artificial implants.
The second experiment allowed interaction between Warwick and the chip, by connecting it to several different nerves. This allowed him to operate a mechanical hand or other devices by simply moving his hand, and also gave him some form of feedback to his nervous system. Although this interaction still very crude, it is highly amazing.
Let me say that I am not sure whether combining humans and computers in this way is actually a good thing, but that this is not the right place to consider this complicated topic. I was, however, surprised that so many important people showed up to this talk. Professor McCarthy (AI) is very interested in enhancing the human body, and has several interesting ideas for doing so. Professor Winograd (HCI) was also at the talk, and Cybernetics have astounding consequences on the field of Human Computer Interaction.