The next step in our cyborg future: thought-controlled bionic arms
Claudia Mitchell, a former US Marine, lost her left arm in a motorcycle accident in 2004. Today, she is a cyborg, fitted with a Bionic Arm developed by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The Bionic Arm is a bleeding-edge technology- a mind controlled prosthesis, the first of its kind. It will allow amputees to lead richer, fuller lives than they could with previously available prostheses.
As with many state-of-the-art research efforts, the bionic arm is strongly linked to the military- part of a multi-lab effort funded by $50 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). According to the Washington Post, as of July, 411 members of the (US) military serving in Iraq, and 37 in Afghanistan, have suffered wounds requiring amputation of at least one limb (no word on how many lost arms specifically). These men and women will be next in line to be fitted with Bionic Arms.
It is surely heartening to see military-developed technology alleviate, instead of cause, suffering, but a horrible possibility comes to mind of where this all might lead. Future advances in prosthetic technology might conceivably yield bionic limbs that are as good as, if not better, than natural human limbs. Imagine a war where soldiers lose limbs, only to go back into battle with new ones. The human body become expendable war expenditure.
Of course, this is worst-case scenario that is unlikely to come about anytime soon- it will take years for prosthetic technology to reach that point, and when it does, such artificial limbs will be very expensive indeed. The Bionic Arm itself costs between $60,000 to $75,000. This leads us to the grimmer reality- while US citizens can enjoy the fruits of such technology, who will provide Bionic Arms for the thousands of poor civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (amongst other countries) who have lost their limbs to conflict? Where is their cyborg future? Perhaps it is overly-idealistic for me to say so, but I believe that they have an equal right to such technology as much as any soldier from a first-world nation.
