Does it seem preposterous? Frightening? Just another government boondoggle? If so, consider that this type of action might be long overdue. At one time cyber-human technology conjured up alarming dystopic visions. The Matrix portrayed a world in which humans became biological batteries for conscious machines. The humans who have been freed from the matrix have implants at the base of their skulls. Not a pretty picture. At the same time, the humans interact with the technology on a more benign level; they can download knowledge into their minds. As Neo famously announced after one such session, “I know kung fu.”

 

Yet, we’re left wondering: are the humans more robotic than the robots? Are the robots more human than the humans?

 

Cyberhumanity and robotics does not have to be a startling concept. A look at everyday life reveals that we all rely on high technology and robotics. If you are reading this, you are looking at it on a computer screen or you have transferred it from your computer over a cable onto a printer. That takes technology, and you are interfacing with it.

 

If you drive a car, you have encountered powerful computing and technological capacities. You interact with a computer simply to start the car, and the car itself was designed and manufactured with computers and robots.

 

In fact, you or someone you love might even be a cyborg. Do you have a pacemaker, cochlear implant, or retinal implant? Does your pet have a silicone chip implant that contains all of its pertinent veterinary health information?

 

Today you can purchase a robot designed to help the aged and disabled to walk and check vital signs. This “Sliver Robot” supposedly has the intelligence of a seven or eight year old.

 

The satellite navigation system in your car tells you (in a pleasing voice) where and when to turn, what the current traffic situation is, and what restaurants are nearby.

 

Diabetes researcher Todd Zion has invented SmartCells. This nanotechnology can bring freedom and relief to millions of people who must deal with regular glucose monitoring and pin pricks.

 

But all of that technology doesn’t make humans robots, does it? I mean, aren’t robots just machines that are something other than us? Do machines really need a bill of rights? Instead of looking at robots simply as machines outside of ourselves, humans and robots are becoming increasingly integrated.

 

As Andy Clark points out in his book Natural-Born Cyborgs, you do not have to sprout wires to dwell in Cyberia. Consider your cell phone. You can make calls, text message, send and receive pictures, send and receive email, and surf the internet. Does all of this capacity make you part robot?

 

Don’t think so? Clark looks at the example of Finland, home of the cell phone manufacturer Nokia. Finnish youth have coined the word “kanny” to refer to their cell phones. What does kanny mean? Extension of the hand (Clark, p.9). What does your interaction with and reliance upon that piece of technology say about your cybernature? 

 

Clark suggests that humanity is a cyborg by nature. We have become accustomed to think of ourselves as being self-contained in our skin. Yet, the human mind is not “bound and restricted by the biological skinbag” (Clark, p.4). We have “various appliances and institutions that…allow for external storage and transmission of ideas. They constitute…a cascade of ‘mindware upgrades.” Today, with evolving technological developments the “mind is just less and less in the head.” Therefore, “it is actually important to begin to see ourselves aright—it matters for our science, our morals, and our sense of self” (Clark, p.4-5).

 

While downloading consciousness into computers may be a few years off, we might wonder if it is closer than we think. Companies store your book and movie purchases as well as your internet browsing history. Do you have an Amazon wish list? What part of “you” can you Google? Why does your pizza shop know where you live and that you ordered a large pepperoni and mushroom with extra cheese last time? When you sit at Starbucks and text message a coworker across the continent, where exactly are you—in the café or in cyberspace?

 

Of course, most spiritual practitioners have recognized all along that human consciousness is not limited to the biological sphere—technology notwithstanding. Now with the onset of never-before-imagined technology, today’s spiritual thinkers have a stake in engaging in this vital conversation. That’s why theologians and ethicists cannot abdicate their place in this dialogue. They add a key component to the shaping of the guidelines of roborights.

 

The National Nanotechnology Initiative has composed principles of nanotech risk assessment. Science fiction author Isaac Asimov published the “three laws of robotics” in his 1950 novel, I, Robot. One, a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Two, a robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.” Supposedly, Asimov’s three laws will serve as a model for the Robot ethics charter.

 

In a world of ever-increasing complexity, our understanding of what constitutes humanity, life, and sentience is becoming more complicated. Futurist Frank Spencer observed, “As it stands now, computers can find documents for users, but cannot read them without commonality. A shift from the World Wide Web to the Semantic Web would create “intelligent agents” that could understand, interpret, find, share, and integrate information with ease and efficiency. This means that the transhuman and posthuman future that has been imagined is that much closer, but it still remains to be seen exactly what that means.”

 

The rate of technological expansion may have outpaced our ability or willingness to think about the implications. Now is the time to engage in that conversation, and people of all disciplines and walks of life have a stake in the process. If we disengage from the discussion, we will end up asking the question posed by James Gleick in his book, What Just Happened. He asserts, “The last decade of the twentieth century came as a surprise” (Gleick, p.3).

 

While many more surprises may be down the fiber optic pike, we can help shape our cyberfuture by consciously entering into it. “The question is not whether we go that route, but in what ways we actively sculpt and shape it. By seeing ourselves as we truly are, we increase the chances that our future biotechnical unions will be good ones” (Clark, p.198).