{"id":574,"date":"2018-06-01T11:03:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-01T10:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/?p=574"},"modified":"2018-07-12T13:19:06","modified_gmt":"2018-07-12T12:19:06","slug":"the-rise-of-the-cyborgs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/the-rise-of-the-cyborgs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of the Cyborgs"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Leonie Schittenhelm<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Cyborgs<\/em>.<\/strong> The word might conjure thoughts of summer science fiction blockbusters and gleaming, metallic facial features, or \u2018far off\u2019 and \u2018the science just isn\u2019t quite there yet\u2019. But if you think about it, Cyborgs already live among us, and you, yeah you reading this, probably know not only one but a couple of them.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t believe me? Let\u2019s go back to definitions \u2013 what is a cyborg<\/em> exactly? The term, consisting of \u2018cyb\u2019 for cybernetic and \u2018org\u2019 for organism, was first coined in the 1960 paper by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline. In simplest terms, it describes a living organism that is somehow enhanced or brought back to normal function by technology. As this definition is so broad, modern day cyborgs don\u2019t have to look at all like the half-robotic beings of science fiction. Instead they are much more likely to be your elderly neighbour with the heart pacemaker, your colleague with the prosthetic limb, or the woman in the shop with a cochlear implant. But if cyborgs are already a thing of the present, how do our laws protect them?<\/p>\n

This is a question that researchers from Newcastle and Birmingham Law School are trying to answer in their recently published paper, \u2018Everyday Cyborgs: On Integrated Persons and Integrated Goods\u2019. As any attentive reader of dystopian science function might tell you, rigorous ethical and legal discussion and regulation of medical and scientific advances can save us from heaps and heaps of trouble in the future. But the questions that arise around modern cyborgs can be much more puzzling than one might think.<\/p>\n

A transplanted device is a product that can be sold and bought, meaning that messing with it in any way would constitute common property damage. If, however, it is transplanted into a human being and thus becomes potentially necessary for their survival, the distinction between property damage and assault is suddenly blurry. What about devices becoming increasingly \u2018smart\u2019 in the near future? How do we prosecute someone who\u2019s hacked into the interface that releases the insulin you need after your next meal? And will the public figure assassinations of the future be done by the click of the mouse to disable someone\u2019s pacemaker? Questions remain to be answered, but one thing is clear: laws will have to change considerably as more and more of us become cyborgs ourselves.<\/p>\n

Curious if you are in fact a cyborg? Why not have a read of the article yourself, find it under Quigley, Muireann, and Semande Ayihongbe. “Everyday Cyborgs: On Integrated Persons and Integrated Goods.” Medical law review 26, no. 2 (2018): 276-308.<\/em><\/p>\n

Picture from: https:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/robot-woman-face-cry-sad-3010309\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Leonie Schittenhelm Cyborgs. The word might conjure thoughts of summer science fiction blockbusters and gleaming, metallic facial features, or \u2018far off\u2019 and \u2018the science just isn\u2019t quite there yet\u2019. But if you think about it, Cyborgs already live among us, and you, yeah you reading this, probably know not only one but a couple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leonie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/react\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}