Do you wanna build a cyborg ?

I found this to be a very nice summary of the promise and peril of augmented humans. I won't add much commentary here because I don't know what the answers are.

In 2013 I built a proof of concept system called SuperGlass. Based on research from one of my academic labs, our system could recognize the expression of a face and write the emotion on Glass’s little heads-up screen, allowing an individual with autism to more easily perceive whether the person in front of them was happy, sad, angry, or something else. Simply wearing Glass while continuing everyday social interactions with others allowed these [autistic] kids to learn that secret language of facial expressions; it’s the real-time version of the flashcard-based emotion-recognition training using cartoon faces on cardboard... A team at Stanford has shown that it can improve their expression recognition, even when not wearing it. Our pilot even found that it helped foster empathy. 

But the more I experimented, the more I realized that I didn’t want to “cure” my son’s autism. I didn’t want to lose him and his wonderful differences. SuperGlass became a tool to translate between his experience and us neurotypicals (a scientific term that means “your brain is boring”). It didn’t level the playing field—it just gave him a different bat to play with. 

In an era where jerks like me are building AIs to replicate human tasks, your value to the world will become what makes you uniquely human. The more different you are, the more valuable you become. My son is therefore priceless.

I get that that's a rhetorical point, but still, it seems worth stating that not all differences are valuable or ever will be valuable. Surely that's the crux of the whole dilemma.

As a naive hearing person, it never occurred to me that anyone would choose deafness. But I learned that some parts of the deaf community consider cochlear implants to be genocide: an erasure of their unique languages, way of life, and who they are... Much like autism, I’m often confronted with the dilemma of “curing” people of who they are, versus giving them the tools to share those rich differences with the world. But how can we respect someone’s humanness while also giving them the choice to become more like the majority of humans?

After all, sometimes what it means to be human is tragic. A car accident, fall, or even poverty can take a child’s future away from them... If we know we can make a difference in these people’s lives, isn’t not intervening as morally perilous as augmentation run amok?

The only thing I can state with any confidence, and even this with great caution, is that the "choice" element is very important in terms of respecting humanness. The problem with that comes from the issues discussed below, that such technologies potentially offer such huge advantages that the majority won't see using them as much of a real "choice" at all. Sure, you do technically get to choose whether you want electricity or not, but for the vast majority that's not a real choice at all.

In theory, anyone might have access to new neurotechnologies. But in reality, those most able to take advantage of them are likely to be the ones who need them the least. Simply being born into poverty and stress robs children of their cognitive potential, whereas having wealthy parents dramatically impacts a child’s outcomes, even working memory. 

Where do we draw the line between boosting human potential and eroding our humanity? Any system I build follows my most important technology design rule: You should not only be better when you’re using it, you should be better when you turn it off. Neuroprosthetics shouldn’t replace what we can do for ourselves—they should augment who we aspire to be.

I don’t want to “cure” someone of themselves. Especially not my son. I want them to be able to share that self with the world.

Why I'm turning my son into a cyborg

Imagine if everyone spoke a language you don't understand. People have been speaking it around you since the day you were born, but while everyone else picks it up immediately, for you it means nothing. Others become frustrated with you. Friendships and jobs are difficult. Just being "normal" becomes a battle.