Augmented: Life and Death as a Cyborg

“Technological innovation creates systemic and long-lasting shifts across society, and while we may be skeptical” of AI and other cutting-edge innovations, “we can no longer afford to look the other way” when it comes to their cultural impacts, Baylor University religious studies professor Cann (Dying to Eat) argues in this thought-provoking study. Cann posits that everything from hearing aids and titanium knees to smartwatches qualifies as “augmentations” that make humans into part-machine “cyborgs.” Drawing on her own travels, she theorizes that the West fears innovative technology due to cultural ideas about human exceptionalism, while East Asian countries embrace technological advancement because they respect robots as “soul-possible or soul-different.” She surveys a range of current and possible future technologies for augmenting human life, along the way spotlighting how disability “has often been a driving force behind.... technological innovations.” Cann’s notion that technology often serves as an extension of the body is apt, but her optimism about those extensions can feel too easy. While she acknowledges that digital technologies like AI can serve to reinforce human bias, she doesn’t touch on AI’s mental health or environmental concerns. “Being part machine might, in fact, make us more human, not less,” Cann asserts, but readers will be left wondering if that’s necessarily a good thing. This doesn’t always persuade, but it still offers intriguing fodder for debate. (Mar.)