By Lucrezia Cuen ABCNEWS.com R E A D I N G, England -- When Kevin Warwick enters his office building on the campus of Reading University, strange things happen. Lights turn on. Doors open. The building says, "Hello Professor Warwick." The structure knows Warwick because of the electrical fuse-sized "smart card" implanted in his left arm. In Britain, he's been dubbed "The Cyborg Man," the first person known to have a microchip implanted in his body for communication with outside machines. "Many scientists have suggested the possibility of humans and silicon chips coming together, but as yet, nobody has really done it," Warwick says. "This is really the first step, establishing the communication link from computer to human -- inside the human body." On Aug. 24 Warwick, a cybernetics professor, had doctors surgically implant the 3mm-wide, 23mm-long chip above his elbow for a 10-day trial. It allows cyber-communication between the living and the inanimate. See Me, Feel Me... As Warwick heads down the main hall, lights turn on. When he turns to the right, an office door unbolts and opens. Each step is clocked and recorded. The building knows who he is, where he is, and what he expects to happen. Warwick predicts chip implants will one day replace time cards, criminal tracking devices, even credit cards. Capable of carrying huge amounts of data, they may, he says, one day be used to identify individuals by Social Security numbers, blood type, even their banking information. "There are possibilities on the financial side but also for helping people with disabilities." Warwick says public buildings like airports, hospitals, and community centers could be made "implant friendly" to help the physically handicapped with easier access. The next stage of the research, he says, will be linking the chip to elements within the body with the ultimate hope of finding a way for paraplegics to regain control of their limbs. Warwick predicts within five years we may see homes programmed to know their owners. Smart sensors could trigger automation systems, turning on lights and heaters, switching on ovens, anything from recording television programs to chilling the wine. Cars could be designed to operate without keys and only start up with authorized users. Some Pain, Ethical Questions Warwick was warned by his doctor that the experiment could be risky. No one knows yet how the body will respond to this type of invasion. He was told the chip could blow up in his arm, or break up and begin floating around his body. But in the initial test, Warwick says happily, he only suffered the discomforts of soreness and bruising. Warwick is not blind to the ethical questions of this technology. Implants ostensibly designed to clock workers in and out might be misused to monitor where people are at all times and who they are meeting. Governments could move to use implants instead of I.D. cards and passports, but what would stop them from using this new science to invade privacy? The experiment already has had some unexpected and disturbing results. Asked if he felt he was part-man, part machine, Warwick said, "What I actually feel is not as though the machine is part of me or that I am part of the machine but we are linked, we are connected by a physical link." Warwick says he was prepared to watch for the physical changes during the experiment but not the mental changes. I Feel Strange, Now "I feel mentally different. When I am in the building I feel much more closely connected with the computer. I am not a separate thing. I am a scientist, so that is strange for me, but that's how I feel. It changed what I feel like mentally which I hadn't expected and which is very strange and a bit scary." As scary -- or liberating -- as the new technology may be, Professor Warwick has opened a door to the future. Cyborg technology has arrived. It may be only a matter of time before we have to ask ourselves if we are willing to join this new frontier. -- Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.ml.org
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