Beyond Human Living with Robots and Cyborgs [Paperback]

Would your body work better with some artificial parts? Will you live longer, perhaps a lot longer, than you now expect? The next decade promises another qualitative shift in the way we view technology, as once purely fictional conceptsrobots, cyborg parts, and the many variations in betweenbecome part of reality.

Gregory Benford and Elisabeth Malartre'sBeyond Humantreats the landscape of human self-change and robotic development as poles of the same phenomenon. Can we go too far in making ourselves machine-like or making machines resemble us? Once made, what will such creatures think about us? These questions will arise in myriad ways in the next few decades, as we press against boundaries that a short while ago existed only in works of the imagination. Written in a lively and provocative style, this is a readable book about the accumulation of small scientific advances that add up to something large and challenging.

Interviews with pioneers and participants in enhancement research, robotics and engineering, and informed perspectives on the theory, economics, and actuality of life extension, giveBeyond Humanthe flavor of a tourist guide to the future, conducted by natives&. Serve[s] up a feast. Nature

The simple title of this book belies its profundityand its sense of humor. Besides an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of developments in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence, physicist Benford and biologist Malartre also address deeper questions about the relationship between the brain and the mind, as well as humankinds nervous relationship with increasingly sophisticated machines. Publishers Weekly

Live longer, live stronger, with scientific enhancements and the wonders of technology

GREGORY BENFORD teaches at the University of California and lives in Irvine, California. Benford is a winner of the United Nations Medal for Literature, and the Nebula Award for his novelTimescal£z