Beyond Human: Living with Robots and Cyborgs

by Gregory Benford

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Concepts once purely fiction -- robots, cyborg parts, artificial intelligences -- are becoming part of everyday reality. Soon robots will be everywhere, performing surgery, exploring hazardous places, making rescues, fighting fires, handling heavy goods. After a decade or two, they will be as unremarkable as the computer screen is now in offices, airports or restaurants. Cyborgs will be less obvious. These additions to the human body are interior now, as rebuilt joints, elbows and hearts. show more Soon we will cross the line between repair and augmentation, probably first in sports medicine, then spreading to everyone who wants to make a body perform better, last longer, than it ordinarily could. Controversy will arise, but it will not stop the desire to live longer and be stronger than we are. This book treats the landscape of human self-change and robotic development as poles of the same general phenomenon. show less

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Ah, 'borgs, 'bots, 'n' 'droids -- possible first steps towards transhumanism. Actually though, these authors, compared to others like Moravec and Kurzweil, are rather conservative about such things as the feasibility of and timeframe for mind uploading.
If you're all familiar with anything technology, just skip to Part 3
If you're all familiar with anything technology, just skip to Part 3

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239+ Works 22,539 Members
Gregory Benford, was born on January 30, 1941 in Mobile, Alabama. He is a physicist and science fiction writer who earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, in 1967. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a consultant for NASA. Benford's first novel "Deeper than the Darkness" (1970), which was revised as "The Stars in Shroud" show more (1978), gave him notice as a serious Science Fiction writer. His most popular work is "Timescape" (1980), which was the winner of the Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards; it presented a hard physics approach to limited time travel. "In the Ocean of Night" (1977), "Across the Sea of Suns" (1984), "Great Sky River" (1987), "Tides of Light" (1989) and "Furious Gulf" (1994) were all a part of the Galactic Cluster Series. He has also written the juvenile novel "Jupiter Project" (1975), "Against Infinity" (1983) and the thriller "Artifact" (1985). He has been nominated for 12 Nebula Awards (winning for "Timescape" and for the novelette, "If the Stars are Gods"). Benford, writing alternately with Bruce Sterling, produces science fact articles for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. They took over after the death of regular columnist Isaac Asimov. He has also co-edited theme anthologies with Martin H. Greenburg, which include "Hitler Victorious" (1986), "Nuclear War" (1988), "What Might Have Been, Volume 1: Alternate Empires" (1988), "Volume 2: Alternate Heroes" (1989) and "Volume 3: Alternate Wars." (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Classifications

Genres
Nonfiction, Technology, General Nonfiction, Science & Nature
DDC/MDS
303.4834Society, government, & cultureSocial sciences, sociology & anthropologySocial processesSocial changeCauses of changeDevelopment of science and technologyComputers, automation, microelectronics, robots
LCC
TJ211 .B465TechnologyMechanical engineering and machineryMechanical engineering and machineryMechanical devices and figures. Automata.
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Reviews
3
Rating
½ (2.38)
Languages
English
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Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
4
ASINs
2