The future of humankind in the era of human andcomputer hybridization: An anthropological analysis

  • Authors:

  • Daniela Cerqui

  • Affiliations:

  • Institute of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne-Dorigny, Switzerland (E-mail: Daniela.CerquiDucret@ias.unil.ch)

  • Venue:
  • Ethics and Information Technology
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

My anthropological analysis of bionics is basedon the representations of engineers concerningthe definition of humankind and its future. Thedifference between repairing and improving onhuman beings is disappearing and we strive toreach a kind of `perfection', whose criteriaare evolving with technical developments.Nowadays, in the so-called information society,information is described as the best value: aperfect human being would be a free braindirectly connected to the web, and without abody because it is considered as an impedimentto the circulation of information. But what isconsidered as good today won't be good enoughtomorrow. And `improving' the human being moreand more could make it evolve into a verydifferent human being, or even into a newspecies: post-humankind. For some people, thisis not a problem, because the goal is to be`better' than we are, human or not. As for me,I think that we risk losing something veryimportant: our social ability.