Farewell, Human; Praise be Machina humana

 (Published in ENRICH magazine, 2022)

WELCOME, "MACHINA HUMANA" -- the human machine -- the technologically enhanced suprahuman that might be the future of humankind.

Machina humana will be the primate species that will at last give substance to the epithet "God-like." Its ascent will ensure the inevitable decline of Homo sapiens (today's humans) that have been the species supreme on this Earth for the past 300,000 years.

Centuries to come will see our planet become an arena pitting two humanoid species against each other for lordship over a Future Earth one fondly hopes will consist of Geniocracies governed by the intelligent.

The suprahuman is, of course, the stuff of countless science fiction fantasies. It will come to pass because Homo sapiens can't leave well enough alone. Imagine a species arranging its own demise to advance the cause of science. Only humans can be so stupid. Or, perhaps, is it because we're too smart for our own good?

This speculative future being I call by the Latin phrase, Machina humana, will be the offspring of diverse human technologies seeking to accelerate human evolution without recourse to the glacially slow and cumbersome process of natural selection.

Technology is, even now, giving birth to this "thing" in paroxysms of invention. It would be presumptuous to declare Machina humana the ne plus ultra in “directed evolution,” not when the rulers of the Earth in tens of millennia hence will look nothing like we humans.

Machina humana might even be called "transhuman" and "posthuman." Fans of the mutants in the Marvel Universe could even say they’re the fantastical "Homo Superior." Machina humana, as I see it, is beyond the transhuman and posthuman.

Transhumans/Posthumans

The transhuman is a biotechnologically enhanced human that sits between humans and posthumans on the evolutionary scale. It is a being "that resembles a human in most respects but who has powers and abilities beyond those of standard humans," according to one definition.

Another posits a transhuman as "a nanobiotechnological enhancement of humans through applied reason, especially by using technology to eliminate aging and greatly improve human intellectual, physical and psychological capacities."

The transhumans’ march towards domination is predicted by 2030 when true biotechnological fusion between humans and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is foreseen as coming to pass.

As explained by some of its champions, transhumans will eventually ascend into the posthuman, a being "whose basic capacities so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards."

The posthuman will become "the hoped-for transcendence of materiality" bruited about by speculative philosophers and futurists. This being will exist in a state beyond human; it will be an amalgam of the organic human, digital, medical and mechanical technologies and nature.

Evolution to posthuman

Science will force transhumans to evolve into posthumans using tools such as genetic engineering, bioengineering and a plethora of medical, electronic and mechanical technologies. But it will be in its intelligence that posthumans will shine. One vision sees them as being completely synthetic AI, which is to say a symbiosis of human and AI.

Some might even refer to posthumans by the archaic term, "cyborg" (cybernetic organism), coined in 1960 to describe a technologically augmented human with a body both organic and biomechatronic. Think back to "The Six Million Dollar Man" TV series of 1970 whose hero (Col. Steve Austin played by American actor Lee Majors) is conferred superman powers by a bionic left eye, bionic legs and a bionic right arm.

Whatever the appellation, Machina humana will combine the great qualities attributed to the transhuman and the posthuman. Machina humana will be superhuman without the impossible "superpowers" depicted in comic books. Their intelligence, deductive reasoning and other mental capabilities, as well as their creativity, will exceed ours.

There will be nothing outwardly visible that distinguishes a Machina from a human. It will still be human in appearance and reproduce like one.

The Six Million Dollar Man poster

Super health

What strikes me the most about Machina humana, however, isn’t its superior intellect or physical powers, but its superhuman health. These creatures will live to be more than 100 years old and might even live for over a thousand years.

Only a bioenhanced being, or a mutant, can attain such obscene longevity. Surviving for centuries means these beings will have to be incredibly hale and healthy. Only the power provided by medicine, science, technology and mathematics can attain this result.

Genetic manipulation, bio-hacking, cognitive enhancement and other biointerventions such as stem cell therapy will enable Machina humana to remain healthy and physically active beyond today’s norms. Machina humana might even eliminate physical disabilities and do away with much of the physical and psychological suffering that bedevils today’s humans.

Superior longevity and health, however, will physically alter Machina humana in profound ways. This enforced evolution will be one reason why people millennia hence will no longer look human.

Their bodies will have to adapt to survive the assault of new technologies, as well as the Earth's new climate and ecology due to a much warmer and austere world. It might also include bionic feet, arms and internal organs that give them the strength to cope with environments on Earth and on other planets.

We must remember human society has always been on the march towards Machina humana. Eyeglasses, hearing aids, pacemakers and prosthetic limbs, to name a few of the simple devices that allow us to function despite disabilities, can be seen as steps on the road towards Machina humana. On the other hand, AI and biointerventions are providing the quantum leap hastening the march towards this being.

The road to the posthuman

Super brains

Among those at the forefront of the march towards transhumans, posthumans and Machina humana are California-based tech firms such as Neuralink Corporation and the United States Armed Forces, which are doing so for widely different reasons. American techies and the military are focusing on perfecting technologies such as the brain-computer interface (BCI) and one of its iterations called the Stentrode (stent-electrode recording array) motor neuroprosthesis.

A BCI is a direct communication pathway between an enhanced or wired brain and an external device such as a computer, a robotic arm, robotic leg or a weapon. It's also called a mind-machine interface (MMI) and a brain-machine interface (BMI).

In its civilian guise, BCIs are used for augmenting or repairing the brain’s human cognitive or sensory-motor functions, among other things. Neuralink's BCI technology involves ultra-thin probes inserted into the brain by a neurosurgical robot, as well as a high-density electronic system to process information from the brain’s neurons.

The probes are made mostly of polyimide (a high-performance, biocompatible thermoplastic polymer) with a gold or platinum conductor. Each probe consists of an array of wires whose electrodes can locate electrical signals in the brain. The electronic system will amplify and acquire brain signals while using Bluetooth to communicate with external devices.

Neuralink said its BCI technology will one day help people control computers with their brain activity alone. BCI will also boost cognitive capabilities like speech and sight, and should be capable of restoring the ability to speak.

Neuralink "is aiming to bring something to market that helps with certain severe brain injuries (stroke, cancer lesion, congenital) in about four years,” said company co-founder and CEO Elon Musk in 2017.

In July 2019, Musk said the company wanted to have its first human patient equipped with the technology before the end of 2020. That didn’t happen and the world is still waiting for it to occur. Instead, Neuralink in April 2021 demonstrated a monkey with an implanted Neuralink BCI playing the 1972 classic ping-pong video game, "Pong.” Musk also believes future humans might communicate with one another using technological telepathy.

The great goal of Neuralink’s BCI technology, however, is human enhancement -- or the creation of the transhuman. Musk later confirmed this long-term goal, saying Neuralink wants to achieve "symbiosis with artificial intelligence,” but as a defense against what Musk believes will be a future AI apocalypse. Musk hopes to "help secure humanity's future as a civilization relative to AI" with Neuralink’s BCIs.

Neuralink Brain Computer Interface or BCI

Cyborg warriors

While Neuralink is falling behind on keeping its promises, the U.S. military appears to be forging irresistibly forward with the development of Stentrodes for its future fighting men. Conceived in 2010 by Australian neurologist Dr. Thomas Oxley MD, a Stentrode is a miniscule electrode array made of platinum mounted on a nitinol (nickel titanium) endovascular stent. The Oxley Stentrode measures some five centimeters long; its diameter comes to only four millimeters.

The Stentrode is capable of two-way communication, which means it can sense thoughts and stimulate movement. Basically a feedback loop within the brain, the Stentrode is the first motor neuroprosthesis (or a BCI) implanted via a patient's blood vessels.

Once in position, a Stentrode expands to press electrodes against the blood vessel wall close to the brain. Here, it digitally records neural information and delivers electric currents directly to targeted brain areas.

The system digitizes signals generated by the cerebellum (the part of the brain that controls movement). It then translates these signals into commands a computer equipped with special software can read and execute.

A most successful Stentrode test on humans was conducted in 2020. The two test participants suffered from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a brain disease that causes the deterioration and death of the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscle movements such as walking and talking. The late great theoretical physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking was an ALS victim.

With Oxley’s Stentrodes, both participants were able to use direct thought to wirelessly control a computer operating system that allowed them to text, email, search the internet and shop online. This historic feat was also the first time a BCI was implanted via blood vessels, thus eliminating the need for dangerous and difficult open brain surgery.

The Oxley stentrode

Stentrodes in non-military use will also be invaluable in helping people with spinal cord injuries. A Stentrode can also be used to control robotic prosthetic limbs with a user’s thoughts. Although experimental, the Stentrode was impressive enough for TIME Magazine in November to declare it one of “The Best Inventions of 2021.”

Oxley's research team based in Australia is receiving funding for its Stentrode research from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of the Reliable Neural-Interface Technology (RE-NET) program. Oxley founded Synchron, Inc., a start-up building BCIs and Stentrodes, and is now co-head of the Vascular Bionics Laboratory at the University of Melbourne.

The American military still sees the Stentrode as a critical step in the process to transform future U.S. soldiers into "cyborg warriors." These fighting men are directly connected to battlefield computers and computer-controlled weapons, and are able to "talk" to them telepathically. The military Stentrode is also expected to enable U.S. soldiers to move and react faster on the battlefield.

For the U.S. Air Force, the long-term aim is to create a “novel hybrid brain-machine interface” that improves its airmen’s ability to learn and make more rapid, effective decisions, especially in combat. It’s continuing to develop an “augmented learning platform,” or a Stentrode, to make the brain more receptive to imbibing information.

The Stentrode will transform American fighter pilots into true cyborgs. Oxley in 2016 said DARPA wants U.S. Air Force fighter pilots to control their jets directly by plugging their brains into the aircraft's computer system.

"The military appear interested in the potential for jet fighters to control their planes with direct thought control, rather than using their arms,” Oxley revealed. “The reaction time you'd shave off would be milliseconds."

Blitz-fast reaction could spell the difference between life and death for American fighter pilots in supersonic aerial battles. A Stentrode might also reduce stress among American fighter pilots since flying computer-controlled warplanes such as the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter and the stealthy Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is physically taxing.

Piloting these complex flying computers requires a pilot to evaluate and monitor several actions occurring simultaneously. Stentrodes are also expected to reduce pilot error.

The U.S. Navy is getting into the act. Its Neural Engineering System Design program being implemented by DARPA is developing an “implantable neural interface” (a Stentrode) that should give "unprecedented signal resolution and data-transfer bandwidth" to fighter pilots on its fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

It’s clear a cyborg soldier’s enhanced abilities derive from technologies such as the Stentrode and other types of BCI. The cyborg warrior as envisioned by the U.S. military, as well as Neuralink’s BCI, will mean the rise of the transhuman, the posthuman and Machina humana is all but certain.

Only a way station

Machina humana, however, will only be a way station leading to the "Ultima." Thousands of years from now might see the rise of the truly "God-like being" I call the Ultima.

The dawn of the Ultima will be historic. Ultima will no longer look like human beings; they might even be grotesquely loathsome by today’s human standards of physical beauty.

It is to be hoped, however, that Ultima will be far, far better versions of us. Yes, Ultima will be vastly intelligent and physically stronger. But it might also be less bigoted; less murderous; less warlike -- and more altruistic and more sapient.

Ultima will be a new human species completely alien to Homo sapiens. They will be the aliens amongst us, but will still be "us" in a paradoxical way.

Our inhuman future looks bright.