THE PROSTHESIS OF CONTROL
by
Antonio Budini
After the movie theatres had record crowds during the
projections of the movie, Robocop, years ago, for a short time one of the TV
networks broadcast a series of shows in which the protagonist was the famous
anti-crime character from the movie.
It all remains circumscribed in the sphere of the projections of
science fiction. Fortunately, it is unthinkable, for us poor mortals, that the
creation of a cybernetic police officer could happen. We turn off the TV and
sleep peacefully, some a little worried, some comforted by the existence by the
existence, however improbable, of a weapon of this kind.
The TV series goes on so that without even thinking about it ,
we find ourselves wrapped up in the adventures of this pile of scrap metal.
When a well-known daily newspaper communicates the realization
of a cybernetic human, with an article accompanied by the photo of Robocop, we
are no longer particularly disturbed, because that figure is so familiar to us
since we have become so habituated to the televised hammering on the subject.
The project of the human-robot is called “Inter” (Intelligent
neural interface), and is financed by the European Community of States with the
collaboration of several German, Spanish and Swiss universities and research
centers and the Arts Lab, which is the laboratory of robotics and high
technology of the “Sant’ Anna” school of higher learning in Pisa.
The school in Pisa has the determining role in the project
because, besides having received the assignment from the EEC to coordinate the
project itself, it has developed a functioning “neural container”. Or rather, a
miniaturized electronic device that connects the peripheral nervous system with
external prostheses.
Paolo Dario, a professor from Livorno [Italy], teacher of
mechatronics at numerous universities around the world and director of the Arts
Lab explains that in the future they could devote themselves to cybernetic
prostheses capable of being moved by cerebral impulses and having tactile
sensations.
The professor also explains how all this comes to be: after
having implanted a chip (like the ones used in computers) in a peripheral nerve
of some guinea pigs and rabbits, the scientists noticed that the damaged nerve
filaments regenerated and wedged themselves inside the myriad of holes that
existed in the chip. Simply, a cybernetic organism was born: a mixture of
muscular tissue and electronic circuits. Very soon it will be possible to
register nervous signals and stimulate nervous fibers.
From science fiction to realization, passing through animal
experimentation. The animal liberationists have done much to document the
uselessness of testing new drugs on animals in laboratories, but how do they go
about opposing this slaughter that has nothing to do with the pharmaceutical
industry and, furthermore, is sold as a possibility for those who have suffered
mutilations of their limbs?
Personally, I don’t believe that the experiments are limited to
guinea pigs and rabbits, nor that they stop at chimpanzees. Research for
documentation, like the reflection of every revolutionary, should not just be
interested in the sector of the pharmaceutical industry, but should deal with
the full spectrum.
At the Arts Lab in Pisa, artificial skin equipped with sensors
capable of simulating tactile sensations, optimal for eventually covering the
cybernetic prostheses, is in the phase of projection as well.
Another field to which the Arts Lab is applying itself is that
of the construction of micro-crystals to implant in the cerebral cortex, with
micro-cameras set in place capable of projecting images directly onto the
cortex. This technology is also used to create sensors for the deaf. In this
case, the micro-crystals are connected to microphones.
The justification for this research is obviously found in the
humanitarian spirit that seems to hover around as their principle rule of
action. The officially declared aim is that of alleviating people’s suffering,
intervening in the irreversible damage that strikes their vital organs, even
artificially reconstructing them, in short, furnishing new horizons to
medicine. Essentially, this research opens prospects that were reserved until
recently for the fantasies of novelists. The availability of increasingly
sophistic, increasingly miniaturized electronic apparati makes hypothetical
technologies of control possible that today we can’t even imagine.
All this research is currently based on the torture of animals, but limiting ourselves to freeing these animals may not be enough.