This article addresses the new challenges posed to society by the ubiquitous technology that is beginning to move from the concept of externality to that of the corporeal, integrated into the human body as a bionic organ. This evolution towards an augmented human raises ethical questions and challenges of integration into society that could lead to new apartheids, creating separations between the human race and technologically improved humans. Concepts such as human dignity, free will, and the right to total and unlimited sovereignty over the human body are thus challenged. This leads us towards an inevitable confrontation between those who consider biotechnological developments only as a way to cure diseases and ailments inherent to the human condition, and those for whom new bionic technologies can and should be freely used to improve and extend the capacities of the human being, both at the cerebral and physical levels. This conflict will inevitably arise at a legislative level, but it may escalate to other degrees if the issue is not accepted and foreseen in advance, originating debates with the aim of achieving balanced and integral solutions in the society of bionic beings. This must be promoted before the reality imposed by technological evolution invades us by surprise and is installed without the existence of societal foundations that can sustain it without the hardships of a violent clash of cultures.

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The Rise of the Machines: Artificial Intelligence, Cyborgs, and the Road to a Post-human World

  • Daniel Catalão

摘要

This article addresses the new challenges posed to society by the ubiquitous technology that is beginning to move from the concept of externality to that of the corporeal, integrated into the human body as a bionic organ. This evolution towards an augmented human raises ethical questions and challenges of integration into society that could lead to new apartheids, creating separations between the human race and technologically improved humans. Concepts such as human dignity, free will, and the right to total and unlimited sovereignty over the human body are thus challenged. This leads us towards an inevitable confrontation between those who consider biotechnological developments only as a way to cure diseases and ailments inherent to the human condition, and those for whom new bionic technologies can and should be freely used to improve and extend the capacities of the human being, both at the cerebral and physical levels. This conflict will inevitably arise at a legislative level, but it may escalate to other degrees if the issue is not accepted and foreseen in advance, originating debates with the aim of achieving balanced and integral solutions in the society of bionic beings. This must be promoted before the reality imposed by technological evolution invades us by surprise and is installed without the existence of societal foundations that can sustain it without the hardships of a violent clash of cultures.