Focusing on the second future situation

Progression of technology 


After I had completed a large amount of research to do with the first future situation I will be creating designs for for BA6, which was Climate change and coming up with a concept that I can focus my character sketches on, I knew it was time for me to do the same with the second area I had chosen to look at which was the progression of technology in the future and artificial intelligence. Now the only knowledge I really have on this topic come from an extensive history of watching sci-fi movie and tv shows so I don't actually know any solid realistic knowledge on the future of technology so this is something I really need to look into if I want my designs to be effective.

I got my idea for looking into this topic from the TV show I watched, 'End of the world night' about 2 months ago but this was focusing more on how Artificial intelligence was going to destroy mankind which was initially what I wanted to focus on but now my ideas have shifted. I have decided to work on only two future situations and have one which portrays the kind of future mankind would like to see and the other will show one they want to avoid. I have already done Climate change as the one humans certainly want not to happen which makes my second choice the 'positive' one. And as Professor Stephen Hawking said himself that "I think the development of full artificial intelligence would spell the end of the human race" it is now a area of the future of technology that I want to avoid in this project.

What do want to focus on however is the prospect of humans interrogating themselves with technology in the future in order to adapt themselves, so essentially I will be looking into the possibility of cyborgs. Seeing that this is a subject that is probably going to have a lot of complicated science involved in it I am only going to do as much research as I think I need to get down a good few ideas. Also I wont have to do as much compared to when I looked at Global Warming as I really needed to look into the facts and numbers of that to make sure that my concept was going to be realistic where as with this I know that there are already cyborgs living in the world today so I know that my concept is do able. So I thought a good place to start, using the same idea I used to start my Climate Change research, would be to get a simple description of what a cyborg actually is from Wikipedia. I have posted the first few paragraphs from the webpage as it will be easier for me to refer to this way as it has some good suggested resources I can look at when it comes to cybernetics.




Wikipedia description found from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg


A cyborg (short for "cybernetic organism") is a theoretical or fictional being with both organic and biomechatronic parts. The term cyborg is not the same thing as biotic and often applied to an organism that has restored function or enhanced abilities due to the integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on some sort of feedback. While cyborgs are commonly thought of as mammals, they might also conceivably be any kind of organism and the term "Cybernetic organism" has been applied to networks, such as road systems, corporations and governments, which have been classed as such. The term can also apply to micro-organisms which are modified to perform at higher levels than their unmodified counterparts. It is hypothesized that cyborg technology will form a part of the future human evolution. In popular culture, some cyborgs may be represented as visibly mechanical (e.g. the Cybermen in the Doctor Who franchise or The Borg from Star Trek or Darth Vader from Star Wars); or as almost indistinguishable from humans (e.g. the Terminators from the Terminator films, the "Human" Cylons from the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica etc.) The 1970s television series The six million dollar man featured one of the most famous fictional cyborgs, referred to as a bionic man; the series was based upon a novel by Martin Caidin titled Cyborg. Cyborgs in fiction often play up a human contempt for over-dependence on technology, particularly when used for war, and when used in ways that seem to threaten freewill. Cyborgs are also often portrayed with physical or mental abilities far exceeding a human counterpart (military forms may have inbuilt weapons, among other things).


The summary above really helps to just simply explain what a cyborg actually is and how they could become a part of the future for mankind. As a large amount of the information about resources about cyborgs gets very technical I won't delve into too much research about it otherwise I will just end up confusing myself. I also will keep it short and sweet research wise due to the fact the information tends to get a bit gory as they go into the surgical side of things and it makes me feel really sick just even thinking about it so I am trying to avoid that side of the researching. Overall I think everyone has vague idea of what a cyborg actually looks like as it is a design that is becoming incorporated more and more, as technology progresses, into things such as adverts and games and films. It is a concept that people have coined onto as they know it could be the future of mankind. Some examples of this can be seen below.

An artistic interpretation of a futuristic cyborg 

http://fightpunch.deviantart.com/art/Cyborg-359725974

An advertisement showing a creative version of the 
progression of technology and cybernetics. 

The 2013 video game 'Remember Me' that 
features a female cyborg protagonist

The 2015 film 'Terminator Genisys' that 
features a male cyborg protagonist

By why are people so interested and keen on the idea cyborgs? What is making them become more of an iconic and recognisable design as we seep further into the future? It is because they are highly plausible thing that could happen to the human in the future and the evolution of this is beginning right now. People who either have a severe disability or are amputees are beginning to regain back what they have lost due to the improvement in technology or the last ten years or so. There are been more and more cases of people becoming 'cyborgs' to be able to over come their disabilities and help get back to have they used to be and as technology advances this process if becoming more and more efficient and helping so many people who are willing to have this kind of treatment.

A photograph of the amputees Jesse Sullivan and Claudia Mitchell 

who were both fitted with bionic arms in 2005.

Below are a couple of videos that I watched to helped me getting a better understand of what cybernetic technology is being used today. The first video focuses on people of the 21st century who have cybernetic parts attached to their bodies for mainly medical reasons and to help enhance what they have lost which is really fascinating as there are a lots of different variations of technology being use that are helping these people to survive. The second video looks into what the future of cybernetic technology could be and will the human race soon turn to this type of technology to help improve our natural abilities and speed up our evolution and if so what is the dangers of this process taking place? Each of these videos were really interesting as they gave me a good base concept of what bionic technology looks now and could possibly lead to in the near future.

So now that I feel like I have done enough research looking into the progression of cybernetic technology from when it began to present day and how this technology could possibly expand as we progress into the future, so far the humans may even begin uses this knowledge to simply adapt themselves into 'better humans' it it time for me to move onto and to starting thinking about what design or creative concept story I can make to fit around this topic.