AWESOME CON FRIDAY PANEL: “The Human-Technology Frontier”
Ever wonder what kinds of Sci-Fi tech are actually achievable? Or perhaps mused on what it means to be human if the majority of your body has been modified? What is “a majority of your body” anyway? Well, then this panel was the one to get to. An incredible group of scientists took questions from attendees, and asked each other about things like ARC reactors (magnets: feasible, Tony Stark tech: not so feasible), JARVIS (surprisingly the most feasible of all the Iron Man tech) and The Expanse’s implants (possible).
But what they really dug into was the philosophy of what it means to be human, from the Turing Test to Cylons in BSG, humans with pacemakers and artificial limbs to 100% flesh-and-blood folks who don’t possess a caring bone in their body. “We almost never think about emotional and social enhancements…because Tony Stark is kind of a dick.” Which brings me to…
“Who gets to decide who’s human”, one panelist asked. That’s a very good question. So’s this one; “How much enhancement can we have and still be human?” When we try to put things on Side 1 or Side 2, there’s a whole gray scale we’re leaving out, which would most probably be shortchanged by such black-and-white ground rules. “Human is not necessarily binary,” one panelist opined, “…it may not matter in the future.” Then there was the obligatory Jonathan Coulton “Chiron Beta Prime” segue, and there was much rejoicing.
I’ll leave you with a final panelist quote to get your brain matter revving. “The less you respect other humans, the less human [you truly are].” Preach, mah science people.
Panel Grade: A
Tl;dr: To quote one of the panelists, “There a lot more that needs to be done…but we’ve got a good start.” So maybe skip dreaming about a mini-ARC reactor and start saving up for an eye implant of your very own? But remember; whether you’re human or not isn’t gonna be an easy definition…and maybe even if it was, as long as you’d still be able to respect those around you, it wouldn’t really matter.
