as being an opportunity for humans to
improve ourselves by linking much more
closely with technology to give
ourselves extra abilities so this is
linking the biology of the human
directly with technology to form cyborgs
cybernetic organisms part human part
machine part biology part technology and
what I want to do is to share three
experiences three experiments and to
talk about what what it might feel like
in the future because we’re all going to
be cyborgs in the future you’ve got to
get have to like it so what will it feel
like to try and give you some idea
through my own experiments so the first
one is now biohacking and this is really
perhaps the the entry level to two
cyborgs and what I actually had this is
a younger version of me with my doctor
and what he’s doing is putting a little
implant in my left arm as an
identification device what it actually
looks like is this not not the thing on
the left hand side this is on the right
hand side is the the implant which is an
identification and and what it does is
identify me to the computer in my
building so the computer knows where I
am at different points and then does
things falling so what it did as I
walked towards my laboratory the door
opened for me automatically as I walked
down the corridor the lights came on and
coming through the front door it said
hello professor Warwick you know it’s
it’s really cool stuff you got to go
with it now you know for me I think one
of the things I learned straight away
the experience is that when you have an
implant mentally you feel it’s part of
you it’s it’s the same as if you have a
cochlear implant for hearing you just
think of it as being you or artificial
hips so it’s not like a pair of glasses
which I do have you put pick them up and
put them down when you have an implant
it’s part of you so as you walk
for me as I was walking around with this
implant the things were happening for me
not for this piece of technology now I
don’t know does anybody hear this
hand-raising time have a cat or a dog
with a chip implanted like I can yeah
thank you sorry don’t be scared you come
here and yet so there’s quite a few
hands going up
thank you very much you can feel happy
that your Earth Day the light come there
you can feel happy that your pet is
really keyed up ready for the future and
and that this technology was fully
tested on humans before your animal
receiver let’s go to experiment number
two and this is something a little bit
different to what I’ve been talking a
big opportunity for humans this one and
that is taking what we do in experiments
take brain cells typically from rats
because rats are not particularly
popular or all from from humans which is
quite possible and you see there there’s
it’s a little plate that has electrodes
on the bottom that’s how we can send
electrical signals and pick up
electrical signals the black rings where
we take brain cells which we separate
first with enzymes and we put the brain
cells in that little of those little
black rings the black rings are there to
stop it dehydrating because this these
are living brain cells when you put them
there very quickly they start to connect
up brain cells love to communicate
that’s what brain cells do and we use
that force it we have to feed them we
keep it in an incubator at 37 degrees
centigrade and after about 10 days we
have so many connections we can look at
the pathways through the brain and we
give it a body essentially a little
robot body and what you’re going to see
now I’ll click on we see we see the
first video that’s it that’s where we
connect up little black rings I’m
talking about and so on and we’ve got a
little robot now with a biological brain
hopefully and if you are young and what
the robot is supposed to do is with
ultrasonic sensors like a bat senses the
world to dit
the wall and then change direction but
the direction change is purely through
its biological brain and then because
it’s just a baby it’s just started out
sometimes it’s not supposed to crash we
don’t want that now this robot the brain
has about a hundred thousand or hundred
and fifty thousand brain cells so it’s
it’s reasonable size and what we’re
looking at in the experiment is to try
and get it to learn how to move around
without bumping into the wall through
habit simply one hour every day in the
laboratory and we’ll look now this this
was the robot after about ten days you
see it bumps into the wall sometimes and
so on we’re now looking at the same
robot the same brain this is a
biological brain making the decisions
after two months so what this robot has
been doing is moving around in the
corral for two months to try and learn
not to bump into the wall and we can
investigate under the microscope how the
pathways change how they strengthen due
to habit it’s very much like if you’re
driving the same route day after day you
you almost do it as though you’re
programmed in the end it is purely
through habit and the passageways in the
brain becomes so strong that’s what you
do you see this Ray’s it’s a little bit
boring anyway it detects the wall and it
turns and things like that they’re not
all this good but now let’s take the
next step I set hundred thousand brain
cells we can also grow the brains in
three dimensions which takes the number
up to about sixty million brain cells so
what we’re talking about now is sixty
million human brain cells in a robot
body
let’s take it to give you an opportunity
in the future human have a hundred
billion brain cells you know what what
would it be like for you to have your
brain in a robot body that if something
went wrong with it you can replace it if
some you know you want it a bit faster
or slow or you want it to be different
you can replace it what the
opportunities there are absolutely
enormous that’s what we’re looking at
here possibilities of changing you but
it’s a bit a little bit we’re not far
from where
after is buried in glorious douche cough
as well so it’s very Kafka esque that
you can change what body you’ve got and
so on I mean we could even have English
robots with with brain cells like this
whether they would be and silly enough
to vote for brexit and things like that
I don’t know but there’s the future for
us experiment number three the brain
goes something different again and this
particular one was looking at there’s me
on the operating table
two hours of neuro surgery to have an
implant it was not for medical purposes
it wasn’t for therapeutic – didn’t have
a medical problem this was in order to
scientifically investigate the
possibilities of the implant what the
implant looked like this is the brain
gate implant the sensor side of things
it’s 100 spikes that you can see and
this was fired into the nervous system
in my left arm this is what the
operation was all about to link my
nervous system with the computer and
hence on to the internet which is big
advantage Internet’s very useful for
this sort of thing now to give you some
idea of the sort of experiments I was
able to do with my nervous system
connected to the Internet the first one
humans have a very limited sensory range
we if you even the visual spectrum we
sense hardly any frequencies at all so
let’s expand it let’s sense more things
let’s understand the world around us
let’s perceive what’s going on in a much
broader spread this was looking at
ultrasonics so I got a blindfold on I’ve
got ultrasonic sensors on the baseball
cap and what is happening as an object
comes closer you can see in the research
it brings the board a bit closer pulses
of current were essentially stimulate
environment over system stimulating my
brain so that the closer an object came
the more pulses so it’s quite simple
ding-ding-ding-ding something’s coming
close Bing Bing Bing further away what
did it feel like what it felt like
something was coming closer
it’s an ultrasonic saying it was not
painful or anything like that your brain
is actually quite a clever device and it
can make sense of what’s going it can be
fooled but it can make sense of what’s
going on one thing that I found amazing
about this Ian at one time just for fun
so he thought suddenly brought the board
towards me I didn’t know that what he
was doing or all I had was an ultrasonic
it was scaring and I thought it was
almost like a reaction which it had
taken about 6 weeks to train my brain to
recognize these pulses and then this
happens and it’s like a reaction coming
out of me really weird I felt this is my
wife I was going to say and get this
right Moyo Krasner man jelka but but but
I realized that smoker’s Krasner at the
title krasna and brave I don’t know if
different meanings so I hope I didn’t
insult or anything now she’s she’s
wearing some jewelry that a student at
the Royal College of Art in London put
together and the jewelry changes color
through between red and blue it was
linked to my nervous system remember the
implant in my nervous system so now just
to set the scene for the storyline here
to give you one idea because once you’re
on the nervous system you can measure
all sorts of what I’ll call the physical
emotions so I’m not thinking in terms of
love and think which is you know what
what is it and things like that
scientifically speaking but in terms of
anger and shock and there’s lots of
research going on different parts of the
world in terms of how do you measure it
in terms of somebody’s brain or nervous
system so in this case if I was car this
is set the same now if I was calm and
settled down and so on my wife’s jewelry
was blue and if I got excited then the
jewelry started flashing red now there
she is who didn’t doesn’t work in the
university it’s same place at all and
the jewelry is blue fine he’s not doing
anything you shouldn’t and so on and
then the jewelry starts flashing red
what is he doing and more importantly
who
is he doing it with I think this relates
to the talked about three talks ago
anything so there we go
emotions this now this I think for me
was one of those mind-blowing bit this
was taken at Columbia University which
is New York and what we did had with the
help of the guys there in the real-time
computing lab linked my nervous system
on the internet to robot hand which was
in Reading University in the UK near
London
so when I opened and closed my hand in
New York it also it’s like having a
third hand opened and closed the robot
hand in England so essentially my brain
signals we were tapping in to the with
the electrodes in my nervous system
tapping into my neural signals okay they
do that with my hand they’re doing it
now but also they were opening and
closing the robot hand on another
continent and when the hand gripped an
object we took sensory signals from the
fingertips fed it back across the
internet to stimulate essentially
stimulate my brain again by my nervous
system so my brain was getting the same
pulses of current the same things more
pulses dependent on how much force the
robot hand was applying and the
experiments what I was trying to do was
to open and close my hand which open and
close the robot hand so it just gripped
an object because I was getting the
feedback from there now that the same
experiment has since been used for
therapeutic purposes in the US to help
people who are paralyzed directly in the
motor cortex but for me it was like an
extra robot hand and also big thing that
you can have your brain in one place and
your body can be wherever you want your
brain and body don’t have to be in the
same place that’s how we’ve evolved to
now but you know why stick with what
we’ve got let’s go with something new
and this is an opportunity can be
anything your body can be arms and legs
but it can be buildings it can be cars
it you know whatever you want your body
to be that’s what it can be the last
part is experiment again involved my
wife and she have
I think checks are very brave this is
where she is the other cousin a bit
bright and she had electrodes pushed
into her nervous system two electrodes
without anesthetic now if you try it
it’s very painful and the doctor we
thought the doctor was going to give
some anaesthetic and he said no no I
need to make sure I’ve made a good
contact so he pushed an electrode in and
she screamed and the doctor said I think
we made a good contact there he he
pushed another electrode in and we went
back to the lab and linked
electronically linked our nervous
systems together so when she closed her
hand my brain received a pulse
so like a telegraphic communication
nervous system too nervous system and
clearly where we’re heading is not just
nervous system nervous it’s a brain to
brain communicating by thought this
old-fashioned way of communicating
something for the past we’re going to be
communicating just by thinking to each
other in the future so you will all be
cyborgs in the future we will all be
able to communicate just by thinking to
each other and I would like to be the
first therefore to welcome you to TEDx
Prague 2035 as a cyborg thank you thank you very much