Dott 07

Do robots experience serendipity? That question crossed my mind when I exited the Café Scientifique on Monday 15 October after the Cyborg: Our Future Human Body debate. I got into my car, switched on the radio and Andrew Marr was interviewing John Harris about his new book ‘The Ethical Case for Making People Better.’ Perfect timing! The content of their discussion reflected the one I’d just left and quite apart from helping to organise my thoughts about a very big subject, it managed to get me wondering about something I hadn’t thought about before – can robots experience serendipity? Well, such is the prerogative of the human mind - the questions just keep coming. Scientists and academics struggle and sometimes manage to come up with answers that silence the collective cacophony. To what extent did the panel of scientists and experts manage to do just this on Monday evening?

The Our Cyborg Future? exhibition currently at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne, takes a look at the shrinking divide between us and the technology we use, from prosthetic body parts to smart textiles and wearable body extensions. The aim of the debate at the Café Scientifique, was to discuss whether this is a future we want and to give us access to some of the scientists and leaders in the field. Believe me; the hairs will stand up on your head when you find out what is going on: spray-on dresses, bionic eyes and teddy bears that beam Grandmother into you child’s bedroom. Eat your heart out Scotty! In this brave new world of technological advances, if the speakers’ stories are anything to go by, progress seems to be creating new intellectual hybrids too: fashion designers who become scientists; designers who become technology experts and robotics engineers who become soft-toy manufactures. Our concept of identity is changing – science is leading the way – are we victims to it or in control of it and is it a good thing?

Chaired by Sabine Seymour, co-curator of the Our Cyborg Future? exhibition the evening started with a stimulating insight in to the very latest in the world of retinal implants from Dr Patrick Degenaar, lecturer in Neurobionics from Imperial College, London. Patrick has professional credentials as long as your arm, which have somehow led him to working with the human eye. Patrick is collaborating with engineers, designers and other Neuro Scientists in the area of retinal implants where a recent major discovery has brought to life the possibility of returning sight to blind eyes. He explained that diseases such as Parkinsons, Epilepsy, spinal column lesions and cochlea or visual impairments were traditionally treated with electrical stimulation to the brain where nerve cells were ‘zapped’ with electrodes. The problem with this treatment is that the human body inevitably reacted to this invasion by forming layers of tissue around the electric pulses to protect itself and so rendering the potential benefit inefficient. In the last couple of years, a radical and major discovery has opened the way to stimulate nerve cells using light. An algae, living in swamps has a special protein that when inserted into nerve cells can make them light sensitive which means that the nerve cell can be stimulated with light instead of invasive electrodes. 

‘This is a major, major change in science. This is what we are working on at the moment... Are Bionic eyes possible? We believe so. If we can transfer the light sensitisation process to the human eye’ Dr Patrick Dagennart Imperial College, London.

Leaving us wanting more, Patrick introduced his colleague Tobie Kerridge, a designer based at Goldsmith’s College. Tobie is currently working on collaborative project funded by Intel and EPSRC, based at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at  Imperial College. His research explores how design methods can be extended to provide individuals with access to and creative authorship over, technological innovation. Tobie explained that his fascination with technology has brought him to explore it through the eyes of a designer. Part of his work at Imperial College is to do with the interface between soft tissue (or biological systems) and silicon digital systems.

‘This for me is something interesting, not just for the potential applications, but how as a designer, I can open up a discussion or debate on the social value of this technology.’ Tobie Kerridge

Tobie raised the issue of just how cybernetics and technological advances might be played out in the social and cultural sphere and in our everyday lives. I mean, how many of us actually think of ourselves as being in a relationship with a system when we are hooked up to computer game? Just how much are we active; passive or infact fusing with the experience? If we indeed are fusing, just how much is this changing our perception of ourselves as 100% biological matter or are we indeed becoming part- machine? Tobie is particularly interested in this space, where our senses become decoupled from the stuff around us in our immediate environment. If what we receive through vision, smell and touch is coming from elsewhere – who is suggesting these systems and who is in control of them? For more information on his work go to the Material Beliefs website.



The next speaker, Dr Manuel Torres has a back ground in Fashion Design. Driven by the vision he had of creating an instant dress, where ‘one size fits all’ Manuel spent 3 years on a research course in Science and Fashion at the Imperial College and the Royal College of Art. The results have produced FabriCan. FabriCan does want it says on the can: it is literally fabric in a can. It can be easily used by fashion designers to create instant designs. It is able to be either sprayed directly on to the body and sculpted and built up in a way that is similar to using spray paint. Fabrican has caused quite a stir in the fashion world where Manuel finds his identity as a fashion designer in jeopardy. He jokes ‘they don’t’ know what to do with me!’

Manuel continues to develop his design and currently Fabrican is being tested for medial use in the development of instant plasters and bandages. Other usages are rocking the material world… Fabrican just might make fashion designers of us all. It really is possible, to go to the beach and spray on your own bikini. You can visit the Discovery Museum and see for yourself. Manuel’s dress was taken by train from Imperial College in a can and sprayed onto a manikin in Newcastle’s Discovery Museum. No doubt it will make an appearance in Madonna’s material world very soon!

The final speaker, Dan Stiehl, a PHD student researcher from MIT (who works under sociable robotics ‘legend’ and MIT Media Lab Robotic Life Group Director Cynthia Breazeal) introduced the audience to the Huggable teddy bear and this teddy is not just a cute face. Huggable is a highly advanced robot that has the potential to get two people who are far apart to ‘speak’ among other things.



Under development since January 2005, the robot is currently on display at the Our Cyborg Future? exhibition in the Discovery Museum.

Dan explained how Huggable can act as an avatar, allowing users to see what the robot sees and interact with children and patients who might be sitting in front of it and can be controlled the robot via a Web-based interface.

Built on an MSR service, the web interface shows what Huggable sees through its camera eyes, its relative body position, and even if it's being moved, and the interface allows the user to control the robot's still-limited interaction. Huggable cannot get up and walk around, but it is, according to Stiehl, a very complex robot, featuring full-body sensor skin, sensors, and tensiometers in its legs and feet, speakers and a microphone in its head, a camera in each eye, and motors in the neck so it can turn its head. Future versions will add motors to the eyebrows, ears, shoulders, and the neck. The latter should give Huggable a full eight degrees of head movement, so it can tilt its head to the side.

Dan’s talk touched upon the potential medical, carer and educational opportunities that Huggable could open up to users. He was mindful to stress that discussions were ongoing between the medical, psychology and educational communities as to the ethical implications for future users and their relationships to self, society and their patients and carers. Clearly, Huggable has massive potential – but do we want it!? Changes in family communication, entertainment and medical care are all possible with Huggable’s cute technology but there remain many, many unanswered questions about the potential harm including, but not restricted to: access by elites; the de-personalisation of health care, and the attachment of very young children to robots who live partly in the virtual world, instead of real ones or ones that live in a child’s imagination - so, a lot of explaining to do to the public yet from our little furry friend!

Ok. The discussion that followed raised many questions. Topics covered included the identity of humans as we become Cyborgs; the rights of the lesser able-bodied; concerns about the drive to create ‘perfect’ humans; the ‘Cochlea Holocaust’ and more.  It was a brilliant opportunity to put questions directly to the scientists. It was stimulating and if I may say, it is clear from the debate alone, that discussion, regardless of whether it puts scientists on the defensive or not, is essential if people are to be brought along and eased into the cultural shift that is happening around us. We need to be included in this move towards a world of bionic eyes, robotic friends for our children and Cyborg-selves.  This new hybrid-thinking is contagious and if it’s good enough for experts working if the field of robotics, it’s good enough for us mere mortals as we sit on the edge of an exciting time in human evolution…



After a stimulating discussion, I would like to conclude that I am caught in the headlights between my desire to let scientists do what they do (mostly) best on the one hand: to improve the lot of mortals on earth and provide cures for degenerative diseases; and on the other hand to understand these advances and to work out whether there is any good reason to object to them in the first place. Of course this puts scientists on the defensive – they are out explaining to the public about advances in technology and science that is enabling them to improve our lot, when they should be in the lab getting on with saving the world. To complicate this equation even further from the lay person’s point of view - scientific progress is inevitable and for all intents and purposes we need it, depend on it and welcome it because it improves our lives. Furthermore, most scientific progressions that met with either the ‘yuck factor’ or down right resistance from certain lobbies such as IVF, plastic surgery or cochlea implants, tend to get the thumbs up as we see people’s lives improving and it becomes common practice. In other words, we are left with no real vote in the shifting tectonics of scientific progress through no real fault of our own - either due to ignorance about the technology, fear about whether we will need it at some unspecified time in the future and the over-riding evidence that time will prove us wrong when the shocking latest scientific breakthroughs simply become old news.  So, where does all this really leave us? The science continues, the questions continue, plus ca change…