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How closely will we live with the technology we use in the future? How will it change us? And how close is “close”? Ghost in the Shell imagines a futuristic, hi-tech but grimy and ghetto-ridden Japanese metropolis populated by people, robots, and technologically-enhanced human cyborgs.
Beyond the superhuman strength, resilience, and X-ray vision provided by bodily enhancements, one of the most transformative aspects of this world is the idea of brain augmentation, that as cyborgs we might have two brains rather than one. Our biological brain—the “ghost” in the “shell”—would interface via neural implants to powerful embedded computers that would give us lightning-fast reactions and heightened powers of reasoning, learning and memory.
First written as a Manga comic series in 1989 during the early days of the internet, Ghost in the Shell’s creator, Japanese artist Masamune Shirow, foresaw that this brain-computer interface would overcome the fundamental limitation of the human condition: that our minds are trapped inside our heads. In Shirow’s transhuman future our minds would be free to roam, relaying thoughts and imaginings to other networked brains, entering via the cloud into distant devices and sensors, even “deep diving” the mind of another in order to understand and share their experiences.
Shirow’s stories also pinpointed some of the dangers of this giant technological leap. In a world where knowledge is power, these brain-computer interfaces would create new tools for government surveillance and control, and new kinds of crime such as “mind-jacking”—the remote control of another’s thoughts and actions. Nevertheless, there was also a spiritual side to Shirow’s narrative: that the cyborg condition might be the next step in our evolution, and that the widening of perspective and the merging of individuality from a networking of minds could be a path to enlightenment.
Lost in translation
Borrowing heavily from Ghost in the Shell’s re-telling by director Mamoru Oshii in his classic 1995 animated film version, the newly arrived Hollywood cinematic interpretation stars Scarlett Johansson as Major, a cyborg working for Section 9, a government-run security organization charged with fighting corruption and terrorism. Directed by Rupert Sanders, the new film is visually stunning and the storyline lovingly recreates some of the best scenes from the original anime.
Sadly, though, Sanders’ movie pulls its punches around the core question of how this technology could change the human condition. Indeed, if casting Western actors in most key roles wasn’t enough, the new film also engages in a form of cultural appropriation by superimposing the myth of the American all-action hero—who you are is defined by what you do—on a character who is almost the complete antithesis of that notion.
Major fights the battles of her masters with increasing reluctance, questioning the actions asked of her, drawn to escape and contemplation. This is no action hero, but someone trying to piece together fragments of meaning from within her cyborg existence with which to assemble a worthwhile life.
A scene midway through the film shows, even more bluntly, the central role of memory in creating the self. We see the complete breakdown of a man who, having been mind-jacked, faces the realization that his identity is built on false memories of a life never lived, and a family that never existed. The 1995 anime insists that we are individuals only because of our memories. While the new film retains much of the same storyline, it refuses to follow the inference. Rather than being defined by our memories, Major’s voice tells us that “we cling to memories as if they define us, but what we do defines us.” Perhaps this is meant to be reassuring, but to me, it is both confusing and unfaithful to the spirit of the original tale.
The new film also backs away from another key idea of Shirow’s work, that the human mind—even the human species—are, in essence, information. Where the 1995 anime talked of the possibility of leaving the physical body—the shell—elevating consciousness to a higher plane and “becoming part of all things," the remake has only veiled hints that such a merging of minds, or a melding of the human mind with the internet, could be either positive or transformational.
Open lives
In the real world, the notion of networked minds is already upon us. Touchscreens, keypads, cameras, mobile, the cloud: we are more and more directly and instantly linked to a widening circle of people, while opening up our personal lives to surveillance and potential manipulation by governments, advertisers, or worse.
Brain-computer interfaces are also on their way. There are already brain implants that can mitigate some of the symptoms of brain conditions, from Parkinson’s disease to depression. Others are being developed to overcome sensory impairments such as blindness or to control a paralyzed limb. On the other hand, the remote control of behavior using implanted brain stimulators has been demonstrated in several animal species, a frightening technology that could be applied to humans if someone were to choose to misuse it in that way.
The possibility of voluntarily networking our minds is also here. Devices like the Emotiv are simple wearable electroencephalograph-based (EEG) devices that can detect some of the signature electrical signals emitted by our brains, and are sufficiently intelligent to interpret those signals and turn them into useful output. For example, an Emotiv connected to a computer can control a video game by the power of the wearer’s thoughts alone.
In terms of artificial intelligence, the work in my lab at Sheffield Robotics explores the possibility of building robot analogues of human memory for events and experiences. The fusion of such systems with the human brain is not possible with today’s technology—but it is imaginable in the decades to come. Were an electronic implant developed that could vastly improve your memory and intelligence, would you be tempted? Such technologies may be on the horizon, and science fiction imaginings such as Ghost in the Shell suggest that their power to fundamentally change the human condition should not be underestimated.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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Is humanity headed toward a Star Trek-like utopia or a Mad Max-inspired dystopia?
This is one of the big questions Vivek Wadhwa examines in his new book, co-authored with Alex Salkever, The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Our Technology Choices Will Create the Future.
In the book, Wadhwa and Salkever explore to what extent we can control technological progress, which at times, can seem like force of nature.
While it’s tempting to believe technology is beyond influence, however, Wadhwa emphasizes people ultimately hold the power to determine our future.
Utopia or dystopia? It’s up to us.
Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that. How do we make good decisions?

Wadhwa uses three questions as an ethical lens for evaluating new technologies. Each question relates back to the themes of equality, risk, and autonomy.
Does the technology have the potential to benefit everyone equally?
What are the risks and rewards?
Does the technology more strongly promote autonomy or dependence?
Knowing the ethical nuances aren’t always black and white, Wadhwa believes these questions are a helpful framework for understanding and evaluating technology.
In the book, Wadhwa runs technologies such as artificial intelligence, CRISPR gene editing, and robotics through this framework. In the case of artificial intelligence, for example, Wadhwa suggests all AI systems should be built with a kill switch, allowing humans to shut them down, no matter how advanced.
“With both AI and robotics, we must design all systems with this key consideration in mind, even if it reduces the capabilities and emergent properties of those systems and robots.”
Wadhwa urges readers to engage in the ethical debates of our time that technology is surfacing, and stresses that technology is evolving too rapidly to leave policy decisions up to political leaders alone.

What’s the key to making change in the tech sector?
Wadhwa believes it’s the power of the masses—that collective citizen power should also be used to influence the very design of certain technologies.
Though at times a skeptic, Wadhwa ends the book optimistically, writing, “Despite my fears, I know that humanity will rise to the occasion and uplift itself because it always has.”
The Driver in the Driverless Car calls for readers to become more informed and engaged with emerging technologies. It’s a reminder that we all play a role in deciding whether technology creates a future Captain Picard would applaud.
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What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear ‘artificial intelligence’? For those raised on a steady diet of big budget Hollywood sci-fi, the answer to that question is something along the lines of “evil robots and all-knowing computers that are going to destroy humanity.”
But AI is already playing an active role in our day-to-day lives, and its capabilities are only going to increase from here on out. To help ease the anxiety that will likely accompany that increase, Wired founding editor Kevin Kelly has suggested we re-frame the way we’re thinking about AI, both by changing the vocabulary we use for it and by putting it into historical context.

Kelly thinks the word ‘intelligence’ has taken on undue baggage, including a somewhat negative connotation. When it’s not used in reference to a human mind, the word can conjure images of spying, classified information, or invasion of privacy.
Since the scope of artificial intelligence goes far beyond that, and we may be past the point of instilling a new definition of old words, why not use new words instead?
Kelly’s word of choice is cognification, and he uses it to describe ‘smart’ things.
At this point only a handful of things have been cognified, and more are in process: phones, cars, thermostats, TVs. But in the future, Kelly says, everything that’s already been electrified will also be cognified. Smart homes? Smart office buildings? Smart cities? Only a matter of time.
The cognification of things can be viewed similarly to the electrification of things that took place during the Industrial Revolution.
The industrial revolution saw a large-scale switch from the agricultural world—where everything that was made was made by muscle power—to the mechanized world, where gasoline, steam engines, and electricity applied artificial power to everything. We made a grid to deliver that power, so we could have it on-demand anytime and anywhere we wanted, and everything that used to require natural power could be done with artificial power.
Movement and transportation, among other things, were amplified by this new power. Kelly gives the example of a car, which is simple but compelling: you summon the power of 250 horses just by turning a key. Pressing your foot to the gas pedal can make your vehicle go 60 miles an hour, which would have been unthinkable in the era when all we had to go off of was muscle power.
The next step is to take that same car that already has the artificial power of 250 horses and add the power of 250 artificial minds. The result? Self-driving cars that can not only go fast, they can make decisions and judgment calls, deliver us to our destinations, and lower the risk of fatal accidents.
According to Kelly, we’re currently in the dawn of another industrial revolution. As it progresses, we’ll take everything we’ve previously electrified, and we’ll cognify it.
Imagining life before the Industrial Revolution, we mostly wonder how we ever lived without electricity and human-made power, thinking, “Wow, I’m sure glad we have lights and airplanes and email now. It’s nice not to have to light candles, ride in covered wagons, or send handwritten letters.” Admittedly, our relief is sometimes mixed with some nostalgia for those simpler times.
What will people think in 200 years? Once everything has been cognified and the world is one big smart bubble, people will probably have some nostalgia for the current ‘simpler times’—but they’ll also look back and say, “How did we ever live without ubiquitous AI?”
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