U.S. Soldiers Recipients of Newest Prosthetic Technologies 287
plaastik writes "The next generation of naturalistic and touch-sensitive artificial limbs are being worn by U.S. Soldiers. Instead of the old velcro strap and cup these new models are fused directly to the bone and are controlled by controlled by the wearer's brain. From the article: 'Future prosthetic arms will fuse to existing bone, eliminating the need for awkward attachment systems. These more naturalistic limbs will use bionic nerves attached to natural nerves to send and receive signals from the brain. Chips embedded in the user's brain will help command artificial-muscle-activated, touch-sensitive, fully articulating hands.'"
Fully articulating hands? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fully articulating hands? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. I expect so.
That's amazing. I couldn't play at all, before.
Re:Fully articulating hands? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Fully articulating hands? (Score:2)
It's the one in which the Bad Guys(TM) are never able to shoot someone who can kick unnaturally high.
Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Innovation (Score:2)
economies of scale (Score:5, Interesting)
There may be benefits to complete prosthetic bodies [wikipedia.org] which have capabilities superior to flesh and blood which would make limb regeneration a less preferred alternative.
In the article [popsci.com] Jeffrey Morgan notes that students at Brown have pierced noses. Limbs and skins impervious to flame, cold, bullets and infection might be the next big thing in body modification [wikipedia.org]. Also, if you break your leg, you can take it down to the shop and get it fixed while the mechanic [wikipedia.org] loans you a courtesy leg to get around in.
As for concerns to losing your humanity, it's not who you are inside, but what you do that counts. [mac.com]
Finally, is it just me, or does everyone want to strap on a combination of the Hugh Herr Catapult [popsci.com] and the german built Powerskip mechanical jumping boot [powerskip.de] and go street racing?
Re:economies of scale (Score:5, Funny)
It's that Otto Octavius I blame. If he'd stop knocking over banks, and work to raise awareness of the potential benefits of his research, the cybernetics field would be a lot further forward, I feel.
There may be benefits to complete prosthetic bodies which have capabilities superior to flesh and blood
Are you sure you're not just a Cybus Industries [cybusindustries.net] shill? John Lumic's full body prosthesis process may look impressive, but there are a few bugs in the system I'd want to see addressed before I got myself upgraded. Although his airships are pretty cool.
As for concerns to losing your humanity, it's not who you are inside, but what you do that counts.
Never mind the loss of individuality, I'm waiting for a design that can withstand a little man stepping out of a blue box with a flashing light on top. Until he gets that problem licked, I really can't see any future for the design.
Re:economies of scale (Score:2)
JLike when that 45 year-old, overweight and balding guy who pretends to be a hot teenage chick with a tight ass and smokin' body on yahoo chat shows up to meet you in person, he actually will have the tight ass and smokin' body of a hot teenage chick.
Re:economies of scale (Score:2)
but i worry that comparing a prostetic attachment point to a piercing is a bit oversimplistic.
piercings and similar are just loops of outer skin, the body dont have to worry about exposing its insides if it fails to properly closing the "wound". therefor its simpler just to let the skin heal around the metal object.
still, im no doctor so this is just guesswork.
Re:economies of scale (Score:2)
Um, yeah. Once enough people have their hands blown off, the price of the hardware will drop.
Wonderful......
Re:Innovation (Score:2)
You ever get that weird feeling that you've suddenly become old because the kids you're talking to totally miss your 1970's pop culture reference? [imdb.com]
For the love of god, somebody mod parent "funny"! I feel like I've turned into my grandmother talking about Benny Goodman!
Re:Innovation (Score:2)
As I frequently reword a well known saying, "Lazyness is the mother of invention."
Re:Innovation (Score:2)
And you're so lazy you had to invent a new spelling for laziness?
The Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today. (Score:2)
Re:Innovation (Score:3, Insightful)
Under the current capitalist regime, I agree. I certainly wouldn't expect Dubya to be forking out money for, say, ordinary Americans who have lost limbs and need replacements. Any suggestion of creating some sort of ( I'd better say this quietly ) public health system is met with absolute horror by the Republicans and the ruling class ... and the Democrats too. But of course soldiers are somewhat more useful than ordinary citizens, a
Re:Innovation (Score:2)
Except, of course, for creating the largest public health care segment in decades -- the Medicare prescription plan.
Axe social security? Check.
Except, of course, that this went down to defeat with even the Republicans in Congress showing moderately strong opposition to it.
Axe public education? They're most certainly working on it.
Except, of course, that more money goes into the public education system from the federal government than ever before. Federal spending on pre-university
Re:Innovation (Score:3, Informative)
It depends on which way you measure it. It might be the case that the system has the largest absolute budget, but this is spread across a very large number of people. If you look at the expenditure per capita, a very different picture emerges. The US is practically the worst in the Western world for health care. That's why the most common reason why people are put in gaol ( jail for Yanks )
Re:Innovation (Score:2)
If you were American, I'd assume that you wrote this unaware of rep
Re:Innovation (Score:2)
Don't make stuff up, it tanks the credibility of the rest of what you're saying. Violent offenses make up over 50% of those sentenced to prison as of 2004 [usdoj.gov]. I've never heard of *anyone* going to jail because of non-payment of medical bills; it's incredibly rare as the system has a bunch of "safety nets" built in. There's plenty you can do before jail becomes relevant.
why we go to India (Score:2)
It's not the US health care system that is our real mess. It's our legal system.
the health-care system isn't the problem (Score:2)
Our problems do not come from a "failure" to socialize medicine. When I was up in Canada, the news was that brain scanners were mostly going to places with powerful politicians. Quebec got an unfair share. M
Re:Innovation (Score:2)
So when you said "axe public health" what you meant was "did not expand public health in the direction or on the scale I would consider ideal"? Such excellent communication skills.
That's why the most common reason why people are put in gaol ( jail for Yanks ) is
the schools (Score:2)
We have a teacher's union that makes it impossible to reward the good teachers with better pay or job security. We do salary and layoffs according to seniority.
When we get money, we buy better athletic equipment. We also buy computers that get broken, go unused, or are used to play "educational" games. Really, what do you expect more money to buy us?
For older students: We are generally unable t
energy (Score:2)
We can go longer than 10 years on nuclear even if we keep being stupid. Alternately, we could... get this one... look for more fuel! That's right. We haven't even been looking for fuel.
Then there is the matter of using waste. Buring our "waste" in Yucca Mountain is terrib
When the facts aren't there, make 'em up! (Score:2)
Nobody goes to jail in the US for non-payment of bills. I'd ask you for a citation to back your statistic up, but there's no need since it's completely made up.
-h-
We can rebuild him (Score:5, Informative)
It's not cheap being a . [imdb.com]
Re:We can rebuild him (Score:3, Informative)
That should read "It's not cheap being a bionic man [imdb.com]."
Re:We can rebuild him (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We can rebuild him (Score:3, Informative)
If only it were so easy. Up-armoring the Humvees is no miracle cure, in fact it may hurt more than it helps [freerepublic.com].
Besides, with the quality of explosives the other side is using, they can kill an M1! [telegraph.co.uk] Charges that cut through a main battle tank are not going to be slowed down by any amount of Humvee up-armoring.
Speaking of which, I've wondered why
Re:We can rebuild him (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We can rebuild him (Score:2)
Re:We can rebuild him (Score:2)
While I agree with your antiwar tone, it's because of proper body and vehicle armor that the number of soldiers losing their limbs (instead of their lives) is increasing steadily. There is no body armor technology capable of keeping a soldier's foot from being destroyed by an IED mine, his ha
Re:We can rebuild him (Score:2)
Summary is a little optimisticly misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Don't get to excited yet people, prosthetics like the summary imagines are still a long ways off.
Chips in the user's brain (Score:3, Funny)
Hope they get the programming right on those chips!
Hey doc, sometimes when I'm typing with these artificial hands, I seem to get stuck in a loop! Is it true these are controlled by controlled by controlled by...
Maybe they should also embed a usb socket into the back of the user's head to allow firmware upgrades.
Cost? (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you, I'll be here until Wednesday. Please tip your waitress.
Same old crappy editing (Score:4, Funny)
Well, looks like the editors need prosthetic brains...
Good luck (Score:2)
This just seems like a win for everyone! (Score:4, Funny)
The Iraqis get killed and get to get their country destroyed.
And we the taxpayers get to piss away a trillion dollars. Did you need that money? You would have just wasted it selfishly on yourself!
I guess the only people who lose are Halliburton because they actually have to do some work. No wonder they mark up all their services 100%, who can blame them? What patriots!
Re:This just seems like a win for everyone! (Score:2)
Please, please, tell me where you learned to write like that. And that astonishing, creative name: "itsdave". Wow. Just.... wow.
You know, I'll bet your name really is Dave! What a twist! How subtle!
Re:This just seems like a win for everyone! (Score:3, Insightful)
You're already killing people all over the world. If you want to kill Americans, why not start with yourselves?
Re:This just seems like a win for everyone! (Score:2)
In fact, I don't really think that soldiers are happier with their limbs blown off and replaced with prosthetics, no matter how good these prosthetics are. Nor do I really think that Iraqis or anyone else enjoys being killed and their country destroyed. Nor do I think that spending a trillion dollars -- that's one million million dollars -- to do all this was anything other than a bad idea.
This was intended as satire. I figured that it was so broad that no one could possibly take
Re:This just seems like a win for everyone! (Score:2)
Interesting. How can we have fun with this simple statement. Let's see...
1) How do you know? Do you believe this because the US media told you?
2) Most Iraqis are shia. Most Iraqis belive in a shia controlled government. Is that good?
3) What does the approval rate of the current government have to do with US troops that are still in Iraq? Are you saying there is no difference between the govt of Iraq and the US troops?
4) Most Iraqis want the US troops
Re:This just seems like a win for everyone! (Score:2)
YES. That's exactly what I'm saying. "Precision" guided weapons and "Smart" Bombs have given our military a false sense of security in regards to attacking targets with a high risk of civilian casualties. In reality, the weapons are still highly unpredictable. Weapons, now, are required to strike within a circular area (CEP) of 13 meters to be considered accurate (as opposed to
Re:This just seems like a win for everyone! (Score:2)
Unfortunately they fail to take into account that the fighting during the Desert Storm conflict took place mostly outside of the urban cities. It is not at all surprising that there were fewer civilians hanging around the iraqi tank battalions in the middle of the desert and thus fewer civilian casualities despite the fact that fewer precsision guided weapons were used in the first Gulf War. If you don't believe me then perhaps you would enjoy reading the fi
Re:This just seems like a win for everyone! (Score:3, Insightful)
4300 non-combatant deaths in the Iraq war? Where in world did you get that number?! President Bush himself said (in a speech on December 12, 2005) that there were 30
Re:This just seems like a win for everyone! (Score:2)
Mixed Tense Confusion (Score:5, Insightful)
"U.S. Soldiers Recipients of Newest Prosthetic Technologies
The next generation of naturalistic and touch-sensitive artificial limbs are being worn by U.S. Soldiers. Instead of the old velcro strap and cup these new models are fused directly to the bone and are controlled by the wearer's brain. From the article: 'Future prosthetic arms will fuse to existing bone, eliminating the need for awkward attachment systems. These more naturalistic limbs will use bionic nerves attached to natural nerves to send and receive signals from the brain. Chips embedded in the user's brain will help command artificial-muscle-activated, touch-sensitive, fully articulating hands.'"
Phantom Limbs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do the phantom [brynmawr.edu] sensations, usually experienced by amputees, disappear after these C-legs have been fitted?
Feedback more important than control (Score:5, Informative)
Incompatible! (Score:2)
Re:This raises the question (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps you can first provide a concrete, evidence-based definition of what a soul is, then we can have an intelligent discussion about whatever it is.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
Re:This raises the question (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This raises the question (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay, I scanned through the Phaedo text, [beck.org] searching for instances of the word "soul". I was unable to find a definition of the word soul, only a very long discussion about death and the body and soul. The very first instance of the word is in this section:
"Then is it not the release of the soul from the body?
And this is death,
the body being released apart from the soul by itself,
and the soul apart is released from the body by itself?
Then is death anything else but this?"
It appears that
Re:This raises the question (Score:4, Interesting)
But if you still insist, it is obvious that the soul, if present to begin with, can be only in the head, and only in the brain then. We do not have prosthetic brains yet, so there is nothing to discuss yet. When we get some decent processing capacity, then ask me again :-)
Re:This raises the question (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and as the best scientific evidence shows no room for a physical soul of any weight, the soul cannot be said to exist anywhere physically. It is a spiritual object, and as a spiritual object it e
Re:This raises the question (Score:3, Insightful)
You're ignoring the much simpler explanation that it simply doesn't exist... which more than adequately explains the "no room for a physical soul of any weight [mass]".
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
All we can ever look at are consciousness, s
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This raises the question (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This raises the question (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
Re:This raises the question (Score:4, Insightful)
Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Why does the same American government that sends soldiers to be permanently mutilated in Iraq refuse to allow the full range of stem cell research that could, one day, re-grow the limbs torn apart by pointless, wasteful war? Why should we condemn the mutilated soldiers to a life of crappy prosthetics?
2. More fundamentally, why does the American government send soldiers off to sacrifice their lives in Iraq when most Americans, including American politicians, refuse to make any sacrifice for the sake of that war? No one is sacrificing. Only the soldiers are sacrificing -- their lives.
Question #2 is particularly damning. When the average American refuses to support a surcharge on gasoline (to bring its cost to $4.00 per gallon) to pay for the bloody war in Iraq, why the hell should Washington insist that soldiers sacrifice their lives? In World War II, the entire nation sacrificed for the just cause of the war effort. Clearly, we have no just cause in Iraq. Nearly no one supports the Iraq War.
We should count most Republicans in the "no one" category. Most Republicans also refuse to support a surcharge to pay for the war. Their mouth says, "I support the war." However, their wallet says, "I oppose the war." Their wallet tells the truth.
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Stem cell treatment would result in a one-off billable event which, while good for the soldier concerned, is not good for anyone else.
By contrast, prosthetics require continual maintenance and parts rep
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2)
No kind of stem cell research is blocked. Just a certain type doesn't recieve federal (as opposed to state) funding. This is due to some controversy over a philosophical question.
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2)
2. What sacrifices? The military has a lot of money. The soldiers are not dying because they are underfunded. It is hard to occupy an area with murderous insurgents willing to die.
I may not fully support the war, but it is not pointless. We liberated people from a dictator who had murdered many of th
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2)
No, a soldier's job is to protect the interests of your government. By force if needed.
If you don't like what they are doing, then complain to the government. Don't blame the soldiers themselves..they're brave people who signed up to protect our way of life, including your freedom to write stupid shit.
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2)
The military does not use 50% of the budget. Did you just make that up, or is their some kind of mathematics where 500/2800 = 1/2 ?
And in the US, the military is one of the few legitimate functions of the federal government. With our "free stuff if you vote for me" politicians, I can understand how that would be unapparent.
There probably is some corruption in defense contracting, but it is nowhere near as wasteful as Social Security, M
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2)
You're a douche bag.
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2)
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2)
So why do you waste two more paragraphs on lashing out at him, huh ?
Re:Thy Name is Hypocrisy (Score:2)
Um. Dude, you just pulled the gas surcharge thing out of your ass. And you chose gas specifically because of the hysteria around gas prices. I don't guess that qualifies as a "straw man" but it does qualify, to me, a
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2)
Now think about that compared to your first statement regarding stem cell lines. Many people, probably a majority of Americans in fact, believe that the act of harvesting embry
Re:When we go off to war... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:When we go off to war... (Score:2)
I somehow find it hard to believe the words of someoneone speaking about the composition of the military when they don't understand the difference between a Non-Commissioned Officer, a po' person who starts as a private and works his way up through the ranks to Sergeant, and a commissioned officer, usually a "wealthy" (prnounce that "middle class") college graduate.
Very, very few pe
Re:Better Question: Washington's Hypcrisy? (Score:2)
It's not just small rural communities that don't have access to decent public
Re:This raises the question (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a very funny, insightful, and interesting (and informative too) short SciFi story by Stanislaw Lem on this subject. In it the protagonist (?) — a racing car driver, or something like this — is being sued by the protheses-makers to return the parts, because he defaulted on the payments...
Lem wrote it in Polish, and I read it in Russian, but there is, no doubt a translation available for your preferred language. Look for it. Lem is one of the greatest SciFi authors... Whatever you find (almost) will be worth reading.
Now, in the story even half of the guy's brain is artificial (and has a slight defect, causing him to count everything he sees), which really does make the question asked by the parent meaningful. But we are not there yet, and can not replace the brains, so the answer is rather obvious...
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
Souls are provided by God's angels to all sentient creatures. If we manage to create an AI, we can be assured that God has given it as much a soul as an animal granted sentience, an alien species, a test-tube baby, or a child of pagans.
Being human is irrelevant to the question. Being sentient and temporal are far more important, spiritually speaking.
Re:This raises the question (Score:4, Insightful)
On one hand, you're bringing religion into a discussion about technology. My initial urge is to stare at you blankly until you go away, or yell "keep your religion off of my science", or tell you that if you object you don't have to take part but you shouldn't tell other people how to live, blah blah etc etc. Most likely, I just wouldn't respond at all.
On the other hand, you correctly used "raises the question" instead of incorrectly using "begs the question", for which I want to applaud.
What to do, what to do....
Anyway, your statements were:
When does someone stop being human, once we can replace their body with a machine?
There is an old thought experiment [web.uvic.ca] that goes something like this:
"If you could replace a single neuron with a device that responds exactly the same way, would you be less than human? All input to that device is the same, all output is the same, for all the neurons around it, absolutely nothing has changed. Now, imagine that you start replacing every neuron, one by one. After each replacement, for the natural neurons around it, still nothing has changed. When you are finished, you have a functioning brain that continues to process all input exactly the same as before, only now it is mechanical instead of biological. Now is it less than human? If not, at which point did it change into something else?"
It's an interesting problem, and if you are as intelligent as you seem, you can ponder it out without me contaminating your process with my opinions.
Is it just the brain?
Yup. I hope that wasn't a surprise.
What of AI then?
It depends on what you mean when you think of the term "AI". Like so many other terms, it has partially lost its original meaning due to overuse. By the very definition, though, it is artificial. A computer program designed to fool humans is not true intelligence. A computer program that emulates probable human responses is not true intelligence. Ah, but what if, similar to the above thought experiment, we could somehow copy a person's neurological responses... and put that data into a program that would simulate a complete working brain, down to the last neuron. Would =that= be true intelligence? Hmm...
What of the soul?
What of it? If you believe in such things, good for you. However, there has never been any scientific evidence* that such a thing exists or exerts any force over my choices or actions. So, I'm comfortable living my day to day life without such worries. YMMV.
*For those that would respond "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" (which is a true statement), I would say "No, but it sure is an =indication= of absence." But as Carl Sagan said, "You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe"
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
Is evidence proof? Mwaha, chew on that one. Well, no, no chewing needed, but simply answering "no, it isn't" is not a satisfying answer, is it? It would be better to adopt proper scientifi
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
Lest I be chastised, I will refrain from using the term "irony."
Re:This raises the question (Score:2)
What a fucking shallow question.
I suggest that you seek out your own answer though. Please enlist in the armed forces, and ask to be deployed to Iraq, specifically to be put on patrol in the Sunni Triange. Then, with any luck you will be targeted and forced to experience the traumatic loss of an arm or a leg.
While you are bleeding and screaming, you can then cont
Re:I for one.. (Score:4, Informative)
Cyberlimbs, wired reflexes, datajacks and cyberdecks.
Where it will lead to: (Score:2)
Wooed women at every base,
But once ladies glanced at
His special enhancement
They vanished with nary a trace.
-Barracks Graffiti
Sparta Command
Yes why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a serious question for idiot leftist /.'ers whose hatred of America and it's current government matches that of idiot right wingers hatred of Islam and yourself:
What are you leftist /.'ers actually doing, apart from complaining and bitching, to make things better?
Seriously, left-leaning ideological /.'ers have turned this place into an anti-american soapbox that mirrors the intense hatred of sites like LGF and FreeRepublic,
Re:Yes why not? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yes why not? (Score:2)
I'm not a leftist or a righty (maybe you could call me a moral leftist and a righty economist... oh I guess that is a Libertarian), but I donate regularly to The Singularity Institute [singinst.org] because if friendly StrongAI can't solve all the worlds problems, I don't know what will.
Here is a good quote on the matter.
Re:Simplier solution (Score:2, Funny)
How dare you imply that our Iraqi Liberation was a pointless effort?
Remember, that in Iraq we fought for Freedom (trying to liberate our oil trapped under terrorists' sand).
Report to the nearest Democracy Camp for reeducation.
landmines (Score:2)
a. all mine fields are marked
b. all mine fields are guarded (we shoot people who try to cross)
c. we are switching to mines that can defuse themselves
This is pretty much all about the Korean DMZ. People aren't dying over there because they damn well know that there are mines and people with guns. You might even get shot before you step on a mine. In some ways, this is a rather hu
Re:Well, thank god. (Score:2)
Pun intended.
Killing thousands of civilians, spending billions (or is it trillions now?) of dollars, etc, etc, can't possibly be worth better prosthetics. The amount of money spent on this research is a fraction of a percent of the cash cost of the war. Think of how that money could have been used... it's sickening.
Re:Anyone want to place bets... (Score:2)
No is going to get a prosthetic body from a local "chop shop" if they are going to get really bad infections at the spots its tied to their flesh and bone.