The U.S. Army reported they want to build cyborg soldiers, but specialists who understand the implications of this plan have met the intent with suspicion. The experts say that humanity is not yet prepared for this imposition of technologically-created ‘humans.’
No Morality, No Ethics
A recent report released by U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command allegedly detected four regions of the human body that can attainably be technologically altered. These areas include improved eyesight, hearing, muscle regeneration and strength, and a computer-brain interface which would enable humans to communicate with machines, and inversely. The report noted that the military could transform an average soldier into an improved modified machine by 2050.
After reading the report, numerous experts have warned that humanity is not prepared for modified humans, and doubt the ethical and legal feasibility of it. Peter Emanuel, an Army researcher and lead author of a year-long Department of Defense (DoD) research, said that in the next 30 years, we are going to be forced to deal with these issues, and people are not prepared for it.
“When you talk about somebody who lost their sight because of a bomb blast or somebody who lost their limb to an IED, it makes sense people would have fewer ethical qualms about giving them something that would replace that functionality.”
“But, when you get to essentially giving them super speed, like the US$6 million men, that’s what we call enhancement. A lot of people start to have questions when we talk about enhancement,” he said.
Mr. Emanuel also added that the preamble of modified soldiers could be incredibly terrible for morale and a point of no return for a man that’s been modified. The researcher said that the more significant problem is the ethical quandary that comes with modifying the natural form of humans.
It Will Allegedly be ‘Helpful’
The research was revealed along with news that the U.S. Army intends to spend $62 million on an enhanced implant that would make it possible for a human brain to communicate with no intermediary with computers.
The Pentagon’s research department, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to make the implant, which could be as small as two nickels, enable humans to interface with machinery directly.
The research could, they claim, benefit people with aural and visual conditions. DARPA’s project manager, Phillip Alveda, said the aim of the implant is to ‘open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics.’
