Natural Born Cyborg?

Between here and the transhuman, serious obstacles lie. Creating artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artifacts suitable for downloading human consciousness, both appear quite distant in the future. Several intermediate steps must be taken before humans become posthumans.

Cyborgs, or cybernetic organisms, are part animal, part machine. A human cyborg such as The Bionic Woman or the Six Million Dollar Man, may be created within the next ten years. Such a cyborg would be an adult human who is provided with active prosthetic devices such as artificial legs, artificial arms, a machine heart, prosthetic visual and auditory devices, etc. in order to restore function of original, natural quality or better.

A more ambitious and controversial form of cyborg would be the "natural born cyborg," the cyborg infant who grows into full "cyborghood" without any knowledge of being pre-borg human. The technology for such a "natural born borg" would be understandably much more complex to conceptualize and successfully create, and the experience of such a "born borg" would be virtually incomprehensible to its creators.

While most social analysts and thinkers might recoil from the very idea of such a 'borg, it is quite possible that some governments and wealthy crime/drug/terror conglomerates that finance legitimate research, have looked into this possibility. Certainly someone paid by the US Pentagon has given the idea at least a little thought.

How would one go about creating such a creature?

I will blur over many of the details involved, out of regard for the relative sensitivity of this topic. The following discussion does not imply any moral judgment in favour or against such research. It is a conceptual exploration, a thought experiment, and no more. I am assuming that artificial uteri are being used, and that all embryos are from discarded IVF embryos.

First of all, an intracranial neural interface would be implanted via intra-uterine surgery. The fetus will have been genetically prepared to minimise resistance to the implant, and biological and bio-compatible materials would be used as much as possible in the construction of the trans-cranial transducer and intra-cranial implanted materials.

In vitro cultured micro-neural nets that are programmed to grow to a specific thalamic and other sub-cortical nuclei, and designed to appear on neural imaging for the monitoring of accurate targeting.

The earlier the implant is placed, the more of neural development that could be influenced via Hebbian stimuli, targeted release of neural growth factors, and neo-pathways seeded by the implant itself.

Growth of the borg brain would be monitored via EEG, MEG, fMRI, PET, and other imaging facilitated by the implant.

The borg would not be seen as ethically human, and significant aberrations or failures to develop would result in abortion, unless significant knowledge could be derived from allowing the "failed borg" to develop.

Once a putatively successful fetus has reached maturity, it will be removed from the artificial uterus and observed as it develops in a less confined environment. Its wireless interface will be calibrated and if necessary replaced with improved versions. The neural component of the implant will grow along with the infant, and be monitored closely by its distinctive "imaging signature."

Once the infant is more accessible to behavioural psychologists, conventional behavioural therapies (including extensive neurofeedback) would be combined with the ability to influence growth and development of brain structures themselves. Conventional and unconventional learning methods would be naturally incorporated into behavioural and neuro-shaping techniques.

Virtual reality techniques would create an entire artificial environment--wherever useful, or whenever the necessary lessons cannot be taught within a natural or otherwise augmented environment.

The natural born borg would grow with a concept of itself and its own purpose and desires, which would be distinctly different from the personality development of a pre-borg human.

From the moment the fetal implant was placed and began functioning, the life trajectory of the borg begins to diverge from that of a natural human fetus without implants.

I have omitted for the present any mention of non-neural implants and prosthesis. Suffice it to say that the mental development of the infant borg will be shaped so as to make it highly desirable for it to augment itself effectively and selectively for specific missions.