We Are the Robots
I’ve been thinking a lot about robots lately.
Why, you might ask?
Follow along.
I’ve been listening to a lot of music by Kraftwerk lately. If you are not familiar with them, they are universally considered to be the pioneers of electronic music. Formed in 1970 the band was arguably the first to embrace electronic instrumentation including synthesizers, drum machines, vocoders (an instrument that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption, and voice transformation), and self-made instruments.
In line with their electronic music trend-setting, the band also took on the persona of robots during live performances. For some songs, they even used robots in their place, such as can be seen in this video from a live concert: http://bit.ly/1zdlU4i
All this exposure to electronic music/robots got me thinking about healthcare. The pharmaceutical industry/medical device industry has been steadily moving toward a future of imbedded and wearable devices – some more permanent than others.
For example, artificial knees and hips have been around for a long time. The first implantable pacemaker occurred in 1958. Stents for various purposes have been used for a long time. More recently insulin pumps have become smaller and easier to use – leading inevitably to and implantable artificial pancreas.
Less permanent, but no less mechanical, are the wearable drug delivery systems currently gaining popularity. Designed to be simple to use, accurate, and ultimately less expensive (than frequent visits to a doctor or clinic) these devices can be used effectively to increase patient compliance, resulting in better health outcomes.
So what can we make of all this? Is humankind moving towards a mash-up of flesh and technology? If you have an artificial hip, a pacemaker, and an insulin pump are you more machine than human? As technology moves forward will the numbers of people with electronic/mechanical health aids surpass those who don’t have them? Are we there yet?
Do we need to redefine our definition of robot?
Should we ask ourselves, “Are we the robots?”