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Steve Mann (ECE) is attaching electronic devices to his body in his youth. The purpose? To experience a reality that has been technologically mediated. Steve Mann is a cyborg. That is, he’s a human with both biological and artificial parts. Others know him as a professor of engineering at the University of Toronto, and a devoted techno-futurist. Mann’s signature invention is the WearComp, a series of wearable computer devices. One example is the EyeTap, a set of computerized glasses that enhance or diminish objects entering the wearer’s field of view. Using computer technology, he can control what he wishes to see and not see.

Precisely ten years ago, Mann released a book detailing his life as a cyborg. CyborgL Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer is Mann’s manifesto. He’s an inventor with purpose — one deeply rooted in a personal ideology that has shaped his life. Although Mann’s understanding of technology ten years ago was considered radical, his writings forecasted what we have now lived over the past decade of our digital revolution. Vicarious soliloquy

Over the years, Mann has delivered talks at universities and conferences about wearable computers and technologies. He does so in the comfort of his own home. Wearing the WearCam, a camera attached to his head that projects onto a screen in the conference auditorium, Mann presents his talks using pictures he draws at his desk. He also occasionally looks at himself in the mirror to assure the audience that it is in fact he who is speaking.

The point is to let the audience connect with him on a different level. Instead of simply watching him speak, the audience can “become” him by seeing exactly what he sees. Mann describes this as a deeper identification with another person.

The implications are compelling. How will our perspective on human rights change when we can experience, at least visually, exactly how repressed and mistreated individuals live in their societies? How will aid to a country following a natural disaster change when we can experience the disaster for ourselves?

Humanistic Intelligence (HI)

Artificial intelligence aims to create intelligent machines that can fulfill roles previously played by humans. Mann argues against this goal. Instead, he advocates the advancement of humanistic intelligence.

HI is about using technology to enhance human capacity. Under the HI model, users of a given device can take control any time they wish. The technology is responsive to the users: we shape the computer’s behaviour, rather than having computers shape our activities according to pre-programmed assumptions.

Do we want to wake up in a world where only a computer knows how to drive the bus? Mann hopes for a world where a human bus driver is equipped with a brain-implanted microchip that enhances his attention to make him a safer and more efficient driver.

Read the full article at The Varsity .

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