The development of today’s medicine has enabled human beings to overcome one disease after another, but the human body is constantly aging and countless incurable diseases are like shadows lingering in human society. After the development and exploration of medicine gradually enter the bottleneck, the progress is slow. In reality, will our pursuit of the limit of human lifespan slow down or even fail?
At this time, people will think of some “bypasses”. In ancient my country, there was a story about Xu Fu who was ordered by Qin Shihuang to lead 3,000 boys and girls to the east to Yingzhou to find the elixir for the emperor. But today, we no longer entrust the idea of “health and longevity” to strange powers and gods like thousands of years ago. Today we have methods other than medicine. Since the flesh and blood are eventually weak, can we abandon the disease? What about bodily organs, merging human flesh with silicon chips and metal machines?
Obviously, this is the idea in countless sci-fi works today. However, in today’s electronic technology and artificial intelligence are developing explosively, it seems that it is not so far away to take advantage of the field of electronic information to make up for the shortcomings of the medical field. And among us, the first person to try, has bravely taken the first step. The story we want to introduce to you today is Peter Scott Morgan, the first cyborg (Cyborg, biochemical cyborg) in human history.
On June 15, 2022, Peter Scott Morgan stopped breathing and died at the age of 65. As the first person to eat crabs, although he did not escape the harvest of death with machinery in the end, through his unremitting efforts and Persistence, and also made his own contribution to the future medical development of mankind, Peter bravely tried, allowing many terminally ill patients who endured physical pain to see a candle in the dark night.
Peter Scott Morgan was an Anglo-American scientist born in Wandsworth, London, who received his Ph.D. in Computing Science from Imperial College London. It is worth mentioning that he is the first doctorate recipient awarded by the robotics department of the college. Prior to 2017, Peter had a successful career as a robotics scientist driving new technologies in management consulting while holding professorships at London Business School, Rotterdam School of Management and Boston’s Hult International Business School. During this time, he wrote several books, including The Robot Revolution and The Reality of Our Global Future.
It seems that fate is particularly “pity” the genius. In 2017, fate made a cruel “joke” with him. The diagnosis showed that he was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as “gradually frozen person” symptoms). That’s right, one of the famous physicists, Stephen Hawking, suffered from the same disease. According to the doctor’s prediction, he has only two years left to live. During this period, various parts of Peter’s body will gradually become stiff and unable to move, including breathing and swallowing muscles, which may eventually lead to total body rigor.
This news is a bolt from the blue for anyone, and as a robot scientist, there may be another path for him to choose that no one has gone before, to transform his own body and use a mechanical body to reverse ALS fate.
In “The Robot Revolution” written by Peter in 1984, there is such a passage: “If (human beings) choose to go the road of ‘enhanced human beings’, then it is possible for humans and robots to follow the same evolutionary path…so that One day, human beings will be able to replace their overly fragile bodies with more permanent mechanisms, and use supercomputers as intelligence amplifiers.” We don’t know whether Peter had a foreboding in 1984 that this road of human mechanical enhancement The first step on the road will be taken by yourself.
Peter decided to choose to become a cyborg, which means that all his interactions with the world will be realized by machines, all his senses will be electronic, and even parts of his brain will use mechanical nerves. Even though the plan was dangerous, and the surgery itself might make things worse, Peter insisted on it. “I will continue to evolve. As a human being, I am already dead. In the future, I will continue to live as a ‘cyborg’ cyborg.” These are Peter’s bold words when he decided to become a cyborg.
Peter has made a lot of preparations for this plan. Considering that he will not be able to control his own body in the future, he needs to build a “self” who can talk, laugh, and express emotions, so that “he” can communicate with the outside world instead of himself.
The first step in communication is naturally to preserve your own voice. For this reason, Peter found Dr. Matthew Aylett, an expert in voice technology research and development. In order to make his electronic voice closer to reality, the team spent more than a year. Peter was recording I stayed in the shed for several weeks, leaving more than 15 hours of audio, more than 1,000 phrases, and different expressions such as calm, angry, and excited, and then handed over to AI for learning and imitation;
The second step of communication is to record your own face and make a vivid 3D virtual avatar, and this part of technical support is provided by Pinewood Studios. Pinewood Studios used motion capture technology to allow Peter to display his emotions: laughing, smiling, blinking, and performing his signature move of raising his right eyebrow. Finally, through the efforts of engineers, the “real-time synchronization” required by Peter was achieved. The new virtual Peter can already use voice, lips and facial expressions to express the same emotions as Peter in reality;
The third step is how to let Peter freely output ideas. Peter found Lama Nachman who helped Dr. Stephen Hawking to take charge. He also used eye tracking technology to realize the selection and input of letters. However, due to Dr. Hawking’s needs and Peter’s It is not the same (Hawking is more demanding of accuracy, while Peter hopes that the connection with artificial intelligence can bring him any surprise experience), so in Peter’s input system, a device that can continuously learn his speaking habits is implanted. Artificial intelligence maximizes the smoothness of Peter’s communication.
With the joint efforts of all parties, Peter gained the ability to express his emotions with the help of virtual images, and was able to speak and laugh. Like Dr. Hawking, Peter’s wheelchair has a screen in front of him through which he can manipulate the entire system to express his thoughts and emotions. Peter’s partner later joked, “Why does it feel like there are three people in the family.”
And the last step is to complete an unprecedented operation plan, which is of great significance not only to Peter, but also to the entire human race. However, in view of medical ethics issues, no medical team has ever been willing to accept such a radical operation. The operation was finally completed on July 10, 2018. The whole process took 3 hours and 40 minutes. During this period, he underwent a number of reconstructive operations, including gastric and bladder stoma and total laryngectomy, which removed the endangered Certain physiological functions of his life, and machines were introduced to replace the organs of his body, such as a catheter inserted directly into his stomach to deliver nutrients; a catheter connected to his bladder to drain urine; a catheter connected to his colon to Responsible for disposing of his excrement.
The medical paper on this operation was later selected as the Oxford annual medical case report in 2019, which will become a milestone attempt for the entire human race. In this regard, Peter himself expressed excitedly: “I plan to be a human guinea pig! This is like a scientific experiment. No matter the result of the operation is good or bad, we can learn from it and do better next time. “So far, “Peter 1.0” is officially launched.
The time came to 2019. In order to prevent choking accidents, Peter underwent a total laryngectomy in advance. The esophagus and trachea were separated by a doctor, and a new tube was inserted to maintain breathing. A month after the operation, Peter announced on social networks: “Peter 2.0 is live!” This is that he has become a real cyborg.
Faced with such a major scientific event, reporters rushed to interview and reported on Peter comprehensively. They asked Peter about the meaning of cyborgization, and Peter slowly said a word during the event: “I want to do it for you.” Each person redefining what it means to be trapped in their own body is not only related to ALS, but also to human disabilities, whether accidents, diseases, genetics or Alzheimer’s, have the right to pursue their own happiness.”
Readers already know the ending of Peter. Although he is not as “lucky” as Dr. Hawking, he has lived until 2022 through his own efforts, breaking the doctor’s prediction that he only has two years left. During this year, his progressive frostbite became more and more serious, and his physical function gradually declined. Peter Scott Morgan, the world’s first true cyborg, died in June at the age of 65, as his body was overwhelmed and even the cyborgs in his body couldn’t save his fading consciousness.
Peter’s story is like a poem about courage, making us stop and think about the meaning of technological progress in this day and age. Although after becoming a cyborg, Peter’s life has only been extended from two years to more than four years, but we can’t think that becoming a cyborg is a “not worthwhile” attempt. His brave attempt has made more people like Peter ALS sufferers see hope. This also allows us to see the significance of scientific and technological progress in addition to improving life and increasing production efficiency-giving hope. Peter hopes to use himself as an experimental subject to fundamentally change the way people think about disability, to “light up an undying beacon of hope and guide them out of the darkness” for all extremely disabled and so-called terminally ill patients around the world.