Rafe Kaplan Journal #5

After the question about whether we, as a species, are ready for robots that look like us to enter society was brought up I started thinking about the implications outside of job loss, ethics and how we would react. I came up with the idea that if robots are so far ahead of us, they cannot get injured, sick, and have many other advantages over us, how long until we start trying to be more robot than human. I do not know how everyone else feels, but I wish I did not have to get a cold two to three times a year and being part robot would end that. Being a cyborg would make us all olympic-level athletes, we could probably have night vision inserted into our eyes, we would never need any food, or drinks to stay alive and we could all potentially live forever. It sounds almost too good to be true until we consider that we would be throwing away our humanity and thus would be no better than a smartphone. Furthermore, at what point of human-robot combination causes the human to lose its humanity? A leg, a finger, an organ…? What part of us makes us human? And if the only human that is left is a brain, do we still count as living?