Post-Human
Warriors
The
Future of War: Part 2 of 3
Bioengineering
and advanced robotics are blurring the line between science and
science fiction, as the Pentagon pursues the creation of "super
soldiers."
Pushing the
Limits
In April of
2002, two American F-16 pilots nearing the end of a 10-hour mission
over Afghanistan mistakenly dropped a laser-guided bomb on a group
of Canadian soldiers engaged in a training exercise. The accidental
attack consequently killed four of the Canadians and injured another
eight. This incident involved more than the usual instance of
friendly fire based on mistaken identity - the American pilots
were taking "go-pills," an amphetamine issued by the
U.S. military to be used as a "fatigue management tool."
And that's merely
the tip of the pharmacological iceberg. The Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) has been investigating the neurological
causes of fatigue for some time, hoping to find ways of making
soldiers immune. Currently, their Preventing Sleep Deprivation
program is in its final year.
"What we'd
like to do is devise ways that soldiers can continue to function
when sleep deprived without cognitive impairment," says DARPA
spokesperson, Jan Walker.
The program
is investigating a class of drugs known as ampakines, which have
been shown to restore cognitive function in sleep-deprived primates.
They're also conducting long-term research of brain networks and
molecular targets in flies and rodents to determine the proteins
and genes that regulate states of sleep and wakefulness. According
to DARPA, "the hope is that this may lead to an understanding
of potential molecular targets in mammals and humans that could
be targeted by next-generation pharmaceuticals."
But why stop
with eliminating the need to sleep? Other research is being conducted
on a dense knot of neurons called the amygdala - the epicenter
for feelings of fear and guilt in the brain. The goal: pills that
numb feelings of remorse or shame and inhibit primal fear. Meanwhile,
other efforts are being undertaken with the hope of allowing soldiers
to go longer periods without eating or drinking.
Enhancing
Physical Performance
DARPA claims
such investigations are an attempt to "sustain and augment
human performance," to prevent humans from becoming the "weakest
link" in the armed forces.
"In some
senses DARPA is preparing for a post-human battlefield, one in
which soldiers don't really succumb to the ordinary weaknesses
of humans today," says Noah Shachtman, defense policy analyst
and editor of Defensetech.org.
Other efforts
are underway to push the human body beyond its physical limitations.
The Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation program, another
DARPA initiative, is currently in its last stage and is aimed
at creating a "fast-moving, heavily armored, high-power lower
and upper body system."
Exoskeletons
will operate by means of a "haptic interface" where
sensors detect natural muscle movements, allowing the robotic
suit to mirror them and add to their strength. The University
of California in Berkely has already constructed what might eventually
become the legs of tomorrow's soldier. Their Human Engineering
Laboratory's "Lower Extremity Enhancer" allows the wearer
to effortlessly carry weights of 120 pounds. The full version
of an armored exoskeleton is expected to be transitioned to the
U.S. army for field testing in 2008. When complete, the bionic
battle armor could be outfitted with anything from computers and
communication equipment, to heavy weaponry.
Mind over Machine
It doesn't end
there. Breakthrough technology will allow severely wounded soldiers
and amputees to remain fully operational and fit for combat. In
2000, Scientists at the Center for Neuroengineering at Duke University
successfully created working Brain Interface Technology - a direct
linkup between mind and machine. Funded by DARPA, Neurobiologist
Miguel Nicolelis outfitted the brain of a macaque monkey with
hundreds of electrodes that monitored its neurological activity
as the animal manipulated a joystick to move a cursor across a
computer screen. Nicolelis cracked the monkey's neural code, matching
brain signals to specific hand movements, and then took away the
joystick. The electrodes now enabled the animal to move the cursor
with intention of thought alone. Simultaneously, in another room,
a robotic arm mirrored the monkey's intended actions. Soon, the
monkey was able to gain full control over the robotic arm with
its mind.
Remember Luke's
new hand in The Empire Strikes Back? Two programs recently
initiated at DARPA are tapping into the success at Duke University
to create something similar. Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2007
and 2009 both look at creating advanced, biologically similar
prosthetics. According to DARPA, "an upper extremity amputee
would be able to feel and manipulate objects as that person would
with a native hand."
And while Brain
Machine Interface technology will be a godsend to many civilians
with disabilities - it has already allowed a quadriplegic to play
pong and check his email - it may have many interesting military
applications. If cybernetic warriors are hard to fathom, how about
soldiers controlling weaponry with their thoughts? Noah Shachtman
thinks it's possible.
"While
I see this technology primarily as a way to keep soldiers functioning,"
he says, "there are obviously some other applications. If
someone's controlling a videogame with their mind, it's certainly
not a question they could be controlling a drone or a weapon,
although it's a long way off, technologically."
Ethical Dilemmas
The comic super
hero Captain America, with his skin-tight patriotic jumpsuit,
became an awe-inspiring commie-crushing powerhouse with the ingestion
of a secretive "super-soldier serum." It is clear we
are now seeing the precursors to the establishment of a new era,
where the combination of pharmaceuticals, neuroengineering and
advanced robotics, has the potential to create an entire army
of "super soldiers". Unleashing these upgraded combatants
seems hardly wise in a time of unaccountability within the U.S.
military.
With DARPA's
"protect the troops" rhetoric running in the background
of their human enhancement programs, it's easy to avoid the ethical
dilemmas of surpassing human "weaknesses" like sleep,
emotion, and inborn physical capabilities.
"It will
be interesting, as we are trying to make our soldiers less human,
to see what happens," comments Shachtman. "It's not
easy being a soldier. If you can take away some of their hardships,
it could be a good thing, but the implications might be negative
down the line."
Whether applied
domestically or militarily, as these types of human-enhancement
technologies spread ubiquitously throughout the affluent West,
the definition of what it means to be human will begin to blur.
The result - as cyber-prophets have often dreaded - could be a
populace sharply divided between the augmented and the unmodified
Written
By Jason Glover
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