Many believe that the era of cyberpunk has already arrived. We live in huge cities entangled in an invisible virtual network, exchange thoughts via the Internet, watch in the news how sick people restore their capabilities thanks to cyber prostheses, and large corporations launch their own spaceships. But are the prophecies of Gibson, Sterling and Ridley Scott really that close to realizing? Let's see which of the promises and threats of cyberpunk have become reality.
Neurointerface: no
Many works of cyberpunk talk about technology that allows the human brain to come into direct contact with technical devices, primarily computers. The ability to record, download and transmit one's own thoughts through the virtual space is mentioned in one form or another by all cyberpunk writers. In the books of Bruce Sterling, this technology does not play a key role; in William Gibson, it is an important element of the narrative, opening up new possibilities for the characters to connect. And, say, Pat Cadigan has a neurointerface and the ability to exchange thoughts and influence the mind of another person through computer systems often serves as the foundation of the entire plot.
By today's standards, Johnny the mnemonic has a rather modest memory: some 160 gigabytes.
The topic of neural interfaces invariably raises a number of difficult questions. If one person can upload their consciousness into a computer or into the brain of another person, does this mean that he is immortal? Where is the line between one person and another? Are our memories something external or do they define who we are?
These questions were posed most acutely by Mamoru Oshii in the Ghost in the Shell anime. The main villain of the first full-length film, the artificial intelligence Puppeteer, used the power of the neural interface to control and change people. And in the finale, he tried to connect his consciousness with the mind of the main character, Major Kusanagi, hoping through this to gain mortality. So the neural interface unexpectedly pushed readers and viewers of the late 20th century with the questions of the existence of the soul and the boundaries of individuality.
The main character of "Ghost in the Shell" - the pinnacle of cyborgization. Her whole body is artificial, only a human mind.
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But real analogs of this technology, known as neurocomputer interfaces, are still far from such problems. Scientists started talking about the very possibility of such interaction with the brain in the first half of the 20th century. Significant advances in this area were achieved in the 1970s in the United States through animal experiments. And the real breakthrough came in the late 1990s, many years after the emergence of cyberpunk. A team of scientists from the University of California at Berkeley was able to successfully decipher the nerve signals of the cat's eyes and displayed an image on the screens that the animal's brain perceived.
Already in the 2000s, scientists managed to create devices that could be controlled using brain signals, for example, a metal hand that repeated the movements of a monkey connected to it. The work of the British engineer Kevin Warwick, known as Captain Cyborg, dates back to this time. He was able to create an artificial hand, which he controlled from a distance with the help of the mind, and also became the first person to successfully participate in fully electronic communication between the nervous systems of two different people. Warwick planted a chip in his wife's hand that allowed the spouses to exchange tactile signals.
Kevin Warwick aka Captain Cyborg. In fact, he has both hands alive, this is how he poses.
However, in everyday life, despite successful experiments, neural interfaces are still a curiosity. Systematic research is carried out only in the field of medicine, but even there the neurointerface usually turns out to be unreasonably expensive and not particularly practical. For example, the leg prostheses used by the American army do not read brain signals, but muscle contractions. And the famous experiments of William Dobel, who was able to partially restore vision to a group of people with the help of eye implants with a neurointerface, after the death of the scientist turned into a failure. So now this technology is being developed mainly as a way to help paralyzed people. Another striking example of its use is the encephalophone, a device that converts brain waves into sound, which in theory should allow paralyzed or dumb people to make music.
Some non-medical research in the field of neurointerface is still underway. For example, since the early 2000s, the US military has been investing heavily in creating a silent communication that will allow people to exchange messages directly from brain to brain. And already in the 2010s, they began to discuss the technology of neurogaming: with its help, the player will be able to control his actions in the virtual world through the brain signals read by the program, the direction of the gaze and the heartbeat. But all these studies are still at the theoretical stage. So while we are potentially close to downloading our thoughts to a computer, in practice it will take years of development and financial investment.
Cyborgs: kind of
The second symbol of cyberpunk is cyborgs, people who supplemented their bodies with artificial devices or replaced its individual parts with mechanisms. Gibson's famous Neuromancer begins by describing a character whose arm has been replaced by a Soviet-made army prosthesis. The book's most famous heroine, Molly, boasts razors hidden under her nails and sunglasses embedded in her eyebrows. And in Sterling's novel "The Schizmatrix" the mechanists - one of the factions into which people were divided in the future - systematically replace parts of their bodies with mechanical ones. In science fiction, this technology was used both for medical purposes and, for example, in the military - take, for example, police officer Alex Murphy, who became Robocop, or Adam Jensen from the Deus Ex series of games, forced to walk with artificial arms. But in real life,As in the case of the neurointerface, cyber prostheses remain the prerogative of medicine.
The authors and editors of our magazine miss these hands from Ghost in the Shell!
Modern scientists share research in the field of neurocomputer interface and neuroprosthetics. The key difference is that in the first case, we are talking about the exchange of data between the brain and a computer, that is, a device with its own computational abilities. In the case of neuroprosthetics, we mean simply attaching the device to a person, without the need to decode electronic signals from the brain and translate them into computer data. The most common example of a neuroprosthesis is a cochlear implant to compensate for hearing loss in patients with sensorineural hearing loss. The first such implant was created back in 1957, but this technology flourished in the 2000s. Now such devices are used by 200 to 300 thousand people.
But in the field of implants, the reality is much closer to what cyberpunk predicted. Back in the 1980s, at the same time as the emergence of the genre, climber and biophysicist Hugh Herr replaced amputated legs with prostheses after an accident, which not only compensated for the lack of limbs, but also allowed Guerr to achieve more impressive climbing results than before. Although at that time it was a single experiment, now the number of people who received prostheses, in many ways not inferior to their own limbs, goes to hundreds.
The mastery of this technology is facilitated by the fact that the researchers are faced with a specific task - to restore the lost function to the body. Instead of making fundamental breakthroughs in communication and deciphering how the brain works, scientists are using what they have, connecting sensors to surviving limbs, using the remaining nerves and muscles to control an artificial organ. In 2011, Richard van Ass, a simple Johannesburg carpenter, replaced his lost fingers with wooden implants on his own. Now he is preparing to print new ones on a 3D printer. Although they did not restore sensitivity to the hand, van Ass was able to work again.
Stylish, built-in glasses that he never asked for, Adam Jensen inherited from Molly from "Neuromancer".
However, although neuroprosthetics is comparatively easier than creating a neurocomputer interface, some enthusiasts are inventing even more crude implants. For example, the site biohack.me is a community of fans to improve their own body on their own, who post their videos on YouTube. The most popular idea on this site is to sew a neodymium magnet into your fingertip. Due to the increased sensitivity of the nerves in this part of the body, a person will feel even the smallest movement of a magnet. This actually gives him an extra sense of knowing when he is passing through an electromagnetic field - over a subway line, for example.
Another solution is offered by cyberise.me, which sells kits for implanting RFID and NFC chips under the skin. In theory, they should give the user the ability to open cars or unlock the phone with a wave of the hand. All these procedures are technologically quite simple, but the artisanal and cheapness makes them closer to cyberpunk than complex laboratory research in the field of prosthetics.
Virtual reality: almost
The first virtual reality in cyberpunk can be considered the Matrix from the works of Gibson (yes, this name was not invented by the Wachowskis). Roughly speaking, this is the Internet, which for the user has the form of a three-dimensional virtual landscape, where accumulations of data take the form of objects or entire buildings. To use the Matrix, a person must literally connect his consciousness to a computer and immerse himself in it. In "Count Zero" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive" by the same Gibson, in addition to people, intelligent programs operate in the virtual space, which have taken the form of voodoo deities-loa. Similar technologies are featured in the Eclipse trilogy by John Shirley and in Avalanche by Neil Stevenson. But we still cannot fully immerse ourselves in the Web.
Immerse yourself with all your senses in the Matrix & hellip;
The problem with virtual reality is that it has two different meanings. So, we can call immersion into virtual reality the opportunity to see a computer simulated world around us. This virtual reality differs from an ordinary video game or even a movie only in that we cease to see anything outside of it, and are also able to influence the “world” around us by the movements of our own body. This virtual reality appeared even earlier than cyberpunk. The technologies that provide such an opportunity originally appeared as attractions. In the 1980s, they were adopted by the army, creating the first training simulators.
& hellip; not at all the same as watching 3D in the Oculus Rift.
Around the same time, the video game industry began to take notice of these technologies. For a long time, it was she who served as the locomotive of their development. Virtual simulations were used in architecture, in museum exhibitions, in art, but still remained exotic. Some changes have occurred since the invention of the famous virtual reality glasses Oculus Rift. They are expensive, but much more compact and more affordable for the individual consumer than most similar devices before them. Therefore, the Oculus Rift is a huge success, allowing professionals to seek new uses for virtual reality. One of them is again medical. The Oculus Rift is used to trick the brain of a person suffering from phantom pain after losing a limb.
However, in cyberpunk, virtual reality usually means not just a simulation of three-dimensional space, but a full-fledged parallel world. This is how she is shown in the films "Matrix", "Existence", "13th Floor", "Nirvana" and many others. Here our real successes are much more modest. This is primarily due to the lack of breakthroughs in the development of the neurointerface, which does not allow "going" into the Web as deeply as the cyberpunk heroes.
The virtual reality device from the movie "Nirvana" looks similar to the modern one, but it can do much more.
But there are some progress here as well. JanusVR Corporation was founded in Seattle in 2014 and introduced the 3D browser. With the help of its technologies and the same Oculus Rift or other similar device, the user can literally surf the Web, perceiving sites as premises. Potentially, the owners of the Internet resource can add special functionality that makes such an immersion more interesting.
Biomodification: yes and no
Most cyberpunks wrote about human technical modifications, but did not ignore biological ones either. Bruce Sterling showed particular interest in the topic, describing in the "Schizmatrix" the confrontation between cyborg mechanists and shapers who change bodies due to natural inclusions. Subsequently, works describing the biotechnology of the future have emerged as a separate genre - biopunk. Authors of this trend, such as Paolo Bachigalupi and Paul Di Filippo, often address issues related to the ethics of mixing different species, "improving" the embryo in the womb and changing human nature.
Similar controversies take place in real life. But, unfortunately or fortunately, they remain speculative. Yes, there are technologies to target germ cells, and in theory we are just one step away from modifying babies before birth. But in fact, these are too expensive and poorly studied procedures to be used often.
The biopunk film "Gattaca" poses a difficult question: will humanity be divided into the highest caste of genetically modified superhumans and Untermens with ordinary genes?
However, although the technological solutions available in cyberpunk are far from us, on the streets of big cities you can already meet those who look like a mutant from the works of Gibson or Shirley. The methods of body modification, once common among ancient peoples, were adopted by the modern primitives movement in the 1980s. Full body tattoos, scarring, tongue incision and even ways to reshape the skull are available to anyone who does not want to be human. But these differences remain purely cosmetic and are not inherited, so the dominance of mutants should not be feared.
Legal drugs: no
The early days of cyberpunks were in the 1960s, when LSD was legal. Many of them carried the love of "magic pills" throughout their lives. You can find descriptions of narcotic trance in Gibson, Shirley, Sterling and Rucker. Their heroes use substances often, a lot and without thinking about the consequences. And often this is not considered illegal in their society. Drugs like ecstasy and its fictional counterparts are sold there without restrictions.
Virtuality can itself be a drug, as is well illustrated in the movie Existence.
Our world is much less liberal towards substances. Is that marijuana is legalized in a small number of countries and states. Moreover, even in her case, the rejection of bans is associated with a revision of ideas about the dangers of cannabis, and not with the state's indifference to the health of citizens, as in cyberpunk.
The assumptions of authors such as Pat Cadigan about the emergence of new digital drugs did not come true either. Although non-chemical methods of manipulating consciousness and perception are known, they are too expensive and ineffective to become popular. And if digital drugs really start to work, they will probably be banned.
Triumph of Asian culture: rather not
One of the dominant themes in cyberpunk was the decline of Western civilization, which was to give way to Japan, China, or other Eastern culture. Such forecasts were associated with the sharp economic rise of the "Asian tigers" and with the migration processes of the late 20th century. In cyberpunk, even people in the United States and Britain dressed up like Japanese and used Chinese, Arabic or Russian words.
The most famous cyberpunk movie begins with a huge neon Japanese woman. In this case, the place of action - Los Angeles.
Artificial intelligence and androids: almost
Now humanoid robots and intelligent programs are perceived as an essential attribute of cyberpunk, but its early authors were wary of these ideas. Back in the 1970s, it became apparent to scientists that the surge of optimism associated with the invention of computers was premature. The task of creating a "strong" AI, capable of completely imitating the human mind, turned out to be much more difficult than expected.
Modern robots resemble creepy dummies, and the word "android" is associated with the majority of the operating system.
This frustration is reflected in cyberpunk, where full-fledged AI is not an attribute of every apartment building, as in the Star Wars universe, but a unique phenomenon that determines the course of the plot, like Gibson's Wintermouth and Neuromancer. The exception is Blade Runner, based on a book that Philip Dick wrote in the much more optimistic 1960s.
These days, the production of self-driving cars and drones is on stream, AI technologies are used for electronic assistants like Siri and Cortana, computers beat people at chess, go and even poker. But the problem of creating a "strong" AI has not yet been solved. We have little idea of how the human mind works, which means that we cannot reproduce it. The voices of those who argue that there is no need and should focus on solving practical problems, and not on trying to create a digital copy of a person, are louder and louder.
Humanoid robot Kotaro, created by the University of Japan. Like other similar devices, this is just an expensive PR toy.
The situation is similar with androids. Although robotics has come a long way since the 1970s, as demonstrated, for example, by the achievements of the Boston Dynamics studio, there is no need for a humanoid robot. We want to expand, not imitate our capabilities. Only the sex industry, where the ability of a robot to resemble a human, is an important advantage, can spur development in this direction. Some speculate that red-light districts in Amsterdam, the Philippines and Thailand may take on androids as early as this year.
* * *
When it comes to technology, cyberpunk authors have proven to be bad prophets. Somewhere they were too optimistic, but something just did not occur to them - for example, that computers would become small and portable. Cyberpunks have succeeded in something else: they were able to correctly imagine how our world as a whole will develop. When other science fiction writers believed that a golden age, totalitarian dystopia or mass extinction awaited us, the authors of cyberpunk realized that life would continue and only become more diverse. And this share of realism explains the feeling that we have already appeared on the pages of their books, albeit without cyber prostheses and neuroimplants.
Leonid Moyzhes