Cyborg Liberation Front

Equal rights for cyborgs? Cyborgs don't even exist yet, but some people are already thinking about the ethics of what we would do with "beings" that are partly biological, partly electronic/mechanical, but definitely sentient and "alive." Do they merit the same rights and protections as biological human beings?

The Village Voice reports on a conference dedicated to this issue:

Inventor and author Ray Kurzweil argues we should clean our ethical house so our technologically derived descendants inherit compassionate values, but he predicts the transition to posthumanity will be smooth. "We already have neural implants for things like Parkinson's disease," he says. "By the time machines make a case for themselves in a convincing way and have all the subtle cues indicative of emotional reaction, there won't be a clear distinction between machine and human."

People are often suspicious of technology, especially any technology that appears as though it might "take away" something of our humanity. The likely advent of created life must, however, cause us to take a closer look at just what qualifies as "humanity" and why rights and protections are granted to any being in the first place.

Read More:

• Guide to Ethics and Morality
• Bioethics