Cyborgs R Us
How many times do you think you interact with technology on an average day? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? How should we define “technology” in this thought experiment? Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek, in a piece for the Wall Street Journal titled We are all Cyborgs, posits that even a legendary luddite like Henry David Thoreau relied on the ‘technologies’ of his notebook, walking stick, and spyglass to escape into the natural world. On that premise, most of us are unlikely to last more than a few minutes without some form of technology, analog or digital, augmenting our lives. Wilczek and others argue that this augmented reality makes us all, technically, cyborgs. I agree, and I want to extend that categorization in light of the recent developments over the past year related to artificial intelligence — specifically, generative AI.
Before we proceed, I have a confession. I am a failed Ph.D. candidate in the field of Cybernetics. I don’t mean I dropped out when I realized what a slog it would be. Nor am I an ABD— someone who completes the coursework but doesn’t finish the dissertation. I made it to the end with 300+ pages submitted to a committee, in front of which I sat for an oral exam. I did not pass. I had a chance to revise, resubmit, and resit the exam but I chose not to, for several reasons that I won’t get into here. It was the first exam I failed since high school, a time when I was unfortunately accustomed to woefully underperforming, relative to my “potential.” Failing my Ph.D. was a source of shame and embarrassment for over a decade. But I’m grateful for every part of the process, including the outcome. Even if what it means today is that I’m intellectually equipped to offer an opinion on a very narrow topic within an obscure field, without having a piece of paper that signals to the world that I am an “expert.” And now, with that out in the open, let’s get into it.
Okay… first, what is a cyborg? The word itself was coined by folks at NASA in 1960 as a portmanteau of cybernetic and organism. It was intended as a framework for exploring scientific innovations that would enable humans augmented with technology to survive in alien and extraterrestrial environments. If you’re a NASA nerd like me, you should check out The Cyborg Study: Engineering Man for Space, authored in 1963. I’ll come back to this concept in a bit, but first, we should dig into the components of the word “cyborg,” starting with ‘cybernetic.’ If you recall from my above confession, I have some experience with this topic. I’ll gloss over the full history lesson and focus on the concepts relevant to my main points.
Predating NASA’s Cyborg Study by 15 years was a book published in 1948 by MIT mathematician Norbert Wiener called Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. This seminal work addressed in a new and novel way the behavior of complex systems. Weiner covered in great detail concepts such as sensory input, feedback loops, information mechanics, and decision-making, as a means to define and understand complex systems. Wiener’s definition of complex systems included both biological systems — the human brain, and artificial ones — computers. These are structurally quite different but operationally comparable. Wiener’s book and a series of gatherings called the Macy Conferences that took place between 1946 and 1953 sparked the academic discipline of cybernetics and its various intellectual offspring that have, in the decades since, influenced significant advances in the fields of biology, education, organizational studies, and human-computer interaction.
If you agree with cyberneticians, you can accept that a human brain which operates via neurons and synapses, and a computer that relies on circuits and algorithms are operationally similar complex systems. How much of a leap is it then, to imagine that the biological brain and the artificial computer can work in concert to augment and elevate the processing power of each other? This kernel of an idea forms the basis of an argument that we are already living in a world where much of the population has access to technology that augments us to the point where we conform to the definition of a cyborg. In short, cyborgs are us. And if we’re all cyborgs already, and our brains are computers in the same theoretical sense as the computers in our devices are brains, why are we resisting the notion of collaborative computing represented by the current wave of technologies powered by ‘artificial’ intelligence? It’s admittedly a rhetorical question as there are myriad reasons we don’t and shouldn’t fully embrace this narrative, not the least of which is trust, ownership, and privacy.
Putting those very valid reasons aside for now, let’s consider the notion of collaborative computing, which has fundamentally changed the way we think, work, and play, especially since the introduction and subsequent ubiquity of the internet. The developed world has come to take information access for granted. From search to social networking to the app economy, the information at our fingertips is the result of complex system architecture and infrastructure. For the sake of the current argument, let’s consider the internet itself to be an example of a cybernetic system involving the control and communication of information across a complex network of devices and protocols. It’s the evolution of this cybernetic system along with its devices and protocols that is enabling the latest technological disruption in the form of generative artificial intelligence.
I believe the introduction of conversational interfaces, and voice assistants in particular, created conditions whereby our interaction with computers began to feel like the beginning of our evolution as cyborgs. The act of using natural language to command and control machines around us combined with the mass-market realization of cybernetic principles embedded in a human-computer interface was delivered directly into our hands and homes in the form of smartphones and devices powered by AI voice assistants. These technologies changed the way we think about and process information.
Access to information had already been fundamentally altered by search but it still requires us to step outside of ourselves to manually input text queries, sort through a list of links, read what we believe to be the most relevant results, and then act on the new information. While the acres of server farms and billions of gigabytes of data are undoubtedly a triumph of human ingenuity, the interface to access information was really only a baby-step away from having to go through a library and follow a similar process amidst a stack of books or reels of microfiche. Not exactly cyborg-like behavior.
When was the last time you watched a science fiction movie where someone typed anything anywhere? Our future of human-computer interaction is a conversational interface. AI is already enabling a more natural means of accessing information. Rather than hunting and pecking with our fingers like Neanderthals, we can simply wonder aloud about who fought in the Peloponnesian War, or the current exchange rate of the Aussie and US dollar, and a pleasant sounding AI answers with mostly correct details. Our devices act like some ever-present know-it-all friend, and eventually like your own internal voice in dialog with itself. Generative AI represents the next stage of augmenting our human brain with a computer brain.
We’re at the beginning of evolving past left-brain only augmentation into the wild west of right-brain creative augmentation. Should this cause some pause? Yes, absolutely. And we should also embrace this historic opportunity to not just be smarter as a species but also more creative through augmentation and collaboration.
Is it time for a new definition of cyborg? Maybe. Unless we want to think of ourselves as an evil hybrid bent on destruction, or an unfeeling humanoid robot meat puppet as many cyborgs are depicted in popular culture, we might want to avoid the uphill battle of reframing our relationship to the word. However, we are technically cybernetic organisms (cyb-orgs), a concept we should become more comfortable with, and eventually embrace. I’ll admit here that some of my statements are bordering on hyperbole and maybe a bit intentionally provocative. But it’s all in service of starting a conversation about how we should be critically evaluating creative augmentation and generative AI.
So what does this all mean for the future of creativity? This is where the conversation gets interesting. I want to make sure we’re focused on fiction as it’s less fraught than applying augmented creativity to “facts.” I also want to make sure we’re starting from a point of assumed ownership as intellectual property is one of many issues that need to be addressed as we figure out how to effectively leverage our new augmented capabilities. Our creative trajectory as a species is about to take a massive leap forward. Telling stories through multiple mediums has always been one of the things that sets us apart from other animals.
Digital tools have arguably already elevated our capacity to produce and distribute works of art. Can generative AI enhance our capabilities as well? The obvious answer is yes. We are beginning to see tools emerge that bring resources into the orbit of any art creator, from individual static pictures to frames and frames of moving images that could generate dynamically and be consumed indefinitely. These tools are like having a teacher, production partner, and editor on tap throughout the entire creative process. They will provide inspiration, support, and validation. If deployed effectively, they can improve the overall output and quality of the final work of art.
Admittedly, there’s still a way to go before we reach the stage of embedded right-brain augmentation that is as accepted and ubiquitous as our current state of left-brain augmentation. There are very smart people working on the technologies enabling this outcome. We will not reach any kind of evolved state without these technologies but they are not enough on their own. We need to ensure that any tools developed to augment creativity are designed by the very same creatives they are intended to serve. More broadly, creatives need to have a prominent voice in all these conversations about our future state, and be in the rooms where it’s happening to ask not just how these tools will be created but continue to drive focus on the why as well.
After decades of imagining what such augmenting creative technology looks like, we’ve recently seen a few compelling examples of supporting tools emerge. These tools give us an opportunity to tangibly experience the early stages of collaboration with machines for creative output. Thoreau brought along his journal, cane, and spyglass while spending time in nature. These devices allowed him to explore further, ask deeper questions, and understand himself and his role in the world in a way beyond his physical capabilities. By doing so, he uncovered a new and unique perspective that found its way into the stories he told.
I work with a group of creatives and storytellers who are eager to embrace our augmented right-brain future. Our company (still in stealth mode), is building tools by and for storytellers using the latest advancements in artificial intelligence applied to decades-old processes of producing stories for television, movies, games, and beyond. Everybody has a story to tell but not everyone is a storyteller. Generative AI makes it possible for anyone to tell their story, their way. Our company will make it possible for everyone to be a storyteller.
We’re just getting started and we want creators with us from the outset. In the coming months, we’ll be instigating conversations around our approach to the future of augmented creativity. We want you to be part of this dialog. Let’s lean into our advantage as cybernetic organisms and embrace the same sensory input, feedback loops, information mechanics, and decision-making that make us the complex systems–the cyborgs–we all are.
