In a sense, we may be those superintelligent robots of the future we so fear, as carbon and silicon become strange bedfellows. A byline-less Financial Times essay explores the coming age of cyborgism, detailing a few of the challenges that will attend human enhancement and medical miracles. An excerpt:

Beyond resource allocation and patient selection lie broader questions about human identity as computerised implants enter our minds and bodies. Although human-machine hybrids worthy of the name “cyborg” are unlikely to appear in the real world for decades, even if research continues to accelerate and the cost of the technology begins to fall, it is not too soon to think about the implications of electronic enhancement of the healthy as well as the sick.

Some of the questions are similar to those that people have been asking for some time about future genetic enhancement. For instance, there will be issues of equity if a privileged few can afford to implant an electronic memory and mental performance booster beyond the means of the majority. On the other hand, human computerisation will raise some problems of its own, above all security and privacy. Sooner or later we will have to face up to the threat of malicious hacking into personal memories.•