All language subtitles for Cyborgs Human Machines (2017).EN

Never was the relationship

between humans and technology so close.

But for cyborgs, it's not close enough.

They merge their bodies with technology.

I'm a cyborg, so I've created a new sense

and a new organ and I've designed my perception of reality.

I have an implant here

and I use my implants on a daily basis.

Without it being medically necessary,

cyborgs inject magnets into their fingers,

plant chips under their skin.

They implant technology.

We're not simply loonies with crazy ideas,

we're people who are trying to shape the future.

Now we do like 100 a month maybe.

So the exponential growth is catching on,

so as soon as there's 100,000 users,

we're going to have 200K, 400K, 800K,

2 million, 8 million, 16 million.

Will it be normal in the future

to upgrade our bodies or are we already there?

If your mobile phone is running out of battery,

many people say "I'm running out of battery."

This is a clear sign of using or talking about technology

in first person as if you are already technology.

Yeah, if someone offers me

to get a new hand instead of this one but just stronger

and better and more efficient and more precise,

then I would be absolutely willing to do this.

When people say I'm a cyborg

and that implies that I can do things that you can't do,

it's the opposite of removing boundaries.

It's creating new boundaries.

Neil Harbisson is, as he says,

the world's first officially recognized cyborg.

The composer has been color blind since birth.

He sees the world in shades of gray.

So each color has its own light frequency

which corresponds to a sound frequency

and so the antenna allows me

to hear the sound of each color.

This is F, this is A.

So each color has its own note,

so when I put colors on a piece of paper,

to me it's like putting music on paper.

In 2004,

Neil Harbisson had the antenna implanted

by an anonymous surgeon.

It contains a sensor that recognizes color frequencies

and transmits them to a chip in the back of his head.

This chip turns them into audio signals.

So it's F, G, F, G, F, A.

I'm just improvising, it's a bit like jazz now,

just playing different notes.

At the beginning,

it was overwhelming hearing so many colors.

I need some time of adaptation.

The brain will need to adapt to the new input

until it becomes like any other sense or preexisting sense.

And then when it becomes normal,

you feel the need to extend it again.

So that's exactly is what happened to me,

that when I was able to hear all the colors visual,

I felt it was a repetition all the time,

so that's why I added infrareds and ultraviolets.

In this way, Harbisson can also hear sun rays,

motion detectors, remote controls, and antitheft devices.

But is that desirable 24 hours a day?

So the antenna is always on, there's no switch.

At night, when I turn off the lights,

there's usually no color so there's silence

but the internet is on so people can still send colors

to my head while I'm asleep.

So if this happens, they can color my dreams.

It's a strange choice

which often creates problems.

Harbisson fought with the British authorities

for a long time before he was allowed

to include the antenna in his passport.

Well, the biggest struggle

of being a cyborg is society.

It's people who are not tolerant to one's decision.

It's hard.

Sometimes it is also people who really think

that we are against nature and against humans

and against God.

But Harbisson also has allies,

some of them in Germany.

In Berlin, there is a community of people

that are very enthusiastic about cyborgism.

Maybe not so artistically,

but in Berlin, it's more of a social thing.

Cyborgs view themselves

as forerunners of a growing movement.

Oliver Waack-Jurgensen belongs to the Berlin Cyborg Society.

Cyborgs need vitamins too.

Waack-Jurgensen is a chocolate maker

and a member of the Pirate party

and he intends to turn himself into a cyborg.

It takes a bit of practice.

It's easier to make this bread than most people think.

We've been making most of our own bread

for four or five years.

Waack-Jurgensen lives together with his partner

and their children.

The past few years have been hard.

Waack-Jurgensen suffers from arthritis.

He already has two artificial knees and an artificial hip.

And although he's just managing to walk again,

it will soon be time for another hip.

He wants to upgrade this one.

All the things you can do with a hip like that.

Of course biomonitoring is no problem.

The bloodstream and the neutral stimuli provide

a lot of information.

And then of course the little gimmicks

like this mobile wifi router.

Or I have a smartphone in my pocket

next to the artificial hip and it gets charged when I move

or from the heat of my blood.

Just don't get something healthy removed

to get something better.

No, of course not.

Nothing's as good as the original.

Would you think it cool

if Ollie had a wifi router in his hip?

A free radio router with wifi wherever I happen to be, cool.

Then you wouldn't be the rain god, you'd be the wifi god,

but you're that already.

I don't know, nobody would believe me.

How do people get such ideas?

For as long as I've known him, he's wanted like a little boy

to be connected to the internet like in science fiction.

He's had this idea ever since I've known him.

Anything that's possible that would upgrade his body,

he would do immediately.

When Oliver Waack-Jurgensen received

his three artificial joints,

he associated the operations with pain and feeling old.

It would be different if they built in a wireless charger

for his smartphone, he says.

That would be cool, a form of avant-garde blazing a trail.

It would take a lot of pressure off me.

Of course, on the one hand, this is the fourth time,

so I know what to expect.

But if they were going to build in some gimmick,

it would make it easier.

But German law does not permit implants

with supplementary functions,

so Waack-Jurgensen has been in direct contact

with manufacturers for months.

In Germany, an implant is just an implant,

you don't play with it.

That's the current view.

And of course, it has to be correct.

We want to reach the people who make these decisions

who can also say, wait a minute,

here's a gap that needs to be filled.

You need to get your toe in the door

and if the manufacturers don't respond, others will.

At some time in the future,

will artificial spare parts be able to do more

than the originals?

This question obsesses Bertolt Meyer.

He was born without the lower half of his left arm

and wears an artificial hand,

probably the best that's currently available.

Basically, the artificial hand can't do anything

that my right hand can't do, with one exception.

I can twist the artificial one 360 degrees continuously,

but that's not very practical.

I always say it's my party trick.

But it's also very interesting theoretically

because of course it shows that even an artificial limb,

which in many ways is not as good as the original,

can be better in other areas in very specific abilities.

Bertolt Meyer is a social psychologist

at the Technical University in Chemnitz.

He focuses on people who want artificial body parts

even though they're perfectly healthy.

I think it's a bit strange when people say,

theoretically I'm ready to replace a healthy body part

with an artificial one

because it would make me somehow better.

I think, well, frankly being 100% healthy is a privilege

that I don't have.

So I think perhaps you should be a bit more aware

of what a privilege that is that you enjoy.

Humans are weak, vulnerable, and forgetful.

Technology is supposed to liberate them

from nature's limitations.

But why take tools in your hands

when you can carry them inside yourself?

Is this the next logical step to upgrade humans?

To become stronger, faster, more perfect?

Is this the end of human weakness

or the beginning of the end of humanity?

Patrick Paumen dreams of overcoming the limitations

of his body with technology.

As a small step in this direction,

he inserts micro implants into his body.

In December 2010 at the Chaos Communication Congress,

Lepht Anonym gave a lecture

entitled "Cybernetics for the Masses."

He explained how you can perform your own implantations

at very little cost.

The lecture mentioned magnet implants and RFID implants.

I became very curious about how magnetic

and electromagnetic fields would feel.

Then I decided to do it.

Magnet implants don't have much use at the present time.

They vibrate in Patrick Paumen's hand, for instance,

when he approaches an electric cable.

But a car manufacturer is researching

whether drivers could be sent signals

via magnetic vibrations, for instance,

in a dangerous situation.

Humans react to tactile feelings more quickly

than to any other sense data.

Patrick Paumen lives in Heerlen on the German-Dutch border.

He now has five magnets and six chips in his body.

Each chip has its own function.

I have the advantage that I can never lose my keys

or have them stolen from me.

I can never lock myself out.

It makes life easier.

When my hands are full, I don't have to dig

into my trouser pockets to find my keys

and look which key do I need for the door.

With another chip, Paumen can log on to his computer.

The chips operate with a technology known as RFID,

Radio Frequency Identification.

It allows data to be transmitted over a short distance

without a battery.

Paumen has already ordered another chip.

It apparently has its own apps,

by means of which messages can be encoded and payments made.

So far, Paumen only knows the chip from the internet.

Some people have had the idea of making glasses,

lasering eyes, developing hearing implants.

We keep developing.

The aim is to make life simpler.

I only see advantages.

Cyborgs are viewed as eccentrics,

but the industry thinks this is going to change.

Neil Harbisson is often invited

to talk to telecommunications companies.

A sensational presentation here on the stage,

I'm delighted that he's here, Neil Harbisson.

So what I like doing is sound portraits,

where instead of drawing someone's face,

I get close to someone's face

and I write down the sound of the eyes,

the lips, the skin, and the hair.

The first one I did was of Prince Charles.

I asked him if I could listen to his face

and this was his reaction when i asked him.

Each person sounds different.

Judi Dench has silent hair, for example.

Al Gore has different nodes in his eyes,

different shades of turquoise.

Steve Reich has a melody in his eyes

because he has like a small pattern.

Moby has one note less, he has no hair,

so he has less sounds.

Woody Allen, like a soft painting, very unsaturated.

Neil Harbisson makes a good living

from his lectures, his cyborg existence.

Is it just clever self promotion

or is he really a social pioneer?

In 20, 30 years, I think it will be strange

not to have an implant of some sort,

in the same way that now it's very common

to see people with tattoos and whereas maybe 50 years ago,

it would be really strange.

Now it's very common to modify our skin.

It will soon be very common to modify our mind.

But a practical problem for cyborgs is

the implantation itself.

Doctors are not permitted to perform non-medical operations,

so Hika Kierkenupp is kept busy.

The piercer turns humans into cyborgs.

Today, it's Lucia Dibla's turn.

She wants to have a magnet implanted in her hand.

Partly curiosity but mainly, in fact,

for professional reasons.

I'm a dressmaker and I don't like pincushions.

So a small magnet here on my hand will be very useful.

Cutting your skin for such trifling reasons is surprising

but the piercer, Hika Kierkenupp,

hasn't taken the Hippocratic Oath and can help.

It's a gray area.

It's okay as long as the patient signs a contract

that she bears all the risks.

And implanting magnets carries considerable risks.

I've sometimes seen magnets

from less reliable firms rust in the body.

They rusted out or they led to allergic reactions.

There's no way of knowing

how the body will react to magnets.

It can reject them.

Nerves can be damaged.

The procedure costs roughly 150 euros

and takes about 10 minutes.

It feels like a pulling sensation, it's pretty strong.

Most people would never dream of implanting magnets

or chips in their bodies,

but Kierkenupp believes that will change.

There are now chips in the beta phase

that are more functional.

And I can see that in two, five, maybe 10 years,

much more useful implants will be invented.

Implants like Circadia, which registers heart frequency

and other physical data, but on a smaller scale.

Circadia is as big as a smartphone.

An American had it implanted in his arm in 2013.

Hey, everybody, my name is Tim Cannon.

I just became the first man

to implant a device in my body

that was solely for the purpose of enhancing myself.

Circadia can continuously measure

body temperature, pulse, and blood levels,

and transmit the data to a smartphone.

Patrick Paumen is also interested in this implant.

I've met Tim.

He didn't have the implant any longer.

From what I see on the internet, it's quite big.

It looks creepy and was dangerous.

The batteries in Circadia may have leaked.

That's why Tim Cannon had it removed after three months.

But he wanted to show what's possible.

Similar implants are available on a smaller scale.

I have an implant in my lower arm

which measures my body temperature.

There's a temperature sensor inside.

And I have an RFID device that reads the chip.

It displays the serial number

and the temperature in my lower arm.

Unlike thermometers or activity trackers,

these chips gather the data continuously

without you having to think about them.

Eventually, nanorobots could circulate in our bloodstream

and analyze everything.

What's good for us, when are we stressed?

We could continuously monitor our health

and detect diseases before they develop.

But do we want that?

Have total surveillance of our bodies?

Patrick Paumen is still waiting for the new chip he ordered.

It will enable him to encode data.

He now wants to further develop the chips himself.

He goes to Hackspace,

a meeting point for technology freaks in Heerlen.

Paumen founded it himself.

Even at the drinks machine, he only has to scan his chip

and it transmits his data.

Paumen and his friends want to get more and more

out of each device.

I want to lock and unlock my car without using a key.

If you accidentally feed current into this white wire,

you break the device.

This could go wrong.

Paumen has to change the switch of his central lock system

so it can read his chip.

He tinkers with the device for five hours.

It's switching now.

But the engine's not working.

The members of Hackerspace believe

that they are helping to shape the future.

But making even a little progress costs a lot of effort.

A few hours later, Paumen succeeds.

The central locking system can now read his chip.

Now it has to be installed in the car.

It's locked.

Great, now I can throw away the keys.

Once again, Paumen has improved his life a little.

Now he just has to wait

for the chip he ordered from the USA.

Oliver Waack-Jurgensen in Berlin is fighting

for his cyborg hip.

So far, the implant manufacturers have given him

the cold shoulder.

He's decided to seek the support of his orthopedist,

Dr. Peterhansel.

Would he agree to implant a hip

with which Waack-Jurgensen could charge his mobile

with the energy produced by his movements

or one containing a mobile wifi router?

Okay, so in the head or in the acetabulum,

there would be space for a little gimmick.

Certainly, it could easily be built

into an artificial joint.

You just have to watch out for the radiation exposure.

Of course, that's an ethical issue, right?

Laws and ethics play a role,

but we're not just playing around.

If somebody is going to have an operation like this,

they can think about whether it could be upgraded a bit.

Of course.

The radiation exposure could become a problem

because the radiation has to pass

through all the skin layers.

There's no empirical evidence available.

But Dr. Peterhansel believes in the future of such implants.

I'm very open to ideas like this.

I'd always be in favor,

certainly from the medical point of view,

but also when it's really useful to the patient.

Most physicians are skeptical about cyborg ideas.

It's the first time Waack-Jurgensen has received support

from a doctor.

He has contacts among the manufacturers

and he could help us convince them

that it wouldn't be just a party game

but something for the future.

But where does the compulsion come from

to do such a radical thing?

Equipping your body with technology is a way

of making it more efficient and appearing more efficient

and perhaps of increasing your own value a bit.

Because of my disability,

my self-esteem is certainly not the best.

And I know the feeling that a bit of complicated technology

can increase your sense of self-worth.

Humans become designers of their own bodies.

When everybody immediately knows everything

about everyone else,

when little robots inside us watch over our blood,

and when there's no difference anymore

between online and offline, a new human era will start.

Will it be like when humans first invented tools

and life became easier,

or will it be a competition for the best implant?

What will happen if some people refuse to have them?

Will it produce a division, like between rich and poor,

between upper and lower class?

In Sweden, there's nothing unusual about being a cyborg.

A Stockholm media enterprise is holding

an implantation party.

It has invited the artistic crowd.

They can upgrade their bodies at the party.

It was Hannes Sjoblad's idea.

He is the founder of a biohacker group.

Biohackers refuse to accept biology

and the limitations of nature.

They want to upgrade their bodies with technology.

Today, Sjoblad is promoting RFID chips,

the same chips that Patrick Paumen carries in his body.

I mean, it works like this.

We humans, we are skeptical

about things we don't really understand, right?

But if you explain how it works,

what are the good things, what are the bad things,

what are the dangers,

then most people are simply comfortable with it.

So this is what I try to do.

I'm not in the business of selling implants,

I just like to share the insights I have.

Getting a chip implanted in Sweden costs

exactly the same as in Germany, about 120 euros.

The chips are made of bioglass

so that the body doesn't reject them.

And they're the size of a grain of rice.

Helena (indistinct) is one of the first

who wants to try them out.

I am not nervous at all actually.

It's not worse than giving birth,

so I'm sticking to my thought on that.

Try everything once, you only live once.

I might take it out tomorrow.

You'll love it.

Okay.

Five seconds later,

Helena (indistinct) is chipped.

Hopefully I can open my door with it.

I have to call the insurance company

and the people delivering the door

and see if I can open that with it.

An extraordinary number of people

who get chips implanted don't know what exactly

to do with them.

A company representative explains

how they can save passwords

or their business cards on the chips

and transmit them to a smartphone with a wave of the hand.

Theoretically, the data could easily get

into the wrong hands.

No doubts at all.

I think it's great.

I think it's fun thing, cool thing.

And I think it's only the beginning of this.

I think it will be an explosion going forward.

10% within five years.

Sweden?

Yeah, we're early adapters.

We're really avant-garde with technology.

I mean, the upcoming generation is

they're all born with an iPad or an iPhone or the Samsung.

I mean, my son is six years old.

He's doing junior programming on his iPad.

Like kindergarten stuff.

The public transport company in Stockholm

is even considering letting passengers pay for their tickets

with implanted chips.

Helena (indistinct), who has just received her first chip,

thinks that's a great idea.

I lose my things all the time.

I lose my passport, I lose my bus card, my keys,

my card to the gym.

If everything could be in one place, that would be amazing.

And I hope that will come during the next six months

but maybe I shouldn't be too optimistic.

But I guess I will be more free.

Elsewhere in Stockholm,

chips are already commonplace.

The epicenter is a large modern office complex

in the central business district.

There are dozens of startups here.

As a matter of course,

workers open the doors with chip implants.

It was Hannes Sjoblad's idea.

He was host of the implantation party

and he's the building's innovative spirit.

I want to question the status quo.

I mean, yes, we've had keys

in our pockets all our lives, right?

We're used to it.

But someone has to say we don't need it.

Someone needs to see what is possible to do tomorrow.

So far, workers have been able to choose.

The question of course is whether they will still be able

to do so in future.

I just want to have a community of smart people

who learn how this works.

Because if the day comes

when a big company launches the eye implant

or the Swedish tax authority says

we are going to chip everyone,

then we will have a group of people

who understands this technology and can challenge the uses

that the authority wants this technology to have on us.

So for me, this is so important

with the democratization of technology.

It's not just to learn how to use the technology,

it's more important

to understand how it's being used against you.

What if the data on the chips was accessed

by strangers?

The Orwellian dystopia, the Big Brother,

would no longer be fiction.

Chips could create the transparent citizen.

(indistinct) From the Chaos Computer Club believes

that the secret services

and business would be very interested in this data.

Of course, it's very interesting

for them to register people in passing

without having to use face recognition

or similar techniques.

Simply to say that was this and that person

who just walked along there and there,

to produce personality profiles or movement patterns.

At the end of the day,

these technologies can be used against us.

In Berlin, Hika Kierkenupp has an appointment

with a regular client.

Erina Dubois doesn't just want passive chips

and magnets in her body,

but bigger implants that need batteries.

Am I going to be one of the first people?

Because they said they're going to make a trial

for the first 2,000 people who preordered.

Yeah, so you will be one of the first,

the first I know the first one in Germany.

Oh my god, really?

Yes.

Erina wants the Northsense, a kind of compass.

The implant is supposed to vibrate whenever she faces north.

This is not a device or a gadget.

This is technology that evolves with you.

In time, you'll develop new types of memory,

experience, and feeling.

Big promises lead to great expectations.

It was exciting

because it's kind of you're on Google Maps.

At some point, you will be just used to, you know,

you walk down that street or you have the feeling, oh,

okay, I have to go there.

Yeah, getting the Northsense can completely transform

my perception of travel, of discovering cities,

of maybe I will still get lost

but I will kind of know which direction I'm going

and that can really, yeah, that changes my perception.

Erina doesn't just want more implants.

She would even replace some body parts.

If I can have a heart that makes me live forever, sure.

I guess if we get to the point

where we can exchange body parts,

then eventually I will have to exchange all of them

because they naturally die.

Could humans eventually upgrade themselves

for immortality?

A political scientist

at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is researching

how cyborg technologies are influencing our society.

If we assume that society remains roughly as it is,

I'm very pessimistic that the so-called refuseniks,

people who reject these developments, can keep resisting.

A simple example I remember is how people discussed

the importance of participating fully in society

without using the internet.

Of course you can refuse to use the internet today

but I think it would be difficult even to study without it.

Human dignity is inalienable.

When the boundaries between humans

and electronic devices are blurred, where is our identity?

Is it going to be a question of what upgrade we can afford?

This new life means greater control.

We can stop diseases and decay.

But we will need a new frame of values and social morays

with this freedom.

Things are not looking good for Oliver Waack-Jurgensen

and his cyborg hip.

He hasn't been able to convince the manufacturers,

so today he's talking to the Pirate Society

where he's a member of the board.

Pirate focuses on political education

and its members have good contacts

amongst politicians and academics.

He hopes to get their support.

I'd be grateful for ideas and support from your connections

to find other manufacturers, probably outside of Europe.

And for us to say, come on guys,

let's try something like this.

I don't understand why you want to reach the manufacturers.

Perhaps you can explain,

because I think the first thing you need to do,

the first people you need to talk to are

the guys involved in medical ethics

and they are not the manufacturers.

Another issue, of course, is the legal aspect.

Apart from the ethics experts, the lawyers.

That's an incredibly important target group

to get them to think about where the boundaries lie.

You should really be having this discussion

with technologists, doctors, and ethical experts.

And not just for a matinee, but a whole workshop.

I think that could trigger a social debate.

We would support you, I said this from the start.

It's our issue, our new big issue.

Great, thank you.

Your reaction's cool.

It's really important to me

and I'm really pleased with the feedback.

Waack-Jurgensen could get his cyborg hip quite soon.

I hope society will take more notice of cyborgism

and it spreads so that people overcome the fear they have.

It's a legitimate fear.

Look, that other guy is trying to improve himself

with technology and he's doing it

and has the advantage over me.

That's indisputable.

It's an issue with cyborgism.

We need to work on it

and demand that society create the conditions

in which the two can co-exist,

and in the best case scenario, cooperate.

Patrick Paumen has been waiting for this day for months.

He's come to Berlin with a prototype

of the data encoding chip from the USA in his luggage.

I'm very excited.

I haven't been able to test it yet.

I hope everything works out.

Paumen wants to get the implant done

in Hika Kierkenupp's piercing studio.

Hi, I brought the new implant.

Show me.

The packet arrived yesterday.

Perfect timing.

They don't yet know if the chip works.

When it was tested recently on another volunteer,

it broke immediately.

So this is it.

It'll be my first time.

Wow, it's quite long, isn't it?

But relatively flat.

I certainly want to test it first,

if it's able to read, we'll see.

What does that mean, no?

Sorry, tag communication was interrupted.

Now it's reading.

Yes?

It's been recognized as an NXP smart MC chip.

So it's all systems go.

The prototype chip is exceptionally large.

It can't be injected under the skin

like most of the other chips Paumen has.

What implants do you have now?

Only the NFC chip.

I can't remember the number offhand, a 125 RFID.

The procedure takes 45 minutes.

Then Paumen has the 12th implant in his body.

So it's inside.

Inside.

For Paumen, the chip is mainly a status symbol.

Yes, I'm proud that it's a prototype.

It's not on the market yet and I'm one of the beta testers.

The manufacturer asked me if I could test it and I said yes.

Paumen can now encode with the chip

and eventually perhaps even pay with it.

It certainly won't be his last implant.

Neil Harbisson also has plans.

He wants to receive an implant that is entirely new.

So I'm creating an organ that will be circular

between the skin and the bone

and it will give heat depending on what time it is.

So it would take 24 hours for the heat to go around the head

so I'll know what time it is

by just feeling the heat around the head.

But if I have this for several months or years,

it should become my perception of time,

so then I'll be able to control

if I want time to go faster or slower.

If I make the heat go slower,

I'll feel that time goes slower.

Or if I want time to go faster,

I can program it so it goes faster.

If i make it go twice forwards or backwards.

So it's taking Einstein's theory of time relativity

into a sense, into an organ

to see whether or not you can control your perception

of time if you have an organ for time.

It's doubtful whether we can really manipulate

our sense of time like that.

But what's certain is

that cyborg technologies will change our society.

Imagine two persons meeting in the future.

What will the interaction be like?

So possibly, let's say we have implant technology

that logs the different processes

that is going on in the body.

Someone is stressed, someone is happy,

someone is angry, someone is in love.

And imagine the ability to share this information directly

inside someone else.

I think this would create

a greater understanding between people

and a greater understanding

for what another person is feeling and going through.

And I hope that this will make us more ethical persons

if we have a greater understanding for each other.

I think it's really important not to leave

the debate about the social effects of technology

to technologists, engineers, and economists.

It's really important to start a discussion in the media

about what lies ahead, what's conceivable,

and what effect it could have on our society.

I think we should reflect on these processes

before they rush in on us.

What is technically possible

and what is ethically justifiable?

We are just beginning to explore those boundaries.