Kitabı oku: «Mensch. Maschine. Kommunikation.», sayfa 24
3.5 Embellishment through Bodyhacking
Bodyhacking also has an aesthetic component. It changes the body, this centre of pleasure and desire, and thereby makes possibly uninteresting people interesting, interesting people even more interesting. It makes it easier for them to find a partner, or a suitable partner who responds to the signals sent out. Of course, it can also lead to the opposite, if the change is extreme, it could be perceived as questionable and ugly leading to a reduction of attractiveness. The same is also valid in the area of piercings and tattoos (see Jung 2007). In former times they were the trademark of interesting, “tough guys” (or “tough girls”), later they became a mass phenomenon, no longer unique. This is by no means meant to express that tattoos, for example, could not be high art. There are certainly works of great beauty.
Implant parties with the purpose of bodyhacking are often performed with specialists who are experienced in tattooing and piercing (see Bendel 2020; Schrank 2018). This has to do with the fact that it is a grassroots and DIY movement and doctors or nurses are not or hardly available to the extent that might be desired. It is also related to the fact that there is an expansion and supplementation going on here, which does not only have functional aspects. People want to beautify themselves in a new way, want to bring function and design together in a community that has its own rules and ideas. They want to do this in front of each other, so that the whole thing becomes a social event. Of course, it is not impossible that cosmetic surgeons will also discover this market.
Specifically, visible chips and magnets and other implants are an option, causing mounds or waves in the skin, which has visual and haptic implications, as well as optical extensions of ears, noses and genitals. Other examples include auditory extensions which can give the user the ability to produce an applause or a laugh. The mentioned Eyeborg, Neil Harbisson’s device, was obviously also created with aesthetic intent, and adorns its owner like a cockscomb. Time will show what people and their fellow men find pleasant and beautiful, and certainly one zeitgeist will replace the other. Basically, it is interesting that the purely technicalTechnik, or that which is transformedTransformation by technology can have its own special appeal, both visually and audibly. From social robotsRobotersozialer – whether in the science fiction of “Star Wars” with R2-D2 (as from 1977) and BB-8 (as from 2015) or in the reality with Cozmo (a toy robot) or Relay (a transport robot with eyes) – we know that some machine sounds are perceived as cute.
3.6 The Desire for Immortality
The ideology of transhumanismTranshumanismus can include the propagation of eternal life. One idea, as mentioned, is to transfer the human mind into virtual memories (see Kurzweil 2013). However, it remains completely unclear how this could work technicallyTechnik. A more promising method is the removal and reinsertion of brains. As described above, pig brains could be kept alive outside the body (see Regalado 2018; Vrselja et al. 2019). Should it one day be possible to implant brains or other organs into robotsRoboter, with the result that they control or substantially supplement them, the result would be a reverse cyborgCyborg. The human being could continue to live even if the body were broken – but one must remember that the brain ages as well. Whether this would still be bodyhacking is debatable.
Via bodyhacking one could possibly change the human perception of time. When we experience little, time seems to stretch, but when we experience a lot, it seems to pass faster, which seems to be a contradiction. Childhood seems to be infinite while adulthood seems to fly by. Data glasses and data lenses could create a virtual expansion of individual experience, complementing and commenting on what we have perceived. They could also create a narrower experience by completely or partially hiding the outside world. Above all, together with appropriate devices and sensors, they could provide what the wearer wants in the respective situation.
One could make oneself immortal in the figurative sense by documenting one’s entire life via lifelogging and self-tracking – with the help of computer chips and gadgets in and on the body – and making the data available to others. The question is only whether these are of interest to anyone and whether people are not already drowning in the flood of information. In any case, this approach is very popular. Successful artists have a different method of making themselves immortal, and it works because they give society something that interests it: a work that is linked to their name and that helps them to be remembered for decades or centuries. Similar arguments could be made for politicians, engineers and stars of all kinds.
4 Bodyhacking from an EthicalEthik Perspective
The interventions and extensions of the last millennia on the face and body were often visible and gave cause for discussion whether this took place on the street or in the academies. In more recent times, some technologies are not immediately visible, others are more present than ever, and movements and currents are developing as well as a certain everyday life, a state of habituation. TranshumanismTranshumanismus and human enhancementHuman Enhancement have been intensively discussed from a philosophical and especially ethicalEthik point of view since the turn of the millennium (see Agar 2004; Eilers et al. 2014; Bendel 2015; Kurzweil 2013). More and more the less institutionalised phenomena of bio- and bodyhacking are coming into focus. The following is an ethicalEthik discussion, explicitly including the animal, which has so far received little attention in this context.
4.1 The Freedom over the Body
Bodyhacking still proves to be a quite simple, and certainly expandable, disposal of the self or a foreign body. In a playful and varied way, the cyborgCyborg is created, who likes himself or herself and portrays him or her in projects, in the media and at conferences (see Bendel 2020), not least in order to gain attention, which he or she can use personally or monetarily. The phenomenon can help to better understand and explore one’s own body (and mind), to recognize its potentials and limits and systematically overcome them, and to view one’s body in a new way. It is a part of the freedom that humans aspire to and how it appears in Haraway’s vision of the cyborgCyborg (see Haraway 1985). And it also fits with the lack of freedom that one considers normal towards the animal, whereby an invention such as the virtual fence admittedly helps to achieve more freedom in movement.
From the point of view of technology ethicsEthik and technology assessment, which do not see technology as an enemy of man, but as a part of being human, as a tool for their further development, the new freedom over the body is to be seen as quite positive. The naturalness of technology is expressed even better, even information technology becomes natural, spreads not only outside but also inside the body. It is nevertheless for a long time a unique and differentiating feature, one can use it to send a signal and make it clear that one is prepared to go to the limit, which was an arbitrary limit and with which the natural was possibly misinterpreted. The fact that humans take the freedom to dispose of the animal body, not necessarily for the benefit of the animals, is addressed in animal ethicsEthik.
4.2 An Increase in PerformancePerformance
Bodyhacking can lead to an increase in performance or a widening range of functions. This is discussed again and again controversially, with terms like “justice” (also “information justice”) and “digital divide” (Heitmann 2008). In this context human enhancementHuman Enhancement has been defined as a phenomenon that affects not only healthy people, but also the sick or disabled. There will be nothing to prevent disabled people – if it is technicallyTechnik possible in any way – from reaching the abilities of non-disabled people. In fact, there is just as little reason why they should not exceed these capabilities. There is something artificial about the line that some want to draw, stranded in the idea of the “natural”. From an ethicalEthik point of view – certainly including the naturalistic fallacy – there is hardly any reason why skills in individuals should not be optimized. Ethical problems are, however, raised in the social and political fabric and then, when it comes to measuring and evaluating forces, as in sport, or to assessing skills and traits, as in singing and beauty contests.
From the point of view of technology ethicsEthik and bioethics, perhaps the focus in the next few years will be on a different kind of restructuring, namely genetic interventions at fertilisation and before birth. The Crispr gene editing scissors could cure hereditary diseases, thereby reducing the suffering of parents and children. At the same time, it could provide a new form of selection. If one day it were possible to determine the colour of a child’s eyes or influence its intelligence – would this still be justifiable? A provocative thought is that it could be more justified than a subsequent technicalTechnik intervention, for example, because one day people would easily overcome this transformationTransformation and perhaps never know what was changed in them. This, in turn, seems to be ethically problematic and rather argues in favour of self-responsible technical expansion in adulthood. Also in demand in this context is information ethicsEthik, whose terms “information justice” and “digital divide” have already been mentioned above – one could add “digital self-defence”, made possible by the extended body.
4.3 The Forced Extension
A fundamental danger is that bodyhacking in humans, as is already the case with animals, becomes a coercive measure (see Bendel 2020). States could have an interest in the identification of persons or companies, on the one hand for authentication or the generation and use of data, and on the other hand in the context of human enhancementHuman Enhancement, whereby the increase and improvement of an individual’s labour power serves to increase and improve economic power (see Bendel 2019b). In the future not only chips, but also the DNA-of-things may play a role in this. The bodyhacker becomes a hacked body – the user is not only used by the technologies, but also by their producers, operators and applicants. In this sense, one could complain that the individual bodyhacker dares to break a dam, which is then used by others for targeted “flooding”. Like with respect to social media, they could argue that the reconstruction of one’s own body (such as the release of personal data) is obviously desired by the people.
Some of the presented technologies integrated into the bodies can be networked. This idea is expressed in the term “Internet of Bodies” (IoB). The IoB allows data flows to be merged, resources to be distributed and tasks to be tackled jointly. This may in turn be associated with the described expansion of the ability to act and increase performance, but it may also offer fundamental opportunities for development. In addition to such opportunities, there are risks associated with monitoring and control, both externally and in the emerging network. Science fiction fans may be reminded of Borg, the collective creatures from Star Trek. Bodyhackers ultimately become vulnerable to attacks and become the target of hackers (see Rötzer 2012). Both personal and informational autonomyautonom is in danger. At the outbreak of COVID-19 some politicians might have wished for possibilities of the Internet of Bodies. Here and there – problematically enough – data from smartphonesSmartphone was used (see Naughton 2020), and apps were developed for the detection of infected people.
Information ethicsEthik is in particular demand here. For decades, it has been describing and assessing not only the use and misuse of information technology itself, but also the origin and direction of data flows that can harm individuals and groups. The preservation and destruction of informational autonomyautonom is one of its most important areas. Business ethics questions the proportionality of measures in the economic context and the responsibility of decision makers. Legal and politics ethics are required with regard to the rule of law of the means and the protection of minorities, and again to the responsibility of decision makers. It must not be allowed that the freedom of the individual becomes their lack of freedom, with the well-known argument of protecting the security of societies. After all, this security probably does not exist, or at least it should not be created with the loss of freedom. When animals are forced to carry information technology – and they never carry it voluntarily – animal ethicsEthik is again in demand.
4.4 The Threat to Health
Another uncertainty is initially of a medical nature. Bodyhacking targets the body of both sick and healthy people (see Heilinger/Biller-Adorno 2012). Every intervention of this kind involves a health hazard. The skin is injured, which is more than just a shell of the body, but an important organ. In addition, nerves, muscles and other organs may be affected by the smallest intervention. Implants are foreign bodies and can cause inflammation, encapsulation, adhesions, etc. If the technologies are in interaction with humans, further complications may occur. If we remember that morality can be directed at our own bodies and lives (see Höffe 2018) and assume that a healthy life is linked to a good life, the moral implications become apparent. Of course, the individual’s right to freedom must also be valued and defended.
Dangers could arise from approaches such as those advocated by transhumanistsTranshumanismus. For example, some experts believe that brain implants and certain brain-computer interfaces or computer-brain interfaces can lead to severe disruption and damage to the brain or are logistically impossible. One concrete criticism concerns the approach of Elon Musk’s company Neuralink (https://www.neuralink.com), which wants to insert flexible electrodes into the human brain in a minimally invasive way and link them to a computer (Krempl 2019). If a brain can control a machine, the machine may one day be able to control the brain – or read thoughts (Drew 2011). Brain-computer interfaces and computer-brain interfaces are highly controversial. However, technology has progressed in one direction, but not in the other: reading thoughts is hardly possible as it is not even entirely clear what thoughts are. There are different kinds, pictures in front of the inner eye, inner monologues etc. And probably in the future, technicalTechnik systems will only be able to read fragments of them, if it is not an experimental situation. The result could be like a puzzle – but one whose pieces cannot be put together in principle.
BioethicsEthik and medical ethics have decades of experience in this context. They ask about the well-being of the individual and about the responsibility of individuals and institutions. In the case of bodyhacking, they can be confronted with an unusual problem: Here it is often not doctors and hospitals who perform the invasion, but laymen, at least if one puts the do-it-yourself movement in the foreground. If damage and injuries occur, legal ethics may be demanded in turn. The question is whether certain operations should be banned – the circumcision of children by laymen has provoked similar discussions. But even in projects like Elon Musk’s, medical ethicsEthik, legal ethics and jurisprudence face challenges. The question is whether too much is being promised here, whether it is simply a matter of clever marketing measures and whether the interventions are justified. When animals suffer health damage from bodyhacking, animal ethicsEthik is again in demand.
4.5 The Adaptation to Crises and Catastrophes
The adaptation to crises and catastrophes or to foreign planets via bodyhacking is also relevant from an ethicalEthik perspective. It’s not clear how the body will cope with double- or triple-strain in individual cases. In addition, implants and devices that seem to be suitable in theory and in practice on earth may behave differently on foreign planets. Here, questions of justice arise again. Those who can afford it financially and in terms of health can equip themselves in case of floods and pandemics as well as during excursions to other planets; those who cannot afford it will be left behind. In the future, the digital divide could extend not only between countries and continents, but right across space.
Several fields of applied ethicsEthik are required for this topic. Information ethics in turn assesses the use of information and communication technologies, bioethics and medical ethics assess the medical consequences. Technology ethics deals with how people use technology to conquer foreign planets and survive with the help of technology on and in the body. This shows once again, as at the beginning of the chapter, that ethics is by no means only there to identify risks and warn of risks, but also to outline opportunities. Perhaps humanity can only survive by conquering foreign planets – as Stephen Hawking saw it – and adapting to the inhospitable conditions as well as possible. The problem with an ethicalEthik assessment, however, is that we can hardly know this to be a fact.
Animal ethicsEthik also comes into play here. If humans use technology to make animals resistant and viable, this seems to be to the benefit of the animal. However, some people might be bothered by the fact that humans first destroy the environment, take away the animals’ habitat, keep them captive and misuse them, and cause crises and disasters, only to adapt the animals once again according to their own ideas. When animals are taken to foreign planets, the basic question arises whether this is animal-friendly husbandry. It would be desirable, here and with regard to other applications, to clarify and apply the law.
5 Summary and Outlook
At the beginning of this article important terms were defined and distinguished. This has given the reader a much clearer notion of what bodyhacking is, namely technological changes to the body, usually combined with a do-it-yourself approach. Besides, a possible (but not inevitable) normative component of bio- and bodyhacking became clear, as it is expressed in human and animal enhancement. Life on satellites and foreign planets could be revolutionised by these developments. The interventions and supplements could also be of assistance in crises and disasters such as pandemics. Furthermore, it became obvious that not only humans, but also animals can be the starting point; human and animal enhancement are equally possible, and human and animal cyborgsCyborg are possible.
Biohacking (and especially bodyhacking) allows experiments that are important for science, even if they are not carried out within their institutional framework (see Bendel 2018b; Bendel 2020). It is also important for the economy and society when results appear useful and applicable to real-life problems. This requires the involvement of different disciplines, such as architecture, which can respond to new capabilities with structural extensions, computer science, which is fundamental to the design and operation of the specific hardware and software, or business informatics, which has a slightly different information system in front of it and can explore operational and commercial possibilities. Finally, bio- and bodyhacking can be regarded as a form of culture and art and be placed in the tradition of piercings, tattoos and other physical interventions.
Basically, bio- and bodyhacking is about taking possession of one’s own body, overcoming biological limits and exploring technological possibilities in relation to the organism that one or someone (or something) else is (see Bendel 2020). It turns out that bodyhacking in its technicalTechnik variety can break up traditional conventions and create a new view of the body and existence. From an ethicalEthik point of view, it can be classified as an attempt by homo faber to shape and improve his or her own functioning towards a good life. It becomes problematic as soon as social, political or economic pressure arises, for example when the wearing of a NFC chip becomes the norm, which hardly anyone can escape, or when people are forced to do so, and when intimacy, privacy and informational autonomyautonom are impaired (see Bendel 2018a). Health consequences may also occur, which in turn may be linked to ethicalEthik considerations.
Biohacking is still a marginal phenomenon. Several factors could change that. The do-it-yourself movement could develop into an officially supported movement if doctors and health insurance companies are convinced of the benefits of certain applications (that’s already the case with self-tracking devices). In addition to the implied covetousness on the part of the economy and the state, crises and catastrophes as well as space travel could force the phenomenon to be seriously considered. New circumstances make new adjustments necessary, and if evolution is too slow for this, other means must be investigated. This will be a new opportunity for computer science, business informatics and the engineering sciences in general.
Of course, biological, chemical and genetic engineering approaches are also possible. For example, chimeras could be used as spare parts stores, although there are animal-ethicalEthik arguments against this, or we ourselves could become chimeras and have certain animal characteristics that allow us to perceive ourselves better in our environment. Bodyhacking would lead to biohacking, so to speak, and we would have to redefine the boundaries between animal and human and to redefine humanity in general. This in turn raises ethical questions that will not be easy to answer, whether we are in normal, stable, peaceful times or states of emergency.
