Mark O'Connell
To Be a Machine
Subtitle neatly sums up the book: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death.
A journalist investigating those who feel that humans should become machines to the extent of getting rid of our bodies completely and migrate our brains to machinery or a communications network (like the internet) or even to be distributed across that network(s) across the universe. Some pay for their dead bodies to be frozen awaiting the time when they can be revived, some are just heads awaiting the time to transfer their brains into a robot. The people he meet range across different personalities but all are driven in their quest. As the author questions, would you be human if your brain was lodged in a machine or network given that human behaviour and enjoyment is driven by relationships with others and physical sensations including holding babies and such like. There again you get the feeling that these are secondary to those pursuing eternal life. Although the end game wished for seems fantastic since the book was written in 2017 we have moved significantly forward, if you think this is progress which I don't necessarily, with artificial intelligence and in using tech implants for both experimental and medical uses such as bypassing someone's broken nervous system so that they can control their legs by thinking with that being transmitted to muscles. Overall of course it's a dream of the very wealthy with billionaires pouring vast amounts of money into research much of which is by the American military. An interesting read and although seemingly a dry subject there is a certain amount of humour some laugh out loud. Very well written. Thanks Simon.
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