Some of the wild speculations of the 19th century were made real by the great 20th-century discoveries in physics, chemistry and computing. In this century too, science fiction writers play with amazing possibilities for life in the future: the cyborg marrying flesh and machine, the learning of an expert on a chip you can plug in and download into your own head. But should scientists take these challenges seriously? Do films such as Blade Runner or The Matrix really offer glimpses of what the future might hold?

Surprisingly, the answer is yes – or at least it is if you are studying cybernetics. Many ideas in these films reflect key areas of research. Intelligent robots, virtual reality and the part-machine, part-human cyborgs already exist.

Bridging the biological and silicon worlds, the cyborg field – still in its infancy – is a vital one for the future of us all. Last year, I was given a temporary silicon chip implant that allowed a computer to monitor me as I walked through the cybernetics building at Reading University. Doors opened along my route, lights switched on and off. It even talked to me from time to time. This may be a frivolous application, but there are similar, more serious ones – and some of them are already here. Cochlear implants and heart pacemakers, for example, use nonliving devices to alleviate serious ills.

What all these implants do is link the human nervous system to a device that communicates, governs, regulates or responds to its action. Down the line, we can expect to see single-function devices linked into computers, or even the Net. The first substantial experiments should be under way within a few years. It’s not only an enormous challenge, but also frightening. What exactly will happen if we link a human brain directly to a computer’s memory or its mathematical processor? Only imaginative writers of books such as those listed below seem to have anything to say about it.

They, at least, are not afraid to tackle the big questions. What does it mean to be human? Can a machine be said to think? What exactly is intelligence, and does it differ in humans and animals? Could a machine replicate human intelligence, or would it develop its own unique intelligence?

We will see far-reaching changes – and soon. In manufacturing, machinery will optimise its own operation. “Smart” buildings for hospitals and airports will respond to individuals’ needs. This is a field for open-minded experimentation, so cybernetics attracts pioneers. And because it is about to change the world irrevocably, it’s not for the faint-hearted.

THE “Information Marketplace” will improve healthcare, create jobs, provide
new ways to shop, enable social encounters, help us to pursue pleasures,
encourage new art forms and improve education in the coming two
decades—according to computer scientist Michael Dertouzos. Our reliance on
networking and the Web will be inextricable. Technology, he tells us, is not the
cause of problems.

He discusses at length the possibilities offered by virtual reality
techniques for groupwork or telework, and includes virtual sex.

Lovers separated by work could, as Dertouzos pictures it, wear full-immersion
VR suits and remotely experience sexual activity. This, we are told, is
acceptable (only) for willing, loving, heterosexual and married partners.

Dertouzos does suggest, and I agree, that robots in the home are unlikely to
mimic human movements, but will be a collection of dedicated simpler machines.
He also hits the nail on the head when he points to greater divides between rich
and poor. In many ways, however, what he says is old hat: greater government
accountability is already with us, as is info-junk. He dismisses as “outrageous”
the concept that national identity will become “networked not landlocked”. He
should see my phone bill: my wife’s regular calls “home” to Prague show that her
identity is already more to do with network than neighbourhood.

Apart from intelligence gathering, the military will not be involved in this
future. Rather, Dertouzos echoes a line of John Lennon’s Imagine: “the
world will be as one”. After a lengthy discussion of faith and reason he informs
us that (unlike Lennon) “I do believe in God”. And is his brushing-aside of
machine intelligence related to his statement that “we process information in a
miraculous way with our brain”?

What Will Be could be worth a look for a puritanical view of likely
near-future innovations: cars with advanced cruise control; shopping from home;
and remote medical diagnosis. But you might spend your money better on the next
few months’ New ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s.