Inspired by the vision of superhumans

Visions of paralympic heroes with enhanced limbs sparked the imagination of the public this summer. These ‘superhumans’ represented a new kind of human aesthetic and pride in being different. Although the ideas behind prosthetics and bionics are centuries old, these new advancements are the closest we have to the envisioned ‘Iron Man’. Today, technological convergence brings us closer than ever before to the realisation of such vision, posing the question of whether we are ready to accept advanced transformations of the human body to overcome our physical and cognitive limits.

Exoskeletons - The story of the superhuman suit

Prosthetics and bionics developed alongside the history of mankind.

From the very beginning, in particular in ancient Greek and Roman mythology, humans tried to enhance their own inadequate physical abilities by assigning superhuman capabilities - running faster, jumping higher, diving deeper, hitting stronger - to heroes and Gods.  

Today, the dream of overcoming human deficiency, as the Box Office results of the Marvel-inspired superheroes movies might suggest, is still present in our culture. Indeed many associate prosthetics and bionics with Stan Lee's character of the Iron Man.  These cartoon heroes are however not far from truth. One of the first attempts to emulate an anthropomorphic man-like suit was conducted by General Electric in the 1960's during the Hardiman project, remaining until today one of the most iconic exoskeleton designs.  

A significant contribution to advanced anthropomorphic models comes from the Human Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Since its foundation, the lab gradually introduced technologies which enabled constructing exoskeletons of today, among others, the Hydraulic Human Extender, the Powered Prosthetic Leg and the Human Assisted Walking Machine. The pioneering work of the scientist-in-residence Prof. Homayoon Kazeroni led to a university spinoff, Berkeley Ekso Works, today better known as Ekso Bionics.

One of the most famous examples of an exoskeleton came out of a collaboration between Ekso Bionics, Lockheed Martin and DARPA. The HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) was designed to leverage human capabilities on the battlefield, through the use of strength and endurance augmentation, allowing an individual to lift weights up to 200 pounds without impending the wearer and decreasing the metabolic costs of oxygen usage. A video presenting the capabilities of the HULC is available below, while another project by Raytheon, the XOS2, can be watched here.

Exoskeletons, however, are not only used in military environments. Following this Fast company article we can read that exoskeletons are also planned to be used in health care, with particular application for paraplegics.

There is a more general overview of exoskeletons in the National Geographic documentary  'Make me superhuman'.

Prosthetics - the promise of the enhanced limbs

Many types of prosthetics have accompanied humankind for thousands of years, both in history (e.g. Götz 'Iron Hand' von Berlichingen) and in fiction (e.g. Captain Hook or Luke Skywalker). Their brief historical story-line can be read at the UK Limb Loss Information Centre website. 

Prosthetics have for a long time concentrated on improving the quality of life of the disabled, via a prosthetic hand, knee joint or a leg (some even designed by college students), but future developments might change this approach and even healthy individuals could expect to gain substantial physical enhancements.

This summer millions observed the competition between the pioneering prosthetics sportsmen, South African Oscar Pistorius and the British prodigy Jonnie Peacock. Discussions on the use of physical prosthetics in sports attracted the attention of the public. Different perspectives on whether their blades were an advantage or disadvantage compared with normal runners were described by the Economist as well as Scientific American.

Today's technologies allow more sophistication than simple limb substitution. Scientists are vigorously experimenting with body-powered prosthetics and neuroprostheses. This direction was earlier set by the DARPA project on  Revolutionizing Prosthetics which aimed at improving the state of knowledge about upper-limb technologies, giving a possibility in the future to create mind-controlled prosthetics, powered for instance, by body fluids.

Cognitive enhancement - a world of sharper senses

As it is difficult to set a plausible limit to human intelligence or cognitive powers, cognition - perception, attention, understanding and memory - is one of the most attractive human features to enhance. Recent advancements in neurosciences and pharmaceuticals make these enhancements accessible to the general population.

The most well-known cases are of students misappropriating hyperactivity drugs to help them study for longer. BBC Newsnight's feature on this is available here, while further question on the ethical and regulatory perspectives of human enhancement are discussed by two transhumanists, Nick Bostrom and Andres Sandberg from the Oxford Martin School in this article. 

Future enhancement

Not all bionic projects are driven by models that mimic or enhance humans. Pure robotics is providing some of the solutions that devices like exoskeletons are designed to help us do. A MIT engineering spin-off - Boston Dynamics - for the last few years worked closely with DARPA on a number of projects using animal-inspired field robots, examples of which include the cheetah (robot running up to 28mph), the big dog (rough terrain robot) or the LS3 (Legged Squad Support System) or an elephant-trunk electronic arm build by Fedo. Perhaps in future, the enhanced workforce will not be simply about enhanced humans, but about enhanced autonomous robots as well. 

Similarly, not all human enhancements in the future will be about making prosthetic changes to a body. Some athletes use erythropoietin, a hormone that regulates red blood cell production, in efforts to improve their performance, which is arguably a form of genetic enhancement. Using the results of genetic tests to make reproductive decisions based on non-disease traits could be considered to be a form of passive genetic enhancement. Selectively aborting foetuses after performing an in utero test could be categorised as an enhancement technique. Gene transfer techniques may eventually be used for enhancement purposes. However, the use of gene transfer techniques to modify a particular trait is likely to be unsuccessful. Hundreds of genes can play a role in a particular characteristic; and gene transfer modifies only specific genes in isolation.