Video profile of "World's First Cyborg" Kevin Warwick

Motherboard TV (Vice) has a video interview up with Kevin Warwick, a Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University, who in 1998 became "the world's first cyborg." We've blogged about him before here on Boing Boing. Warwick had a radio frequency ID implanted in his arm.

As a result, he can turn on lights by snapping his fingers; once he let his wife's brain waves take control of his body (she's also cybernetic). This isn't just for fun: Warwick is certain that without upgrading, humans will someday fall behind the advances of the robots they're building - or worse. "Someday we'll switch on that machine, and we won't be able to switch it off."

[ via BB Submitterator ]

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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monopole

Captain Cyborg! What a pathetic media whore.
Best to read The Register’s accounts:
http://search.theregister.co.uk/?q=Captain+Cyborg
bcsizemo

I think we might have a half decent autonomous robot in the next 50 years. Something that is able to interact with an everyday person and accomplish something (doesn’t have to look human, just be able to comprehend things via speech and visual inputs).

But I highly doubt we have fully humanoid robots like in Blade Runner or the like in the next 50 years…..oh how I wish.

Robots are like the flying cars from the 50′s….where’s mine at?!
Grabcocque

Ah, mad old self-pulicising loon-cum-liar Captain Cyborg. Is he still spurting his nonsense over credulous mainstream journos?
Teufelaffe

cyÂ·borg

â€“noun
a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.

I’d say that Kevin was beat to the title of “Worlds First Cyborg” decades ago.
- monopole
  
  Hell even Frederik Pohl is a Cyborg now:
  http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2009/10/fred-the-machine-man/
- IamInnocent
  
  Accordinly to that definition, anyone with a pacemaker or even hearing aids would be a cyborg. It sure kill the thrill. :D
- Boomshadow
  
  Technically, depending on how you define “physiological functioning,” he could have been beaten by centuries–by anyone with a peg leg.
Anonymous

Hell, how many thousands of people had pacemakers installed before this guy did anything?

And Steve Mann has him beat in the more science-fictiony sense by *decades*; see http://www.wearcam.org/historical/
- sparkdale
  
  The first thing I thought when I read this was “Steve Mann is going to be pissed when he see this.”
Anonymous

You don’t need a surgery to turn off the lights by “double clicking” your hands.

The Clapper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XUOhjW2AXM
KWillets

That’s nothing. I once met a woman with silicone implants who could turn on men just by shaking her chest.
Halloween Jack

Yeah, I used to enjoy The Register’s piss-taking of “Captain Cyborg”, but I haven’t read the site regularly in several years. Still, a lot of his stunts seem to be the sort of thing that can be accomplished by an RFID chip and maybe a few electrodes. He’s a canny self-promoter who hasn’t contributed anything of note or value.
joelphillips

Possibly the worlds most over-publicised cyborg, but not the first. Cochlear implants have been around since the 1970s; Implantable pace-makers since the 1960s; Hip replacements since the 1940s.
failix

He voluntarily put an rfid chip in his arm? That saves big brother a step in his case.
Anonymous

He was one of my lecturers. Was the most unprepared lecturer we had. The opinion of most of my other lecturers was that he’s a bit of a media wh*re.
Still, we saw the video of the chip being inserted in his arm which was a bit icky.
PnubK1

At least heÂ´s trying!
Mike

I really wanted to plant RFID chips in my shoes and the shoes of my friends.

Then, whenever they entered my apartment, I’d have a different sound cue, like from a sitcom. I was especially looking forward to applause, laugh tracks, and the “ooooooh” sound.
Anonymous

http://filmfanatic.org/reviews/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/Breast2.JPG

Alert: It’s a massive tit.
mausium

“Bullshit alert.”

Yeah, i recall TheRegister calling him “captain cyborg” and making fun of all his media whoring uninterestingness.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/12/11/kevin_warwick_a_life/
Robert

Kevin: “And suddenly there will be a point we will switch on that intelligent machine and we won’t be able to switch it off.”

B-roll: Antenna against sky
B-roll: Car driving down a road, another car turns into a side street
B-roll: A cat walks down the street away from the viewer

I think that last one was trying to tell us something.
Lobster

No way on earth. It’s absolute nonsense. No man with a brain in his head would ever give his wife control of his body. ;)
oddible

Claiming something is the ‘First’ is often problematic. Stelarc’s Ping Body pre-dates Warwick’s RFID insertion for one. Fun interview though.
Anonymous

Would a pirate from the past with a peg leg, be the first cyborg?
Anonymous

Oh, please.

He’s no more a “cyborg” for implanting an RFID chip than I am a sheep for wearing a woolen suit.

People with artificial hearts are far more cyborgs than he’ll ever be.
ProPuke

“…once he let his wifeâ€™s brain waves take control of his body (sheâ€™s also cybernetic)”

He & his wife had their “nervous systems linked” for an experiment.
Details 8 mins 30 secs in to the video.
Heh, he likens it to sex.

Certainly an oddly eccentric chap :S
But all the most interesting people are.
Trotsky

An RFID in one’s arm makes them a cyborg?

Does duct taping an LP to my forehead and accepting quarters in my ass make me a jukebox?
Trotsky

>> once he let his wifeâ€™s brain waves take control of his body

I know lots of “cyborgs” who can likewise be controlled by a simple band of metal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_ring
Trotsky

>> he likens it to sex.

Oh, wait.

Then it has nothing to do with what I was talking about. Never mind.
Trotsky

I’ve had to sing “Unchained Melody” sixteen times, but I now have enough change to buy a grande iced peppermint white chocolate mocha.

Off to Starbucks!
Flying_Monkey

He made a right idiot of himself over the Soham kidnapping and murder case, where he tried to say that the two girls would have been safe if they had been implanted, and tried to advocate chipping all kids – feeding (off) the UK’s militant paedo-paranoia. The guy is not only a publicity-hungry loudmouth, but he’s raised false hopes and damaged the reputation of serious research in this area.
Alan

My guess would be the first proto-human who grabbed a stick and extended his reach to whap another proto-human across the noggin was the first cyborg.
foobar

“Someday we’ll switch on that machine, and we won’t be able to switch it off.”

We called that machine agriculture.
Clifton

It’s like science, only stupid!
- Anonymous
  
  Heh.
Anonymous

Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated!
Unmutual

“As a result, he can turn on lights by snapping his fingers; once he let his wifeâ€™s brain waves take control of his body (sheâ€™s also cybernetic).”

Bullshit alert.
ben

This post lacks a verb.
- Xeni Jardin
  
  LOL, fixing
MarlboroTestMonkey7

“Someday we’ll switch on that machine, and we won’t be able to switch it off.” . That would be a design problem, not an user problem.