DOWN with high fever and bedridden for a week in high school, I got to check out our tiny home library where my parents’ collection was, and once there, I became an avid follower of science fiction.
So, upon returning to school, I befriended our tiny librarian Miss Abrina, who helped me by recommending and reserving some titles for me.
From then on, I would consume my quota of borrowed pocket books and just pigged out on the likes of Asimov and Bradbury (not the chocolate) and other writers.
Truth is, though, unlike other classmates, I wasn’t really particular on who the authors were. I didn’t even know Isaac and Ray were the trailblazers in that field. I only based my choices on how attractive the covers were done.
It was also around this time when sci-fi writers toyed with the idea that in the future, machine parts would eventually be implanted in man and vice versa.
And why not? The first heart implant had just been performed in South Africa in ’67 and everyone was talking about it.
Then, in Popular Mechanics magazine, which my father once had a ton of, renditions of superhero-like figures hailed the rise of man-machines, often showing a muscular figure like The Vision (pre Marvel).
We all know what happened next, a gigantic leap in technology. The world celebrated the invention of the transistor radio, and before long, everyone realized every new thing invented was getting smaller and smaller.
Before we knew it, science fiction was literally jumping out of books and into everyone’s lives.
Who would imagine the devices used by Dick Tracy, an old comic strip cartoon detective (1931-80), would actually exist and be widely used today?
One such was his wristwatch phone. That might have been science fiction then, but now, there’s even a particular model that monitors our health, heart and the number of steps we have taken daily.
Back on the topic of combining man with machines, it should be remembered that nobody took notice when pacemakers first entered the scene or when titanium began to replace human limbs. The world merely took these as something that was bound to happen.
In an article where Elon Musk, billionaire and SpaceX owner was interviewed, he said we already do computer implants inside us, citing Sweden’s experimental ID system.
Aside from the pacemaker, he had mentioned some artificial limbs and fingers connected and wired to the brain thereby receiving impulses, function like real parts of the body.
I thought then, by definition alone, the dream of science fiction, the creation of the cyborgs, had already begun.
His parting words were chilling, on the related issue of artificial intelligence, he cautioned we are adapting to these developments like sheep (to the slaughter) if we are not careful.
It could be true. We’ve become slaves to our own devices (as the Eagles like to sing). And we are conditioned at a young age to blend with digital reality.
In the shopping malls, I’ve seen children with eyes glued to phones and tablets. It’s not hard to imagine them using these as comforters at home.
Just recently while I rode a bus to attend a reunion, I spotted a child across the aisle who, throughout the ride, was glued to her game. When the mom tried to take the phone away, she let out a howl as though a milk bottle had been snatched from her.
Musk might just as well be right, I thought. We may be taking baby steps and basking in modernity of our brave new world, unaware the age of the cyborgs has indeed begun.
