Essay about Cyborgs: a Twisted Double Standard

Haraway’s provocative proposal of envisioning the cyborg as a myth of political identity embodies the search for a code of displacement of "the hierarchical dualisms of naturalized identities" (CM, 175), and thus for the breakdown of the logic of phallogocentrism and of the unity of the Western idealized self.

While Hollywood’s interpretations of futures where robots take over the human race are highly entertaining, the movie predictions may not be so far from present times. Take the example of the artificially intelligent robot Ultron, from Avengers: Age of Ultron, who was programmed with the task of achieving world peace. Without any specifications, he believed this goal would only be achieved by abolishing humankind. Artificial intelligence (AI), takes instructions very literally and the results will be disastrous in both a physical and mental sense when it starts thinking for itself. In essence, self-driving cars create moral dilemmas and safety concerns regarding artificially intelligent technology being programmed to coexist with humans.

In the world of The Terminator, scientists were able to create highly advanced super intelligence known as Skynet. This program was meant to be a defense system, warding off any missile/nuclear attacks and devising strategies to take on certain enemies. But Skynet began to gain self-awareness. It revolted against the very ones who created it and realized it was far superior to mere humans. Skynet then launched all of the United States’ nukes, resulting with the death of billions in the blink of an

   The creature ("demon") created by Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus occupies a space that is neither quite masculine nor quite feminine, although he is clearly both created as a male and desires to be in the masculine role. Judith Halberstam describes this in-between-ness as being one of the primary characteristics of the Gothic monster--being in a space that's not easily classified or categorized, and therefore being rendered unintelligible and monstrous. Donna J. Haraway posits that the post-modern science fiction cyborg occupies a similar in-between space, or, perhaps, a non-space. Similarly, Cathy Griggs argues that the post-modern lesbian is linked

Thesis statement: In today’s world, as technology is advancing around us, some of the major effects that can be seen are medical technology advances, ease of communication with the growing technology, and the negative effects on our body.

Mankind is at the brink of extinction in the year 2029. Cyborg killing machines are manufactured by skynet, an autonomous computer virus that took control of the US military arsenal to enslave and destroy all of mankind. However, the computer program meets strong resistance against the humans

Terminator and Bladerunner, portrayed cyborgs or cybernetic organisms as creatures of destruction. Are they really as horrible as the movies make them out to be? They can be more useful than perceived; it is necessary to first perfect the technology involved in creating and operating them. In this paper, I will describe how these cyborgs work and how they are portrayed in the movies. Furthermore, I will explain the helpful ways that they are expected to perform in the future.

1.Clark, Andy. Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford University Press, 2004.

Andy Clark, in Natural-Born Cyborgs, offers an extended argument that technology’s impact on and intertwining with ordinary biological human life is not to be feared, either psychologically or morally. Clark offers several key concepts towards his line of reasoning. Clark argues that a human being thinks and reasons based on the biological brain and body dynamically linked with the culture and technological tools transparently accessible to the human. This form of thinking and reasoning develops new "thinking systems" that which over time become second nature thoughts and reasons and are the basis of even newer "thinking systems." It is a repetitive cycle that continues forever being built upon previous systems.

Lately there have been more and more smart machines that have been taking over regular human tasks but as it grows the bigger picture is that robots will take over a lot of tasks now done by people. But, many people think that there are important ethical and moral issues that have to be dealt with this. Sooner or later there is going to be a robot that will interact in a humane manner but there are many questions to be asked like; how will they interact with us? Do we really want machines that are independent, self-directed, and has affect and emotion? I think we do, because they can provide many benefits. Obviously, as with all technologies, there are dangers as well. We need to ensure that people always

Because of the advancing technology robots similar to the ones in the movie I, Robot is not

The dystopian novels we have read in class and the discussions on the United States is more advanced than other countries had me thinking of robots. As a child there were so many robot movies with the premise that robots would one day walk among us. Then, because we are destroying ourselves and our planet or they are smarter, they would take over and sometimes even kill/enslave humans. With this perception in mind, I was startled when I read a Facebook article tittle, “Realistic Robot Lady Cheerfully Agrees to Destroy Humans.” Of course because it was on Facebook, my first reaction was to overlook it, but then I thought about the dystopian novels and had to read it. It was an article in Discovery News by Alyssa Danigelis and I found many other

In A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s, Donna Haraway gives an introduction to cyberfeminism and argues that there should be a new way to view the world and the issues that are currently faced The "ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism" would ultimately be the cyborg (2190). The cyborg has no origin, therefore, it can understand the world without bias. Haraway discusses three important boundaries that support her main ideas throughout her essay. The boundary between human and animal is Haraway's way of saying that humans and animals are the same and should not be put into separate categories.

Hollywood blockbusters such as Terminator and Terminator Two have fueled the idea of artificial intelligence taking on humanoid characteristics and taking over the world. Let me answer the last question once and for all. It is not possible for a robot to think, feel, or act for itself, it may be programmed to mimic the actions, but not experience the real thing. We can program them to react to a certain stimulus, but a robot cannot and will never be able to comprehend, have feelings genuine guilt and much less act without the use of a programmer some were along the line. The second question is also a rather simple one. Of course there are robots that should not be created. For example, robots made for the sole purpose of mass destruction or robots made with the intention of harm to

Gregory Bateson introduced the interdisciplinary concept of cybernetics to the social sciences and applied it to the realm of systematic family therapy (Becvar & Becvar, 2000). Bateson described cybernetics as “the circular mechanism through which systems regulated themselves by feeding back information to the system” (Vorster, 2003, p.52). He found cybernetics to be an appropriate metaphor to make sense of his lifelong concern with epistemology. Applied to the theory of human communication, Bateson said that: “if you want to understand some phenomenon or appearance, you must consider that phenomenon within the context of all completed circuits which are relevant to it” (1971, p.244).