I saw part of a documentary last night about brain implants and "AI". The implants have been used in the US to combat very severe forms of depression and they think that they can begin to use microchips in the brain to help with memory problems.

The whole basis for the documentary was about modern technology and how it can be used to improve us as a species. What I found interesting is that they think that humans are becoming more like "robots" and robots more "human".

We now put more foreign material into our bodies than ever before, in the shape of pacemakers, "bionic" limbs and so on. The Japanese are miles in front of anyone else in the world in robotics and trying to create a close to human robot. They want to create a robot which can think and learn for itself which would make it almost human.

The idea behind using microchips in the brain has often been looked at as simply science fiction but now is seems it is a real possibility. There are brain conditions where people can remember things from their past but cannot form new memories. Scientists now think they can simply insert a chip into the brain and that would store the memories.

I find all of this both amazing and scary, how far can and will this go?

There was a story in the press a while ago where a man had an artificial heart installed, it was a simple pump which kept his blood moving, the man was restricted in the activity he could do but it gave him a second chance at life. Just for the record, this pump means he does not have a pulse which could be a bad thing after an accident.

If we can now replace our organs with machines implanted in our bodies then at what point do we stop being human?