After a while waiting for this series of stories to go live, I am proud to announce that Disability Now has published a special series on the subject of Cybernetics what I have wrote. I spent a long while rushing around the country meeting experts, builder and users of the most up to date bionics and found out what tomorrow might bring. As I did this I wanted to look deeper at what the advancements in this technology might mean for disabled and non-disabled people in the future. It’s an entirely new way of looking at the subject and I am really happy with the finished product.
Bionics: “We have the technology” – In this part I find out what cybernetic technology can currently offer and what may be around the corner.
Bionics: Who’s Disabled Now? – So if technology might be able to rebuild or repair disabled people, I explore whether we should go down that road. What would it’s use say for the wider society and disabled people’s identity?
Bionics: The Right To Choose – I finish the series by asking disabled people who use current bionic tech what they think about the wider implications of augmenting their bodies in this way.
Disability Now Podcast: Bionics Special – To round up the up the series I took part in the monthly DN podcast to discuss the issue. It’s a great listen.
I hope after you’ve read the articles and listened the to podcast you have had to examine the subject a little differently. Far too often society sees any advancement of technology as a good thing but as this field of science reaches a point where more and more is possible I wanted to just ask “before we do run towards a future when technology can fix impairments, have we stopped to ask what it might lead to?” I’m not against this kind of tech, in fact working on the series has made me much more open to it that I was before, but all scientific advancements must be explored to ensure we see what might be coming. That way we can all be ready.