Critical Annotated Webliography by Wu Hiu Tung, Jodie

*Question 2: 'The machine/organism relationships are obsolete, unncessary' writes Haraway. In what ways have our relations to machines been theorised?

1. Whitehall, Rand (2010)’ Cyborgs and Androids: What is the Difference?’
http://www.articlesbase.com/computers-articles/cyborgs-and-androids-what-is-the-difference-3638313.html (accessed 13 March 2011)

The writer of this article discussed the relationship between cyborg and robot. He mentioned that there are a clear boundary between cyborg and robot. He mentioned that ‘cyborg’ needs an organic brain to be a cyborg and robot just a machine with an automated sensor device. According to the Donna Harraway’s cyborg theory, cyborg is a thing that to break down the categories of animal, human and machine. Therefore, in my point of view, if there is no boundary between animal, human and machine, we do not have to define which object is cyborg or which object is robot in a specific way. In our daily life, we cannot live without machine such as mobile phone and computer. These are the technology that we used in everyday. These machines are part of us. We can therefore been called cyborg.

In my point of view, robot is not a machine that will automate has its action. Even they looked or spoke like human, what they appear or speak is based on the machine formula set by human. In other words, robot can be said as a combination of a precision machine and formula that contain human thought and experiences. It’s actually a cyborg too. Therefore, it is unnecessary to straightly define the boundary between cyborg and robot since they are close and overlapping.



2. Jackson, Dinah (2010)’ Here Come The Cyborgs.’
http://www.articlesbase.com/information-technology-articles/here-come-the-cyborgs-3544219.html (accessed 14 March 2011)


Up to now, the technology in our world is growing at a speedy rate. Many scientists are developing technology similar in the science fiction years ago in which people did not believe the fiction can come to reality nowadays. In this article, the author mentioned that the cyborg age had already come. Artificial arms for replacing body parts and chips inside our body are typical examples of combining biological and technological structure. The bionic body created is no longer only for the health and replacement reason, but also for strengthening ourselves.

After reading this article, the writer suggested that we do not need DNA to retain our humanity anymore, but the replacement of bionic ones could be the answer. DNA is the unique identity of every person on the earth. It may still stands after someone had been transformed into a cyborg. I agree what the writer said. If all the people become cyborg, there is no longer a unique person anymore. It is because we could transform to anyone we like, create any personality that we wanted. People’s identities are become flexible. Human could transform to animals too. All the categories about human, animal and machine would break down. Therefore, DNA is no longer a element to define human body.



3. Marshall, Gary (2009)’ Meet the real-life human cyborgs’
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/21/1047749931869.html (accessed 14 March 2011)

In this article there are few examples of cybrogs were identified. There were men that has ear growing out of his arm, has a video camera hidden in his false eye, one’s finger is a detachable USB drive and connecting himself to a robot arm. As we all know there’s lots of cyborg exsist now in all over the world. With the fasten growing of technology development, people not only use the machine to replace some parts of human’s broken body, but also want to expand the possibilities of the human body to break down the boundary and categories of animal, human and machine.

However, the writer raise the question that do human really need to be a cyborg in future. In my point of view, technology is indivisible to human life. It wasn’t an issue about point out the boundary between human and machine. In fact, machine are now expanded to used in different field. We need machine and technology everyday to make us have better life. Therefore, sometimes we are actually controlled by the technology. For example, people could done nothing without any technology. I disagree there are some people such as Stelios Arcadiou, who mentioned in the article said that technology is an appendage of the body. I think it is unnecessary to set boundary of body and machine since if someone has some pieces of machine in their bodies, we properly won’t know. The fact is, we are always surrounded by cyborg.



4. Smith, Caspar Llewellyn (2010)’ 50 years of cyborgs’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/oct/03/50-years-cyborgs (accessed 15 March 2011)


Cyborg is always become a staple of science fiction and it is people’s imagination of future world. In this article, there are some ‘cyborg’ talking about their experiences of being a cyborg. From now, the biggest reason that make lots of people want to become cyborg in future life is because they want to have a faster communication with others. Being a cyborg can make them experience communicates nervous system to nervous system. As there are people said in century ago: "The purpose of the cyborg... is to provide an organisational system in which... robot-like problems are taken care of automatically and unconsciously, leaving man free to explore, to create, to think, and to feel.”

In my opinion, cyborg is not only an imagination of future, it is also a liberation of anything. Cyborg could break the categories of animal, human and machine, it could also break the limitation of people’s communication. Being a human, we basically need to see, hear and speak to communication with others. However, with the combination to the technology and machine, human could exchange thought through becoming cyborg. When the cyborg time comes, I believe there is no longer any limitation between everyone.



5. Stonehouse, David (2003)‘The cyborg evolution’ http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/21/1047749931869.html (accessed 15 March 2011)
In the article titled ‘The Cyborg Evolution’, the writer tells a true story about the combination of human and machine. Kevin Warwick is a cyborg who is also a scientist. His experimented himself that injecting a chip into his wrist to record the nervous signal generated by his brain. He succeeded to transmit signal into computer and later he also placed a chip into his wife’s arm. When her arm moved, signal will transmit to the computer and the computer will read the message and send to Kevin at the same time. Eventually, he sense the movement of his wife and this experiment did tell him that the possibility of ‘communication by thoughts’.

The linkage of human and machine is becoming more and more closely. In 2000, Kevin implemented chip in his body and connected with the controlling computer of his laboratory. The computer will automatically open the door and turn the lights on when he walked close to his laboratory front door. The obstacle between human and computer is being weakened and diminished over time. This suggested that Kevin Warwick, the cyborg, can communicate and interact with computers by the nervous signals generated by his body and this signal transmission path is just like the nervous system of brain to limbs in our body. So, the computer that Kevin interacted with has the same functions of his limb.