Natural-Born Cyborgs
by Andy Clark · first published 2003
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From Robocop to the Terminator to Eve 8, no image better captures our deepest fears about technology than the cyborg, the person who is both flesh and metal, brain and electronics. But philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark sees it differently. Cyborgs, he writes, are not something tobe feared--we already are cyborgs. In Natural-Born Cyborgs, Clark argues that what makes humans so different from other species is our capacity to fully incorporate tools and supporting cultural practices into our existence. Technology as simple as writing on a sketchpad, as familiar as Google or a
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Good idea. Especially the data ownership flip. Check out Philosopher Andy Clark's work (Surfing Uncertainty/Natural-Born Cyborgs) on these kind of "mind extension" tools. His work was before LLMs showed up, but is still very useful food for thought, while designing this kind of stuff.
on “The good kind of personal intelligence by making data work for us” ↗See Andy Clark's book "Natural-Born Cyborgs".
on “"Technically, you're already a cyborg..."” ↗I vaguely remember reading something on the Web years ago, but there are two books I know of that discuss this idea: Donald Norman's Things That Make Us Smart and Andy Clark's Natural-born Cyborgs.
on “Is the Internet an extension of human memory?” ↗