Scan barcode
A review by tom_in_london
To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death by Mark O'Connell
4.0
The prolific Irish author Mark O'Connell specialises in writing "documentary" books about the kinds of people who take human existence to its extreme possibilities. In this book, which is about the mad and rather pathetic people, mainly in America, who think Artificial Intelligence and the great God Technology will solve all our problems, he writes in an elegant, ironic way about his encounters with them - attending many conferences, meetings, and other events about Transhumanism (the belief that we are only machines that can be perfected and can thus escape death and live forever).
When they are not torturing innocent animals they perform horrendous experiments on themselves, such as inserting electronic devices below their own skin that receive and transmit instructions to do simple things such as lift their arm (and not much else because so far, these devices have not been very successful). They accompany their Frankenstein-like activities with elaborate theories based on the assumption that sooner or later Technology will overcome all our human shortcomings and make us perfect - which is very amusing when you read O'Connell's descriptions of how very human, how far from perfect these people are; he chats to them at conferences where they exchange information about how they're getting on. Many of them even have considerable amounts of university research funding.
O'Connell pretends to be deeply interested in what they're doing but behind his hand, he's laughing at them as he goes deeper into more serious reflections on the history of the many efforts that have been made to overcome the human condition by applying technology to it - placing today's idiot nerds in a context of which they themselves seem completely unaware - shallow and trite as their "philosophising" is. Ultimately these people are all stupid and deeply uninteresting people, and it is only O'Connell's beautiful writing that keeps you reading what would otherwise be a slightly boring book about idiots doing pointless things. But the writing is great- here's an excerpt taken more or less at random:
Capek's robots are "artificial people" created for the purpose of increased industrial productivity, and represent, through the prism of the profit motive, an oppressively reductive view of human meaning......the robots having proliferated greatly and having in many cases received military training in technologically European states, decide they no longer consent to be ruled over by a species they view as inferior and resolve to eradicate that species...
For those of us who scorn the worship of technology and the notion that we are only machines, this is a very gratifying read because O'Connell is on our side, but with the difference that rather than dismissing the technology worshippers as worthless fools, he gives them his time, engages with them, and even befriends them. His book culminates in a long account of a road trip across the United States in a broken-down truck that has been rebuilt to resemble a coffin, by one of these sad, alienated characters whose personal life is a total mess but whose sights are fixed on the higher purpose of defeating their own mortality. This is absolutely hilarious and will have you laughing out loud.
When they are not torturing innocent animals they perform horrendous experiments on themselves, such as inserting electronic devices below their own skin that receive and transmit instructions to do simple things such as lift their arm (and not much else because so far, these devices have not been very successful). They accompany their Frankenstein-like activities with elaborate theories based on the assumption that sooner or later Technology will overcome all our human shortcomings and make us perfect - which is very amusing when you read O'Connell's descriptions of how very human, how far from perfect these people are; he chats to them at conferences where they exchange information about how they're getting on. Many of them even have considerable amounts of university research funding.
O'Connell pretends to be deeply interested in what they're doing but behind his hand, he's laughing at them as he goes deeper into more serious reflections on the history of the many efforts that have been made to overcome the human condition by applying technology to it - placing today's idiot nerds in a context of which they themselves seem completely unaware - shallow and trite as their "philosophising" is. Ultimately these people are all stupid and deeply uninteresting people, and it is only O'Connell's beautiful writing that keeps you reading what would otherwise be a slightly boring book about idiots doing pointless things. But the writing is great- here's an excerpt taken more or less at random:
Capek's robots are "artificial people" created for the purpose of increased industrial productivity, and represent, through the prism of the profit motive, an oppressively reductive view of human meaning......the robots having proliferated greatly and having in many cases received military training in technologically European states, decide they no longer consent to be ruled over by a species they view as inferior and resolve to eradicate that species...
For those of us who scorn the worship of technology and the notion that we are only machines, this is a very gratifying read because O'Connell is on our side, but with the difference that rather than dismissing the technology worshippers as worthless fools, he gives them his time, engages with them, and even befriends them. His book culminates in a long account of a road trip across the United States in a broken-down truck that has been rebuilt to resemble a coffin, by one of these sad, alienated characters whose personal life is a total mess but whose sights are fixed on the higher purpose of defeating their own mortality. This is absolutely hilarious and will have you laughing out loud.