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CYBORG ODYSSEY 163
Computers can already beat the best human chess players. Will robots beat
humans at soccer someday? Here robot players compete in the 2004 RoboCup
tournament in Lisbon, Portugal. (Photo ©RoboCup Federation)
Today Warwick continues as professor of cybernetics at the
University of Reading. In addition to supervising robotics research
programs, he is director of a program that obtains funding for uni-
versity research in cooperation with technology companies.
Warwick’s greatest continuing impact, though, is in his lectures
and exploration of the promises and perils of cyborg technology. As
Warwick said near the conclusion of I, Cyborg:
The big question now faced by humanity is how we deal with the
possibility of [being] superhumans? . . . Should we try to stop it,
something which I feel, in practical terms, is not possible? Should
we simply go for it, perhaps allowing commercial concerns to drive
things forward, and profit through new needs and desires? Or should
developments be policed or marshaled by governments through inter-
national collaborative agreements?
