There is talk of prosthetic limbs abound, but many seem quite simple in their design so can't do complex/fine motor movement. Designs from as far back as the American civil war still see widespread use.
More advanced models rely on muscle twitches from surviving living tissue, but what would need to be learned to enable humanity to create actual prosthetic limbs up to (and perhaps beyond) fine motor movement? And comprising of artificial muscles that can be linked to the mind?
well OP you're in luck i just finished a college course in "linking artificial muscles to the mind" so heres my opinio
It's not about limits of the technological knowledge, it's about limits of economical viability.
Cripples generally can't afford anything fancy.
Rich people generally don't want to have their limbs hacked off with pimped-out artificial replacement.
Do they make prosthetic cocks yet?
you are dumb as heck my lad
I get the sinking feeling we'll need WWIII to see a spurge in this stuff.
Every other war has tremendously advanced medical science. Or wars involving civilized nations anyway.
tfw you'll never be a cyborg samurai.
Go drink some bleach, you mouth-breathing mongoloid.
What I've never been able to wrap my head around is how a full cyber arm would attach. Let's say someone got their arm severed just at the shoulder, how would the cybernetic parts meet with the skin/muscles and form a coherent connection? Would a biological middle-man material need to be developed to allow flesh and whatever exotic composite the arm is made from to connect?
no for real though, anyone working seriously on prosthetic technology could be swimming in darpa money if they wanted. price is NOT the limiting factor lmao
I think the main obstacle is getting the metal to "meet" the meat.
You need a way for the body to know what to communicate to the artificial.
*nodding sagely* interesting insight. reminds me of something i've been thinking about lately: if you ask me, the hard bit in making a faster computer processor, is getting the transistors to turn on and off more quickly.
Your mom's metal met my meat last night.
>Rich people generally don't want to have their limbs hacked off with pimped-out artificial replacement.
>what is transhumanism
>Rich people generally don't want to have their limbs hacked off with pimped-out artificial replacement.
The hell I *dont*.
Just don't have the "rich" part.
Hilarious, not.
The brachial plexus (basically all of the nerves that run into the arm and hand) would likely still be intact if the arm is severed at the shoulder.
For reference. Notice that any nerve branching occurs before the shoulder.
wow hot point friendo. you cunningly pointed out that the thing people do not actually want, has a name
Interesting, I'm seeing how they could try and build it.
>build "bone"
>build nerves over it
>attach muscles
>???
>we cyberpunk now
I suppose maintenance could be a bother.....but we're nowhere near having to worry about that yet.
But what about the point where the cybernetic arm meets the shoulder? How would the skin-arm transition look?
You solve that one, you patent that shit.
You just need to trick the mind that it is a normal arm, I guess we just dont understand how the mind controls muscles at this stage?
Are muscles the only thing that move our arms? Im shit at biology I suppose nerves are important for feeling.
basically, nerves direct our muscles to do work
they are also important at feeling
It's not that we don't understand how, we just don't understand it precisely enough to make a cybernetic machine-biological interface.
He mainly means the gap between metal and meat. Infection would be a risk for instance.
Also, nerves transmit messages to contract to muscles....which then contract.
I was just using the nerve diagram to point out that a "full" arm would have pretty much the same challenges from a nerve connection perspective as a lower arm. Still a lot of research to be done, of course.
>The interface consists of a small cuplike structure about one-tenth of a millimeter in diameter that is surgically implanted at the end of the nerve, relaying both motor and sensory signals from the nerve to the prosthesis. Inside the cup is a scaffold of biological tissue seeded with muscle cells–because motor and sensory nerves make connections onto muscle in healthy tissue, the muscle cells provide a natural target for wandering nerve endings. The severed nerve grows into the cup and connects to the cells, transmitting electrical signals from the brain. Because it is coated with an electrically active polymer, the cup acts as a wire to pick up electrical signals and transmit them to a robotic limb. Cederna’s team doesn’t develop prostheses themselves, but he says the signals could be transmitted via existing wireless technology.
technologyreview.com
So the idea they have is basically a prosthetic socket that your nerve endings are grown in to. The limb then connects to the socket wirelessly and interprets the wireless signals from the arm, as movement.
>wireless
That would have it's benefits, less worry about wiring.
But it could be jammed or interfered with more easily.
Pace makers are problematic for wireless signals too, as well as breaches.
>tfw some asshole hacks your arm, punches you in the face with it, then makes it type "stop hitting yourself"
What about exoskeleton then? We're not seeing stong advances in that despite rich been wanting an exoskeleton option for industrial and military workers? We're seeing next to no progress there either.
Deus Ex when?
in short, the demand is not strong enough to rush the tech.
How the hell did I forget to mention this...
POWER SUPPLY
You need something to actually power it and that's a big concern, uh duh me.
They can't get fine muscle control not because our actuators suck, but because our nerve interfaces suck.
Grafting nerves onto bits of muscle and listening for muscle twitches is currently the best method we have. Although there was a promising new neural interface which was show not to cause neuron degradation tested recently in mice.
Artificial muscles are a meme
Thats actually pretty darn interesting. I am in 3rd year UNI studying exercise science and got 90%+ in all anatomy, biomechanics and physiology subjects and have actually recently been thinking about working in something like this (prostheses and how to make them move human like), do you know of any other similar studies or articles i could read?
this also sounds interesting would you happen to have any links to any info about it?
forgot something, this sounds like a plausible way to get signals to robo muscles and move them but have they figured anything out in regards to nerves sending sensory info back to the brain, for example proprioception and stuff, because with out that our movements aren't going to be as accurate/controlled (plus the obvious other things such as touch and heat are important too)
Yall niggas dumb
1. Fix glial scarring
2. Then you can actually start to dream about muh deus ex
And just hope no one has a monopoly on the solution.
Actually just creating a proper bci first would just handle the rest of prostethic functions until then nothing would be viable.
Also if anyone actually meets any of those fucking faggy "biohackers" with magnets under their nails beat the shit out of them for being so retarded.
A neat power supply would be ATP and chemical energy.
Is it possible to make a machine run on ATP?
Because they all collectively said fuck it! and went into 3D printing limbs instead
>Because that is less complicated.
A hypothetical question for people interested in this here. if you could have a limb replaced with a mechanical replacement (for free) with the guarantee that it would always work exactly as well as a regular arm with no chance of degradation or damage would you do it? so its not any better other than the fact it will always function at 100% (whereas flesh limb will have to deal with arthritis etc). Basically just wondering how many people are open to replacing limbs for non essential reasons (because obviously everyone would if they had to, eg losing the limb)
Exoskeletons is just a dumb sci-fi idea, like having manned space fighter ships when drones would be a better option in every possible way.
Why would you design a robot for carrying shit and put a person inside it? It will just make it unecessarily bigger, unpractical and more expensive. Just make a regular load carrying robot and make the person control it from afar, or better yet just make a simple AI to control it's movement. And yes we already have that and its an area of robotics that is developing just fine, we won't have stupid exoskeletons though.
As people get older they generally have more body pain and more disposable income. Cybernetics would become a direct competitor to pharmaceutical pain relief in a sense and a great many middle aged would have cybernetic joints if not completely replaced limbs if they got cheap enough.
regular arms vary in ability. Does it have to be my arm at the moment, or can I get a really big one?
Plutonium RTG
Fuck yes.
Just metal my shit up.
It's not just prosthetic limbs, but other prosthesis like prosthetic eyes and ears (cochlea).
Fuck yeah I'd replace my meat eyes with roboeyes. My current ones are fucked.
Plus I might even be able to read and shitpost on Sup Forums with a good enough neural interface, all while lying in bed. I'd never need a computer or smartphone ever again. Everything beamed directly into my brain.
Fucking just give me the InfoLink.
That is some dope-ass old greenmarine art.
>I think the main obstacle is getting the metal to "meet" the meat.
Infections and body rejecting foreign objects, ho!
Wear something to mount the arms to, pic related. That is until we have the medical knowledge to connect a cybernetic arm directly to the skeleton and living tissue, which the body identifies as foreign objects and try to reject or contain.
probably not in most cases, but if it ended up being a dougal dixon thing where I could add on extras then I'd do it no matter how fucked up I looked
actually I'd probably replace my dick if your guarantee still held
imagine a modular functional cock wew lad
Yeah i too believe in the future it will eventually become like that (hopefully sooner than later), but how many people (regular people) do you think will be ok with replacing body parts. I can certainly imagine some religious people being against it and other people for their own reasons
kek, found a loophole, obviously youd say yes if it gave you super strength, so would you if it was only the same as your arm now? but couldnt decline.
yeah thats pretty much me too, i mean i have a decent body all working as it should but if there was an option for robo replacement parts i'd take it, too cool to resist
yeah i'd love eyes that have a built in zoom function that'd be fuckin handy.
As for neural interfaces like you said, thats near the top of my list of cool shit i hope is invented soon.
>add on extras
laser pointer finger, lighter finger, front door key finger, the possibilites are endless.
>modular cock
what attachments here? vibration, auto lubing, condom dispenser?
Also new question, would you want you robo limb to have fake skin so it looks llike a regular arm, or some cool titanium, carbon fiber looking ninja robot arm? maybe a removeable skin cover so you can switch?