About a month ago, I had a chance to watch the award-winning documentary “The Incredible Bionic Man,” built entirely of prosthetic parts and implantable synthetic organs by leading scientists and roboticists, and hosted by the Smithsonian Channel. I was transported a future that was barely envisioned by the original creators of the made-for-television movies and series, “The Six-Million Dollar Man,” based on the novel Cyborg. The series, which ran from 1974-78, featured the title character, Steve Austin, who was an astronaut injured in a crash and rebuilt with electromechanical legs, and a bionic right arm and left eye. The intro announced: “We can rebuild him; we have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man.” The sum total of his operation was $6,000,000.
All of the materials and parts used to create a new “bionic man”—the best in bionic limbs and artificial organs, from a mechanical heart that no longer assists failing hearts, but completely replaces them for extended periods of time, to a moving exoskeleton—were donated to the project, with a total value calculated at only $1,000,000. What a bargain. Each individual component is the product of years of research using the most advanced technology currently available, or in development, to replace human organs and limbs.
Robotics experts in London assembled the bionic building blocks to “show how close technology is to catching up with the human body.” More than a robot, it has an artificial pumping heart, artificial kidneys, a functioning circulatory system, and critical organs, all parts optimized to be used by humans, they said.
While many of the internal artificial organs are still in the prototype stage, the artificial heart used is already a reality. The SynCardia Total Artificial Heart by SynCardia Systems, Inc., Tucson, AZ, is the world’s first and only FDA, Health Canada, and CE approved Total Artificial Heart, and is used as a bridge to transplant to a donor heart. It has been implanted in more than 1,250 patients worldwide and can be used for years until a donor heart is available. In the robot, the heart beats and circulates artificial blood, which carries oxygen just like human blood.
The robot also has an artificial lung, kidney, pancreas, spleen, and trachea. But, there are some key parts missing: there aren’t yet any synthetic replacements for the liver, stomach, or intestines, and, of course, no brain. It has artificial intelligence and a speech synthesizer, and was programmed to respond to and answer simple questions, but can not initiate natural conversation. A prosthetic latex face mask proved totally emotionally unnerving to the man it was modeled on, seeing his face on a preternaturally still being.
It contains more than one million sensors, 200 processors, 70 circuit boards, and 26 individual motors. Advanced electromechanic leg, ankle, and even hand prosthetics move with the most natural motions.
The documentary shows where technology and medicine are headed, but the bionic man of the movie does not yet have what makes people most human—emotions, feelings, curiosity. Isn’t a person more than the sum of his parts?
Beth G. Sisk
Editor
