SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2003 1094-7167/03/$17.00 © 2003 IEEE 73Published by the IEEE Computer Society

H u m a n - C e n t e r e d C o m p u t i n g

Generation. The Borg are—or should we say “is”—aspecies consisting of organic beings symbiotically mergedwith technology. Each individual Borg is laden with allmanner of appliances, ranging from laser eyeballs toappendages resembling drill presses to computational andcommunication devices implanted in their nervous sys-tems. The Borg is a collective, meaning that they—or it—possess a single mind. That Borg mind has the single intentof “assimilating” all organic species into the collective.Assimilation involves first injecting nanoprobes that thor-oughly transform the organic being down to the molecularlevel, then grafting on the various appliances (or else grow-ing them de novo like so many cloned carrots in a hydro-ponic garden). Wending their way through the galaxy inhuge Rubik Cube-like vehicles, the Borg assimilate entireplanets at a time and carve up starships as if they wereroast beef, making them (it) an especially nasty adversary.

In our real world, we already routinely replace hip jointswith titanium and inner-ear structures with microcircuits;we can carry telephones comfortably on our heads, andWeb-enabled eyeglasses can augment our view of reality.To counter the effects of drowsiness or inattention, Daim-

lerChrysler is developing prototypes that continuouslymonitor drivers’ physical and mental states, while DARPA’sAugmented Cognition Program is planning an even moreambitious reach to “plug in” the warfighter of the future(www.darpa.mil/ipto/programs/augcog/index.htm).

Portending an even braver and newer world, it’s nowpossible to insert wires into a person’s nerves to controlappliances. We can even send such signals over the Inter-net, where they are decoded by computer and then fed intoanother person’s nervous system.1 Human bodies are get-ting more and more plugged in.

It’s not easy to set aside questions of ethics and choice.It is not even possible. However, in this essay we simplyoverlook them in order to work toward our hypothesis. To do that, we must take you on a trip into space. Ourargument is that if humanity decides to continue humanexploration of space, we will sooner or later—probablysooner—be forced to center some intelligent computinginside humans.

Men into spaceIn 1959 and 1960, Ziv Television Productions and pro-

ducer Lewis J. Rachmil produced a television series titledMen into Space. This series featured the space concepts ofartist Chelsey Bonestell, whose works had a major impacton many writers, including Arthur Clarke, and motionpictures, such as Destination Moon and The Conquest ofSpace. For his TV series, Rachmil also relied heavily onadvice from the US Air Force and the Surgeon General. Men into Space was intended to present the most realisticdepiction of what it would be like to establish a space station or moon base and then begin the process of exploring theplanets. Episodes included one in which a fold on an astro-naut’s space suit accidentally became crimped between twolarge pieces of a space station as he was assembling them inspace. The problem: Is there a hole in the suit? If so, freeingthe suit could kill the astronaut. In another episode, the crewwas stranded at the bottom of a crater on the moon after acrash landing. The problem: Radio waves only move instraight lines, and there is no ionosphere to reflect them toreceivers that are out of line-of-sight.

W hat if intelligent computing were centered

inside humans? This essay’s title is inspired

by the nemesis of Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the starship

Enterprise in the television series Star Trek: The Next

The Borg Hypothesis

Robert R. Hoffman, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Patrick J. Hayes, and Kenneth M. Ford, Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

Editors: Robert R. Hoffman, Patrick J. Hayes, and Kenneth M. FordInstitute for Human and Machine Cognition, University of West Floridarhoffman@ai.uwf.edu

In one especially pertinent episode, anastronaut on a space walk at the space sta-tion becomes stressed out during a repairand botches a wiring job. As a result, astabilizer rocket on the space station mis-fires, speeding up the rotation of the spacewheel to the point where the crush of grav-ity makes movement, let alone repair, seem-ingly impossible. What makes this episodeinteresting is the explicit focus coming fromideas in human factors engineering circa1960. The technology on the space stationincludes a polygraph-like device that con-stantly monitors the astronauts’ stress levels.As the wheel spins faster, readings indicatethat the station commander is stressed tothe max. But our hero rises to the challengeand manually controls the wheel’s stabiliz-ing rockets. This study in human endurancebegins with the following voice-over:

The age of the conquest of space will be anage of men and machines probing far beyondour Earth. And just as some machines willprobe deeply into space, others will probe themen who will travel in space. Yet, put to theultimate test, no amount of machinery will beever able to determine the measure of a man’sinner strength.

As prescient as it was, the concepts pre-sented in Men into Space now seem rathernaïve because we have seen what real spaceflight, space walks, a space station, and amoon landing are like. However, all theaccomplishments—and setbacks—of thelast several decades represent just our firstfew tentative steps into space. We alreadyknow that traveling to the planets will be avery different affair in many ways than trav-eling to Earth’s moon. Because our experi-ence with long-duration space travel is solimited, our current ideas are almost certainto end up being as naïve as those of Rach-mil’s courageous space pioneers.

What will it really take?Long-duration space travel is rather hos-

tile to both our bodies and our machines.NASA still struggles to make systems thatprovide a lung-friendly atmosphere andstomach-friendly water (not to mention ahuman-centered interface for control andmaintenance) and that will work for yearswith minimal maintenance. So far, we’reworking hard to do that right here on thegood old Earth.2 Because keeping an astro-naut alive in space is so expensive and risky,we struggle to leverage the capacity of eachmember of the small crew through devices

such as the Personal Satellite Assistant, anintelligent flying appliance.3 And some ofyou may recall occasional glimpses ofShuttle astronauts using laptops to assistthem in various ways. As a perspective onthe challenge of getting the most advancedtechnology hardened for space, considerthat an initial design for the InternationalSpace Station specified that the computermonitors would all be black-and-white.

On the biology side, we have a fairly clearidea about the effects of ambient radiation,and it isn’t good. Radiation shielding meansmass. Lots of it. That means the ship mustbe much heavier than we’d prefer. We alsohave some clear ideas about the effects of

zero gravity, and they aren’t good either.Irretrievable bone loss and muscle deteriora-tion are two of the most obvious effects. Along-duration space mission will almostcertainly have a gravity wheel habitat inwhich astronauts can get some respite fromzero-g. But then, we have absolutely no clueabout the effects on humans of frequent,repeated forays into and out of zero-g asastronauts go from the habitat wheel into therest of the ship to perform various duties.

We know all about gluing metal contactsonto bodies and measuring physiologicalindicators such as heart rate. We know alittle about putting appliances, machines,and electronics inside bodies. Is it reallythat much of a step to imagine puttingintelligent machines inside humans? Butour “Borg Hypothesis” goes boldly beyondeven this: Long-duration space missionswill not be possible unless and until humanbiological evolution has been forced. Whatwe are reaching for here is a new meaningof evolution. Geobiological evolution onEarth has yielded creatures (humans) thatcan reengineer their own physiognomy

(for example, artificial limbs), their ownanatomy (for example, cochlear implants),and even their molecular biology (forexample, gene therapy). Through human-machine symbiosis, we are on an evolu-tionary threshold where our species iscapable not only of deliberately affectingits own evolution but also of changing therules by which evolution occurs.

Fundamental mechanisms of the evolu-tion of new species include variation and“selection,” meaning lots of death. Perhapsour technological advances have set thestage for a new form of evolution, one thatdoes not require lots of death or even geneticchange but might nonetheless entail specia-tion, if only because someone who has been“Borged” might not be able to procreatewith someone who has not been “Borged.”Once in space, might the transformedhumans be stuck there? This brings tomind another idea from science fiction,that the best people to live and work inzero-g are those who have lost their legs(less work for the heart.)

By the traditional criterion in biology,such Borged humans would not be a differ-ent species. Biologists may have to changetheir criterion because survival and procre-ation will not necessarily be restricted tosuccess in the reproduction of the biologyalone. Borged humans might think that theiroffspring need more than this to be fully“human”—perhaps they would requirebeing “born of woman and then properlyengineered.”

For long-duration space missions, we mustapproach Borgification from two directions:

• Machines, as we know them today,must become more biological in certainrespects. They must possess functionali-ties such as self-repair and self-defense,for example. (Scientists at NASA’s JetPropulsion Laboratory are already work-ing on systems that can train themselvesto become new circuits.) Not just whenthe machines are in use, but also asthey are created and decommissioned,processes must be more biological—thatis, more like growing and recycling thanmanufacturing and discarding.

• Bodies, as we know them today, mustbecome more machine-like in certainrespects. We are already on that path, buttaking it further, wouldn’t it be nice, forexample, to fix our bodies so that radia-tion and low gravity do less harm? Com-

74 computer.org/intelligent IEEE INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS

Long-duration space missions

will not be possible unless and

until human biological evolution

has been forced.

putational technology also holds greatand perhaps more immediate promise,for instance, using artificial intelligencetechnologies inside us.

For long-duration space missions, wemay have to put intelligent technologiesinside of us. Brave new worlds are usuallydescribed in a context implying choice,choice of paths that might lead either toutopias or to hells. Perhaps humanity madeits choice already, eons ago when creaturesfirst began wondering at the stars.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors dedicate this essay to the astro-

nauts of the Space Shuttle Columbia: Rick Hus-band, Kalpana Chawla, William McCool, DavidBrown, Laurel Clark, Michael Anderson, andIlan Ramon.

References

1. J. Selim, “The Bionic Connection,” Discover,vol. 23, no. 11, Nov. 2002, pp. 49–51.

2. D. Schreckenghost et al., “Intelligent Controlof Life Support for Space Missions,” IEEE

Intelligent Systems, vol. 17, no. 5, Sept./Oct.2002, pp. 24–31.

3. J.M. Bradshaw et al., “Adjustable Autonomyand Human-Agent Teamwork in Practice: AnInterim Report on Space Applications,” AgentAutonomy, H. Hexmoor, C. Castelfranchi, andR. Falcone, eds., Kluwer, 2003, pp. 243–280.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2003 computer.org/intelligent 75

Robert R. Hoffman is a research scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.Contact him at the IHMC, 40 Alcaniz St., Pensacola, FL 32501; rhoffman@ihmc.us.

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw is a research scientist at the Institute for Humanand Machine Cognition. He currently is co-principal investigator for aDARPA-funded international experiment on agents for coalition opera-tions and leads a DARPA Ultra*Log team studying agent survivabilityand policy-based security. Under grants from the NASA Cross-Enter-prise and Intelligent Systems Programs, he leads research teams investi-gating principles of human-robotic teamwork. Contact him at the IHMC,40 Alcaniz St., Pensacola, FL 32501.

Patrick J. Hayes is a senior research scientist and John C. Pace Jr. Eminent Scholar at the Insti-tute for Human and Machine Cognition. Contact him at the IHMC, 40 Alcaniz St., Pensacola,FL 32501.

Kenneth M. Ford is director of and a computer science professor at the Institute for Humanand Machine Cognition. Contact him at the IHMC, 40 Alcaniz St., Pensacola, FL 32501.

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