13th March 2001: "When will cyborgs rule the world?"

The University of Reading's cybernetician, Kevin Warwick has research interests in the field of intelligent robotics, intelligent control and artificial life. It was on this subject that he gave the Millenniuim Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.

He hit the headlines when he had a microchip inserted into his arm which opens doors and controls the environment in his laboratory.

Warwick has recently been described as Britain's leading prophet of the robot age. His latest book, "QI, the Quest for Intelligence", has been given the accolade "a great book for furnishing a pub argument"! In it, he "aims to find out what we mean by artificial intelligence, and what that artificial intelligence means for us".

Professor Warwick will ask whether robots or cyborgs will surpass humans and run the world in the future. Will our world become a virtual one? Will we merely be nodes on an international network? How are humans going to deal with technology that can out-think us and outwit us? Could humans evolve into a symbiosis with technology and become one? What would it be like for human brains to be linked, as one, with machine brains? Will 'I' exist in the future?

Come along and join us at 7pm in Blackwells Main Bookshop, Broad Street, Oxford.
No ticket, no booking, no scientific background required.