The fusion of malleable humans and machines

Author

Kasahara, Shunichi

Abstract

Through my previous exploration of user interfaces for human augmentation, such as “Jacking Head” and “Parallel Eyes”, I was shocked at how easily one’s existence could waver, and I realized that the relations between humans and computers could change in major ways if we could control this malleable sense of self through engineering. Considering the relations between humans and computers as we may think that humans are not invariant at all, I envisioned that if a computer intervenes in a minimal self that is composed in real time, the malleable self that is constantly updated could be a new form of human–computer integration in the near future. There are many examples of research on the conditions for establishing a sense of body ownership over things that are not one’s own body, such as virtual body representations and remote robot technology. In the future, when a person is able to feel a sense of body ownership with something other than their own body, then how a human’s perception changes will be an important research agenda. We believe that the more we understand the conditions for establishing a sense of body ownership the easier it will become to control the bodily senses. In addition, the sense of agency is a necessary part of maintaining a strong sense of self on every level of human action. Through our research, we have found that we can feel a sense of agency even when we are endowed with abilities that exceed our own. We also developed applications in which computers can assist in the various relations between people. I believe that unconscious and implicit control of the integrated state of humans and machines will become the way to implement human and machine interaction within human–computer integration.