After the movie theatres had record crowds during the projections
of the movie, Robocop, years ago, for a short time one of the TV
networks broadcast a series of shows in which the protagonist was
the famous anti-crime character from the movie.

It all remains circumscribed in the sphere of the projections of
science fiction. Fortunately, it is unthinkable, for us poor mortals,
that the creation of a cybernetic police officer could happen. We turn
off the TV and sleep peacefully, some a little worried, some
comforted by the existence by the existence, however improbable,
of a weapon of this kind.

The TV series goes on so that without even thinking about it , we
find ourselves wrapped up in the adventures of this pile of scrap
metal.

When a well-known daily newspaper communicates the
realization of a cybernetic human, with an article accompanied by
the photo of Robocop, we are no longer particularly disturbed,
because that figure is so familiar to us since we have become so
habituated to the televised hammering on the subject.

The project of the human-robot is called “Inter” (Intelligent neural
interface), and is financed by the European Community of States
with the collaboration of several German, Spanish and Swiss
universities and research centers and the Arts Lab, which is the
laboratory of robotics and high technology of the “Sant’ Anna”
school of higher learning in Pisa.

The school in Pisa has the determining role in the project
because, besides having received the assignment from the EEC to
coordinate the project itself, it has developed a functioning “neural
container”. Or rather, a miniaturized electronic device that connects
the peripheral nervous system with external prostheses.

Paolo Dario, a professor from Livorno [Italy], teacher of
mechatronics at numerous universities around the world and
director of the Arts Lab explains that in the future they could devote
themselves to cybernetic prostheses capable of being moved by
cerebral impulses and having tactile sensations.

The professor also explains how all this comes to be: after having
implanted a chip (like the ones used in computers) in a peripheral
nerve of some guinea pigs and rabbits, the scientists noticed that
the damaged nerve filaments regenerated and wedged themselves
inside the myriad of holes that existed in the chip. Simply, a
cybernetic organism was born: a mixture of muscular tissue and
electronic circuits. Very soon it will be possible to register nervous
signals and stimulate nervous fibers.

From science fiction to realization, passing through animal
experimentation. The animal liberationists have done much to
document the uselessness of testing new drugs on animals in
laboratories, but how do they go about opposing this slaughter that
has nothing to do with the pharmaceutical industry and, furthermore,
is sold as a possibility for those who have suffered mutilations of
their limbs?

Personally, I don’t believe that the experiments are limited to
guinea pigs and rabbits, nor that they stop at chimpanzees.
Research for documentation, like the reflection of every
revolutionary, should not just be interested in the sector of the
pharmaceutical industry, but should deal with the full spectrum.

At the Arts Lab in Pisa, artificial skin equipped with sensors
capable of simulating tactile sensations, optimal for eventually
covering the cybernetic prostheses, is in the phase of projection as
well.

Another field to which the Arts Lab is applying itself is that of the
construction of micro-crystals to implant in the cerebral cortex, with
micro-cameras set in place capable of projecting images directly
onto the cortex. This technology is also used to create sensors for
the deaf. In this case, the micro-crystals are connected to
microphones.

The justification for this research is obviously found in the
humanitarian spirit that seems to hover around as their principle rule
of action. The officially declared aim is that of alleviating people’s
suffering, intervening in the irreversible damage that strikes their
vital organs, even artificially reconstructing them, in short, furnishing
new horizons to medicine. Essentially, this research opens
prospects that were reserved until recently for the fantasies of
novelists. The availability of increasingly sophistic, increasingly
miniaturized electronic apparati makes hypothetical technologies of
control possible that today we can’t even imagine.

All this research is currently based on the torture of animals, but
limiting ourselves to freeing these animals may not be enough.