Technology In Isaac Asimov's The Bicentennial Man

Being a human being 21st century is quite a wondrous thing. We have millions of amazing technologies that we can use at our disposal. Every day we look to our phones and acquire a thousand bits of information a second. On our daily walk to work or class we observe other humans with prosthetics or wheelchairs all the time. These advances in technology are great in so countless ways, but it still begs the question, what is technology’s role in society and do we rely on it too much? In “The Bicentennial Man” by Isaac Asimov, we look at a robot who wants to become a human and his entire existence is because of technology. In “The Man That Was Used Up” by Edgar Allen Poe, we look at a man who is slowly becoming one with technology. In “The Dilemma …show more content…
“The Dilemma of Being a Cyborg” by Chocano gives us some examples of how technology is an extension of the human brain in the 21 century. “Humans are storing ideas and memories more than ever on their phones and computers. Now what we’re looking at is not a physical extension of the self, but an extension of the mental self” (Chocano Par. 3). Before the creation of the computer, technology has been just a means to help the human race in physical ways. The car took a person from point A to point B. The bicycle as well. The lever and pulley allowed man to perform tasks with more force and efficiently. But none of these made a person truly think more and expand their minds further. Humans now have information at their fingertips through the invention of the modern computer and smart phone. As amazing as these inventions are, what happens when the memory of your first born child are erased in the blink of an eye all because you dropped your …show more content…
It causes lives to be saved and amazing ideas happen. It builds enormous cities and allows us to stay connected and together over far distances. We have become more intelligent and we have all the information we could ever want at the touch of a button. The problem with this is what are we without technology now? Are we humans? Or are we some sort of a human/technology hybrid? It is easy to forget what it is like to be human when we have so much technology surrounding us. The world today is has become so dependent on technology that a part of our humanity has been lost to our own creations. If the relationship between man and machine continues on this course, the human race will face overwhelming negative consequences. This doesn’t mean that the world will come to an end or the human race will cease to exist. What this does mean is that the idea of what it means to be human will drastically change, and then we will truly need to answer the question for ourselves, has technology made us lose our