Will our grandchildren be human?

You are, by the normal definition, a human. After an intense beta period, version 1.0 has been the standard for about 200 thousand years, and it's a pretty stable build. During that time, periods of separation and occasional intermingling have produced some different arrangements, but for the most part everyone's set up the same.

This will not be the case forever. The chain of the last few thousand generations may soon be unlinked, and a new direction taken. As technology continues to define our existence, it's likely to breach a new frontier - breaking apart our fundamental biology and redefining the basic components we've relied on for so long. Who knows how the future of reproduction will form; we could stick with the traditional model (with the option of aftermarket accessories), go for a womb-free perfectly-programmed wonder-child, or even slap together some robo-progeny from a mountain of prosthetics and a 3D-printed copy of your own brain.

As science fiction increasingly becomes science fact, our need to reproduce in the 'normal way' and the components that will make up the body after birth, are coming into question. We've already come up with a number of spare parts - implants, transplants, improvements and attachments - the use of which we're quite comfortable with, aside from several sit-com instances regarding the hilarious revelation of a false limb, or the global shock and dismay at finding some starlets have retro-fitted lovely-bits.

The idea of technology invading the human body is a source of fantasy and fear in many cultural expressions. Our collective sci-fi imagining is packed with examples; Aliens brandish probes and gizmos, cyborgs fight to find humanity within their hybrid bodies, malevolent androids hide in normal society, clones and tailor-made babies form the new upper class and heck, we might all just be batteries for a giant computer.

Not everyone is so concerned. "Upgrades are good", transhumanists say. That's the movement that seeks to thrust humanity forward by through technological means, the happy hackers that will lop off their limbs as soon as a better model is available. One of the big proponents of the transhuman (H+) movement is Ray Kurzweil; author, futurist, inventor and (in one of the best postings of recent years) head of engineering at Google. Ray's one of the main guys facilitating human/computer interaction in several forms; speech-to-data, 'smarter' AI and direct brain-computer interfacing will soon be commonplace, and hopefully, begin to form part of the new human paradigm. It's a powerful idea; who's ever been completely pleased with the bits they're given? Who wouldn't go for some expanded capabilities? Better memory, heightened senses, longer life, no diseases. None of this is impossible. Some of it's strikingly close. At this point, the main contention is what form will the next version of humanity take; will it be clone, cyborg, android, or something else entirely?

Right now it's wonderfully difficult to tell what form Humanity v2.0 will take, or to paraphrase using sci-fi archetypes; who's winning the race between Roy Batty, the Borg, RoboCop and Jean-Claude Van Damme in Replicant. The wonderful part is that leaps ahead in cybernetics, nano-engineering and synthetic biology are coming so rapidly, the range of options for the format of future humans could be staggering.

In terms of immediacy, awesomeness and access to superpowers; the cyborg is the boyhood dream of many, well, boys. By definition a hybrid being, comprising the best bits of our biology with sleek add-ons and augmentations from the technological world. It's a model with degrees of integration; already many are in physical contact with a phone or computer for large parts of their waking life, an augmentation to our sense of time, direction and communicative ability in itself.

Having a phone or soon, wearing Google Glass, does not make you a cyborg. An advanced prosthesis does technically qualify, but that person is undoubtedly still human. The line to be drawn here is when, if at all, a person moves so far from human biology that they can be classified differently. It could be when less than 50 percent organic material remains, or if the brain were to be replaced, possibly made to function independently of the body. Society will make the distinction when it's necessary. Until that point the potential parts catalogue is expanded nearly every day, as we rush embrace a robotic future. Some have begun clearing hurdles already, such as Mr Kevin Warwick, an Englishman whose accolades include controlling a robotic arm in the U.S with his mind while in the U.K, and the first steps toward techno-telepathy; successfully sending information from a node in his brain via wireless transmission to one in his wife's. Unconfirmed reports indicate Kevin received a message back from his loving wife, saying "Make your own damn sandwich".

Last year a mind-controlled robotic arm allowed a quadriplegic woman to serve herself a coffee for the first time in 15 years. This year the brain implants for controlling computer devices went wireless and Google bought DNNresearch, a company featuring some very bright Canadians who are excellent at getting brains to talk to computers. This year the U.S government announced funding for an initiative which will see a complete map made of the billions upon trillions of connections in our brains. It would be a huge achievement given our current understanding of the mind's finer points, which has been compared to hacking confusedly through a dense, dark rainforest. Next year had better start warming up.

Truly, mankind is putting aside its collective fear of needles and stabby things in order to break open and delve deeper into our inner workings. We are manipulating technology, as we often do, to the betterment of the species. The most apparent foreseeable block to high-level cybernetic augmentation is surely money. This stuff's not going to be cheap, and there will always be friction between the haves and the have-nots. Maybe the opposite will become the case; the wealthy elite will be able to afford to keep their natural-born bodies, while the poor will have no choice but to replace their components with more profitable appendages... paid for by Big Lithium Co.

This all pre-supposes that humans will have a choice at all. If in the future we have, as many fear, invented our own redundancy, traditional reproduction may not be happening. Of course with all the free-time and android services, it could be happening much, much more. If our integration with technology became absolute - the digital consciousness or "brain-in-a-box" scenario - the notions of reproduction, family and grandchildren would become something more like duplicating a file or assembling a device. Disconcerting, yes, but it would end the age-old joke about kids not coming with instructions, as they'd probably be bundled with a User Guide and Tech Specs in PDF form.    

Whatever future class division cybernetic implants may create, their greatly positive effect on people suffering today is undeniable. Between here and a robot revolution you may or may not fear, lies the possible cure for many diseases and an improved quality of life for those born or inflicted with disability. From a pacemaker to nanobots (or sponges) technology is currently helping us get better. As ever, the moral implications lie with people and how they employ these technologies, the gear itself though is more than worthwhile and should be pursued with great gusto. Perhaps no field is more fraught with moral grey-areas and historic uproar than genetics and its hip new friend; synthetic biology.

Worthy of a long-form rant in itself (it will probably get one), synthetic biology is a relatively recent field of science that has scooped up many of our dreams and sci-fi projections and delivered them shockingly fast. Absolutely annihilating Moore's Law predictions, custom coded DNA is now totally real. Devices are being produced to allowed a direct transfer of computer information into physical DNA. This isn't some Frankenstein hack'n'slash either, mind-boggling devices like these Zinc Fingers allow incredible precision in the cut and paste of DNA strands. This technology has the ability to leap all of the 'robotic organ' predictions, by simply rearranging the building blocks we already have. Exemplary humans like George Church have been working with this stuff since the 80's, with results and possibilities that can hardly be quantified. If you can think of something life either does or doesn't do quite well, then you can think of an application for synthetic biology. In answer to the question at the top of the page; with synthetic biology, no, our grandchildren don't have to be just human - want a child with the legs of a gazelle and digestive passage of an octopus? Sure... but why? How about a child that's immune to a swathe of genetic diseases? That's a good one. Heart not ticking like it should? Knock up a new one, design it better. Want a neanderthal baby? Sure thing.

The next step in human evolution will come from our own minds. Regardless which sci-fi movie comes true, we will create forms of life which are entirely new and eventually, will be better than us at all the things we like doing. Should we be afraid? Not yet, currently the impact of these technologies has been almost entirely positive. Be wary though, this little guy may not let us push him around forever;