4 - British Writing and the Limits of the Human

Summary

In 1980 I did not have a computer. Neither did anyone else I knew. E- as a prefix to anything such as e-passports was not in use then; in 2017 the capture of biodata in many different forms such as iris recognition has made e-passports a norm. Similarly, the ability to manipulate biodata and bio materials through biotechnological innovation, for instance in the context of fertility, has revolutionised ideas of kinship and can, in 2017, accommodate notions of multiple biological parents to a single child. The driverless car is being tested. Paro, the robot seal, is being used to comfort the elderly as robot carers for the elderly are being developed. Technology-enhanced surveillance is becoming ever more sophisticated, with the state and corporations submitting to and exploiting the self-learning algorithms of artificial intelligence systems that pervade the everyday.