‘My good boy!’ The Director wheeled sharply round on him. ‘Can’t you see? Can’t you see?’ He raised a hand; his expression was solemn. ‘Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!’
Major instruments of social stability.
Standard men and women; in uniform batches. The whole of a small factory staffed with the products of a single bokanovskified egg.
‘Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!’ The voice was almost tremulous with enthusiasm.‘You really know where you are. For the first time in history.’ He quoted the planetary motto. ‘Community, Identity, Stability.’ Grand words. ‘If we could bokanovskify indefinitely the whole problem would be solved.’
Solved by standard Gammas, unvarying Deltas, uniform Epsilons. Millions of identical twins. The principle of mass production at last applied to biology.— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (excerpt)
We are already integrated with our machines, though will this continued integration eventually entirely strip of us of our uniqueness, as we strive for peak performance in all things—things that machinery would enable? When this happens, we will surely become identical machines that operate identical machines, not knowing it is the machines that have always been operating us.
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Title referenced from an HCI workshop of the same name held by MIT that explores the psychological and human aspects of human-computer integration, looking at how integration affects our sense of self and embodiment.