The Human API — Enter the Cybernetic Renaissance

Are we en route to a human API?

Are you using your smart­phone every wak­ing hour?
Yeah, me too.

But no, this isn’t going to be one of those texts where someone com­plains about how we’re becom­ing slaves to IT. Instead, I sug­gest explor­ing a future mer­ger between bio­logy and technology.

Are we en route to becom­ing part human, part robot?
Or are we already there?

Here we go:

All Technologies are Human Extensions

Marshall McLuhan: “The Medium is the Message”

“The medi­um is the mes­sage” is a phrase coined by the Canadian philo­soph­er Marshall McLuhan in the first chapter of his not­able book “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.” ¹Understanding Media. (2023, September 18). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​U​n​d​e​r​s​t​a​n​d​i​n​g​_​M​e​dia

Despite being one of the most influ­en­tial thinkers in media the­ory, McLuhan’s ideas are often widely mis­un­der­stood. “The medi­um is the mes­sage” is no exception.

“The medi­um is the mes­sage” does­n’t imply that con­tent or sub­stance lacks import­ance; it only implies that the medi­um in which mes­sages are sent will sig­ni­fic­antly impact humanity.

McLuhan viewed human tech­no­lo­gies as exten­sions of our human physiology. Our abil­ity to build houses extends our human skin, as it pro­tects against the ele­ments. This added lay­er of pro­tec­tion and phys­ic­al safety frees up men­tal band­width for human interaction.

In McLuhan’s inter­pret­a­tion, a house is a medi­um. All human tech­no­lo­gies, down to the camp­fire, are con­sidered mediums.

“McLuhan’s insight was that a medi­um affects the soci­ety in which it plays a role not by the con­tent delivered over the medi­um, but by the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the medi­um itself. […] McLuhan poin­ted to the light bulb as a clear demon­stra­tion of this concept. A light bulb does not have con­tent in the way that a news­pa­per has art­icles or a tele­vi­sion has pro­grams, yet it is a medi­um that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to cre­ate spaces dur­ing night­time that would oth­er­wise be envel­oped by dark­ness.”
Source: Wikipedia ²Marshall McLuhan. (2023, May 15). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​M​a​r​s​h​a​l​l​_​M​c​L​u​han

McLuhan argued that our abil­ity to cre­ate tech­no­lo­gic­al exten­sions of our human abil­it­ies fun­da­ment­ally impacts our soci­ety — far more than any single mes­sage con­veyed via the new technology.

For example:

And so on.

Why is McLuhan’s ana­lys­is necessary? 

“The medi­um is the mes­sage” is a stark remind­er that a medi­um’s format (and lim­it­a­tions) will massively impact human soci­ety — and the mes­sages them­selves, too.

Holistically, a new tech­no­lo­gic­al medi­um will impact human­ity sig­ni­fic­antly more than any single mes­sage trans­mit­ted through that medi­um. But Marshall McLuhan said it bet­ter, “The medi­um is the message.”

We often default to seek­ing mean­ing in mes­sages but for­get to con­sider the medi­um’s inher­ent media logic.

Learn more: Media Logic is Dead, Long Live Media Logic

From Biological Darkness to Augmented Ascension

A medi­um is that in which a phys­ic­al trans­fer of inform­a­tion takes place. If our smart­phones are exten­sions of our voices, ears, social graphs, memor­ies, and the fab­ric of our logic­al think­ing, then aren’t we, accord­ing to McLuhan’s light bulb ana­logy, in the pro­cess of step­ping out of cyber­net­ic darkness?

We have a long his­tory of appro­pri­at­ing tech­no­logy to free up men­tal bandwidth.

Adding sup­port­ive sys­tems to see in the dark, stay­ing warm and sheltered, and sort­ing and struc­tur­ing thoughts and ideas allow us to com­mu­nic­ate and devel­op increas­ingly com­plex and abstract con­cepts. Information tech­no­logy allows us to cre­ate lay­ers upon lay­ers of human civilisation. 

But recent tech­no­lo­gic­al advance­ments, start­ing per­haps with the smart­phone, must be regarded as unpre­ced­en­ted even by his­tor­ic­al standards.

I’m talk­ing about transhumanism.

Transhumanism: A Posthuman Approach

What is transhuman­ism? A couple of years ago, in 2009, I advised the Pirate Party, which earned two seats in the European Parliament. Within this by-nature tech­no­crat­ic move­ment, transhuman­ism was often dis­cussed and debated.

“Transhumanism advoc­ates for the advance­ment of sci­ence and tech­no­logy to over­come human lim­it­a­tions and pro­motes the devel­op­ment of new bio­tech­no­lo­gies to enhance human poten­tial.”
Source: Dictionary of Global Bioethics ³Have, H., & Neves, M. (2021). Transhumanism (See Enhancement; Transplantation; Genetic Engineering). Dictionary of Global Bioethics. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​7​/​978 – 3‑030 – 54161-3_499

“Transhumanism, abbre­vi­ated as H+ or h+, is an inter­na­tion­al intel­lec­tu­al and cul­tur­al move­ment that affirms the pos­sib­il­ity and desirab­il­ity of fun­da­ment­ally trans­form­ing the human con­di­tion by devel­op­ing and mak­ing widely avail­able tech­no­lo­gies to elim­in­ate age­ing and to greatly enhance human intel­lec­tu­al, phys­ic­al, and psy­cho­lo­gic­al capa­cit­ies. […] Transhumanist thinkers study the poten­tial bene­fits and dangers of emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies that could over­come fun­da­ment­al human lim­it­a­tions, as well as study the eth­ic­al mat­ters involved in devel­op­ing and using such tech­no­lo­gies. They pre­dict that human beings may even­tu­ally be able to trans­form them­selves into beings with such greatly expan­ded abil­it­ies as to mer­it the label ‘posthu­man’.”
Source: Wikipedia ⁴Transhumanism. (2023, October 29). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​T​r​a​n​s​h​u​m​a​n​ism

A transhuman world is almost incom­pre­hens­ible. It seems to sit above fun­da­ment­al con­cep­tions of “good” or “bad” — it seems inevitable.

A Global Village of Shared Experiences

I would argue that devel­op­ment is intrins­ic­ally inev­it­able — and that tech­no­logy allow­ing more inform­a­tion to flow is neces­sary. And no short­age of trends sug­gests we might be on the cusp of a transhuman­ist­ic future.

What does it mean to extend the human exper­i­ence with tech­no­logy — or is it the oth­er way around? Are we advan­cing tech­no­logy with human experiences?

“We Are the Robots”

Popular cul­ture has been play­ing around with mer­ging human­ity with machines for cen­tur­ies. Science fic­tion does tend to become a real­ity; we might already be well under­way to becom­ing cyborgs:

“A cyborg is a cyber­net­ic organ­ism (i.e. an organ­ism that is a self-reg­u­lat­ing integ­ra­tion of arti­fi­cial and nat­ur­al sys­tems). The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline used it in an art­icle about the advant­ages of self-reg­u­lat­ing human-machine sys­tems in out­er space.”
Source: Bionity​.com ⁵Cyborg. (2023). Bionity​.com. https://​www​.bion​ity​.com/​e​n​/​e​n​c​y​c​l​o​p​e​d​i​a​/​C​y​b​o​r​g​.​h​tml

So, how close are we? I use Evernote as an extern­al memory bank, an arti­fi­cial exten­sion of my brain made up of soft­ware and hard­ware work­ing in sync with the liv­ing organ­ism that is me. Does this make me a … cyborg? 

We Are the Human API 

Would it be pos­sible to cre­ate a biological/​electrical interface? 

“An applic­a­tion pro­gram­ming inter­face (API) is a pro­tocol inten­ded to be used as an inter­face by soft­ware com­pon­ents to com­mu­nic­ate with each oth­er. An API may include spe­cific­a­tions for routines, data struc­tures, object classes, and vari­ables.”
Source: Wikipedia ⁶API. (2023, November 23). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​API

Will we ever be truly able to integ­rate dir­ectly with inform­a­tion technology?

Even pub­lic rela­tions thought lead­er Brian Solis dis­cusses “the human API,” mak­ing the concept his primary focus for his key­note present­a­tion at the world’s most pres­ti­gi­ous new media event, Le Web in Paris.

“What if the medi­um wasn’t just the device, the medi­um was us? At the cen­ter of the IoT and Big Data are the very people who fuel the con­stant exchange of inform­a­tion. At the same time, it cre­ates a human net­work, where we become nodes and the inform­a­tion that ties togeth­er people and devices feed new exper­i­ences and changes our beha­viour over time.”
— Brian Solis

The Cybernetic Renaissance

“Transhumanism, a mod­ern form of Enlightenment techno-uto­pi­an­ism, has evolved into diverse sub­sects, with poten­tial for viol­ent con­front­a­tion as tech­no­lo­gic­al innov­a­tion and human enhance­ment threaten the future of human­ity.”
Source: Zygon ⁷Hughes, J. (2012). THE POLITICS OF TRANSHUMANISM AND THE TECHNO-MILLENNIAL IMAGINATION, 1626 – 2030. Zygon, 47, 757 – 776. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​1​1​1​/​J​.​1​467 – 9744.2012.01289.X

I would argue that we’re in the midst of a cyber­net­ic renais­sance. As the media curse of the Bell curve and the his­tor­ic­ally recur­ring tech­lash dic­tates, we tend to focus on the adverse side effects, such as tech­no­logy-induced stress, atten­tion defi­cits, brain tumours, and big data-related integ­rity issues. 

Loud voices are demand­ing everything from legis­lat­ive coun­ter­meas­ures to pro­hib­it­ing the use of inform­a­tion tech­no­logy in schools. We’re col­lect­ively afraid of what our transhuman future will bring. We shud­der at the thought of hav­ing humans and machines merge into one.

The effects of devel­op­ing human APIs are poten­tially massive. Like so many his­tor­ic­al trans­itions before, we could be stand­ing with both feet in the middle of a reform­a­tion that far over­shad­ows the digit­al inform­a­tion revolu­tion. Still, shar­ing exper­i­ences and becom­ing more inter­con­nec­ted with everything else might just as well be seen as a nat­ur­al step­ping stone in human evol­u­tion. Some will choose to fear a medi­ev­al cyborg dysto­pia, but I firmly believe that human­ity is enter­ing a cyber­net­ic renaissance.

Keep your smart­phone, not as its slave, but as a part of what you can be.

PR Resource: The Digital Transformation

PR Must Adapt — Or Die

Digital media will be the prime mover of people’s per­cep­tions for a long time. It has become our num­ber-one source for inform­a­tion, group form­a­tion, and dialogue.

The biggest chal­lenge in mod­ern pub­lic rela­tions is the con­stantly chan­ging media land­scape. With the pro­lif­er­a­tion of social media, the rise of fake news, and the decline of tra­di­tion­al journ­al­ism, it can be dif­fi­cult for organ­isa­tions to con­trol the spread of inform­a­tion and pro­tect their reputations.

When Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge pub­lished Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR in 2009, it pro­posed how PR should embrace the digit­al-first media land­scape and elev­ate our pro­fes­sion to new heights. ⁸Solis, B. & D. Breakenridge (2009, February 1). Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR. Amazon​.com: Books. … Continue read­ing

As we choose our future as pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­als, we must real­ise that the inter­net and its algorithms are more power­ful than a few (barely sur­viv­ing) newspapers.

The era of tra­di­tion­al print media is over:

Digital-first is no longer a mat­ter of per­spect­ive — it’s a promise.

If we allow the world to think of PR pro­fes­sion­als as out­dated flacks, we’ll fade into obli­vi­on while armies of digit­al mar­keters take over our responsibilities.

PR pro­fes­sion­als must be stra­tegic and pro­act­ive in their approach and able to adapt to new tech­no­lo­gies and plat­forms to com­mu­nic­ate effect­ively with their publics.

“The authors argue that earli­er paradigms are mostly inad­equate in address­ing the needs of a 21^st Century in which com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­logy is cre­at­ing rap­id glob­al­iz­a­tion while it is dan­ger­ously exacer­bat­ing the ten­sions of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. Through a crit­ic­al dis­cus­sion of pri­or assump­tions and paradigms in pub­lic rela­tions schol­ar­ship, the authors under­line the need for pub­lic rela­tions to revital­ize and bring its body of know­ledge into the 21^st Century.”
Source: Public Relations Review ⁹Valentini, C., Kruckeberg, D., & Starck, K. (2012). Public rela­tions and com­munity: A per­sist­ent cov­en­ant. Public Relations Review, 38(5), 873 – 879. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​p​u​b​r​e​v​.​2​0​1​2​.​0​6​.​001

The biggest chal­lenge in PR is ensur­ing that our pro­fes­sion keeps up with new com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­logy and stays valu­able and rel­ev­ant as a busi­ness function.

So, what does this mean?

It means that digit­al com­mu­nic­a­tion is not a fad.
It means that we must adapt — or perish.

Learn more: PR Must Adapt (Or Die)

PR Resource: How AI Will Impact PR