Learning to love being part computer
On July 7, 2001, Michael Chorost's world went silent. The hearing aids he'd worn since becoming partially deaf since birth as a result of rubella no longer helped. Several months later, Chorost opted for an operation to implant a tiny computer-about the size of three stacked quarters and called a cochlear implant-in his skull behind his ear. Another small computer and microphone, attached outside his skull like a refrigerator magnet, captures sound and beams it to the internal computer via radio wave. The implant digitizes the sound and sends the signal through thin metal electrodes directly to the nerve endings in his cochlea.
Since his surgery, Chorost has struggled to come to grips with his new appendage, which transformed him into what was once only imagined in the pages of science fiction novels: part man, part machine. In his new book, Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me Fully Human, Chorost describes how the implant has changed his life.
Q. What was the most frightening part about losing your ability to hear?
A. Not being able to use the telephone. It cut off my ability to communicate with people at a distance. It was such triumph for me to be able to use the phone again. We are having this interview by phone. I'm totally deaf and I can still hear you, which is incredible.
Q. Can you hear better now?
A. Yes, I can. My acuity for soft sounds is much better than with hearing aids. Until recently, my hearing for music was much worse, but now I'm trying new software that gives me much better frequency resolution. Instead of giving me 16 channels of auditory information, it gives me 121 channels. It's working out great; music sounds much, much better. When I first listened to Ravel's Bolero with this new software, it almost knocked me out of my chair because the bassoons and oboes sounded richer and warmer, and the flutes and piccolos sounded brighter and clearer.
Q. You say in your book that, at one point in your life, you didn't like computers. How do you reconcile your cochlear implant with your aversion to technology?
A. I wasn't averse to technology. I was averse to the way I was using technology to isolate myself. When I was looking at the cochlear implant in my hand, I could see the computer chips in it. It was scary to think of it inside my head and actually controlling the way my ear works. And it was scary to think that I would have software running inside my body. I had to get used to the fact that different kinds of software made me hear in completely different ways. I got over my fear and learned to love being part computer.
Q. Some people who are deaf consider cochlear implants a threat to deaf culture. What do you think?
A. The issue is not hearing. The issue is language and culture. Until recently, parents of deaf children had only one option: school for the signing deaf. Now there are two options: school for the signing deaf or cochlear implants, which means that the child will grow up speaking English instead of American Sign Language. The concern is that cochlear implants may eventually destroy the signing deaf community. I think it's a reasonable fear. Since American Sign Language is such a beautiful language, used by such a vibrant community, I feel a sense of regret at the prospect that it may get smaller in the future. However, it's happened many times in this century that technology drives social change in one way or another.
Q. Do you ever worry that computer devices will someday control human thought?
A. No, I don't, because as long as the user is given the opportunity to decide how that software will work, then they can decide how that body behaves. It was difficult enough to control the nerve endings in the ear; the brain is a 1,000 times more complicated. It will be a very long time, if ever, before we can directly control the human brain. Being a cyborg just means being differently human; it doesn't mean being inhuman.
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