Horizon is the BBC's flagship science documentary. It consists of an extremely numerous collection of documentaries, still being produced at a rate of several per year, and each of which attempt to investigate the hard questions on a pressing topic in science or technology. They speak to experts in the field, and garner as much research and demonstration as possible, for an intellectual audience.

The documentary entitled Human 2.0 is a long look at the near-future for the human condition, taking views from futurists and technologists, examining current research aimed at expanding what it means to be human. The documentary was broadcast on 24 October 2006, so some aspectss are now behind the bleeding edge of research by quite a ways.

A snippet taken from the BBC's own blurb:

It's predicted that by 2029 computer intelligence will equal the power of the human brain. Some believe this will revolutionise humanity - we will be able to download our minds to computers extending our lives indefinitely. Others fear this will lead to oblivion by giving rise to destructive ultra intelligent machines. One thing they all agree on is that the coming of this moment - and whatever it brings - is inevitable.

A Purposeful BMI

This snippet from the documentary running time (5.36 minutes)concerns the original attempt by Professor Miguel Nicoleus at Duke University in mid 2003, to decode a monkey's brain patterns enough to have that monkey control a robot arm as though the arm was it's own.

Further Reading

Human v2.0 Website

Further Viewing

Because the BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation - is a government run institution, and because of the nature of the horizon documentary as a public service, the full 47 minute long documentary is freely, and legally available via YouTube. To aid download for slower connections, we have embedded on separate pages, with annotation.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6