The case for merging human bodies with machines

What It Covers

TED Radio Hour explores four approaches to merging technology with human bodies: robot choreographer Katie Kwan designs movement for socially fluent robots; MIT's Hugh Herr develops neural-connected prosthetics; materials scientist Anna Maria Coclita creates sensor-laden artificial skin; and Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna applies CRISPR to edit gut microbiomes for disease prevention.

Key Questions Answered

• •Robot Movement Design: How a robot moves near humans carries as much weight as what it does. Katie Kwan's AI-trained flock of 15 robots at Google X demonstrated that machines programmed to yield, drift, and part like a crowd — rather than march and dodge — produce positive emotional responses, including spontaneous smiling, even in skeptical first-time observers.
• •AMI Surgical Procedure: The agonist-antagonist myoneural interface (AMI), first performed in 2016, preserves the brain-muscle feedback loop during amputation by surgically reconnecting paired muscles within the residual limb. Over 100 patients have received the procedure across below-knee, above-knee, below-elbow, and above-elbow levels, enabling involuntary reflexive limb control without conscious effort from the patient.
• •Bionic Cost Benchmark: Full bionic reconstruction using AMI surgery plus robotic, sensing, and computer components currently costs approximately $100,000. Existing bionic legs without the new procedure run around $40,000. Hugh Herr projects commercial clinical availability within five years, and prior amputees can qualify for revision surgery to upgrade from conventional to AMI-connected prosthetics.
• •Smart Skin Architecture: Anna Maria Coclita's artificial skin uses nanoscopic piezoelectric cylinders thinner than a hair's cross-section to simultaneously detect touch, temperature, and humidity. When stimuli compress the polymer core, an electrical current is generated, readable by electrodes and transmittable wirelessly to neuroprosthetics or smartphones — with per-centimeter cost remaining low despite expensive initial deposition equipment.
• •Precision Microbiome Editing: Combining CRISPR gene editing with metagenomics — a tool that maps the 99% of microbial species never lab-cultured — creates a field Jennifer Doudna calls precision microbiome editing. Targeting specific gut bacteria without disrupting others could reduce livestock methane emissions by up to 80% and potentially prevent asthma, obesity, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease.