A.I. Dev. : The Bionic Future

 Hi All,

Last time we ended with Tim Shaw - An ALS Warrior, whose passion was not simply for Football but for fighting back in general. But for Jim Ewing here, rock climbing was not just a passion, it was more of a lifestyle.

Starting rock climbing from his early teens, it was his way of de-stressing himself from life. But eventually, disaster struck!

In 2014, a family tour to the Cayman Islands definitely did not go as planned. After doing a couple of climbs, Jim had set up the ropes for the final one but as soon as he started up, his feet slipped, and he fell....50 feet straight to the ground. Having zero expectations, the reports did not appear good. Both front and back pelvis - shattered, left wrist - shattered, left ankle - broken into 2 chunks but mostly it was pulverized. After a year of medical attention, everything was mostly healed except for the ankle. Its main fracture just didn't seem to heal and the bone was deduced to be dead. 

Finally, facing his reality, Jim accepted that this was going to be life-changing, for the better or worse was going to depend on how he faced it.

Luckily his past came to help!

Jim Ewing and Hugh Herr
Image Courtesy - www.google.com

Hugh Herr, a climber from the age of seven, who had a similar accident at 17 had both his legs amputated. But a fighter by spirit, he dedicated himself for the betterment of the Bionic Industry to help out many, many people around the world. And a few decades and a couple of M.I.T Degrees later, a mind dedicated to innovation, he launched the prosthetics industry into the Bionic Future.

Getting in touch with Hugh was an attempt to reach out to someone who could fix his leg. But, on evaluation, he received two options, equally destroying. He could either live on with his throbbing biological limb or amputate it. And say with guarantee that not many people would take a decision of amputation, unlike Jim.

Jim Ewing - Back to Climbing
Image Courtesy - www.google.com

Thus, he became the first one to try out the bold procedure of amputation, developed first hand by his friend. What Hugh was doing at the moment was out of the world at the time. This novel procedure basically similar to the regular amputation except that the motor and receptor nerves were reconnected to each other forming a link on amputation. The idea behind it was such that the attached bionic limb would read these sensations sent to the muscles of the now amputated limb and work accordingly. Another plus point was that the wearer would actually feel the sensations that he felt prior amputation even after the procedure.

And this time, you guessed it right, this bionic limb works on Machine Learning. Here, machine learning is what can be referred to as a subset field of Artificial Intelligence i.e. commonly put, machine learning is learning from experience. And this experience is nothing but data, loads of it. And this learning gives an output which is a decision.

Jim Ewing - The Bionic Limb
Image Courtesy - www.google.com

So, this reconnection of nerves provided a bi-directional flow of impulses with which was created natural dynamics. The 'How' is a bit complicated...

This A.I. basically created a virtual model of his limb. So, if and when he fires his muscles, the ricochet is recorded by an electrode. This record on measurement drives the bionic limb exactly as much expected and desired by Jim's brain giving it a sensation about its position and dynamics. Thus giving his brain remembrance of his lost limb and support for his imagination of his next climb...

...hope you enjoyed this extensive read which just might have sparked an innovative fire in your mind.

#Actuating imagination for the better __ A.I.

P.S.:- 
All expressions in this post are copyrighted to the author (Hriday Kharpude ©).