Quo vadis, humanity? Ethics on the last mile toward cybernetic organism

ABSTRACT Motivated by the recent decisive progress in the field of the Internet of Bio-Nano Things (IoBNT), and fueled by the growing social importance of emerging services and applications built on top of it, this paper seeks to understand consequences of seamless integration of out-of-body and inside-the-body nanoscale devices with a human, that is, creation of augmented human. Absence of regulatory and legal principles designed to protect humans and the environment from negative impact and non-rational use of new technologies threatens the natural human essence. In this paper, we analyze what IoBNT potentially brings to humanity, analyze some fragments of a post-human future, and think about possible issues an augmented human may experience in his/her mental life.