Flesh is Weak, so Upgrade

The Compass

• Episode: Flesh is Weak, so Upgrade
• Website: The Compass
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p035w97h/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:26:29
• Published: 2018-07-18 05:00

We all only get one body, and that has to see us through our entire lives. The idea of failing health is a very visceral fear for the majority of people in the world. It is inevitable, is it not? But with advances in medicine and technology the future might not involve simply growing old gracefully. We might upgrade in order to level up our natural abilities, extend our lives or consign pain and infirmity to history. Aleks Krotoski and Ben Hammersley find out how to future proof our actual selves, clambering into exoskeletons that could give us all inhuman strength, investigating how far we could hack our own biology, and discover if we will upgrade purely because we want to enjoy our lives to the fullest, or whether it will be necessary to keep up with the demands of future society. (Photo: Ted Kilroy uses eLegs - artificially intelligent, bionic exoskeletons that give wheelchair users the freedom to stand and take independent steps. Credit: Getty Images)