In her article “Becoming Unmanned”, Mary Manjikan talks about drone warfare and how it can change major political gender concepts. The article basically divides acts and people into either male or female before and after the introduction of Drone technology. Before using drones, men went to war to protect women (inferior) and children. Men who fought in battles were considered honorable as opposed to those who weren’t willing to serve their country (were looked at as females). The physical act of taking prisoners in was considered both masculine for the taker and humiliating for the prisoners. Again the idea of gender being performative appears where prisoners are considered female for not being able to defend themselves and for being protected.

                Manjikan then shifts her attention on whether these concepts would change as a result of drone introduction. The first argument claims that this technology is emancipating as drones can be operated by either men or women. In addition, there are pieces of technology now such as HULC which is basically an exoskeleton (suit) that a soldier can wear to augment his/her physical abilities. This may lead to females participating in battle because physical ability is no longer a problem. Moreover, the idea of a drone doing all the fighting also relieves males from their inherent duty which is protecting women. Now, society can be less militarized and men, who don’t want to risk their lives, will not feel obligated to do so. The idea of a war hero may also disappear since a robot is the one doing the actual killing. I don’t really agree with the last point as killing a person is not all about who fires the shot but is all about making the decision to kill in the first place and I think that even drone operators still feel the guilt even if they’re not the ones who did the actual killing. This is probably the reason behind drone operators suffering from PTSD even though they weren’t on the battle field and were in a cubicle on some military base. Manjikan labels the drone operator as female for not doing the “dirty” work himself which I totally disagree with. On the other hand, military generals consider drone operators as “cyber warriors” who command technology to protect their country (male).

                Relating to posthumanism, it is believed that in the near future, in addition to HULC, soldiers will have chips embedded in them to allow them to communicate with other soldiers in the battlefield and with their superiors in the base. Donna Haraway argued that a cyborg is an inbetweener, a mixture between human and robot who is neither male nor female and would lead to acceptance and emancipation of women. The second argument in the article completely contradicts Haraway’s perception of a cyborg. Firstly, military officials still set a clear distinction between man and machine. They don’t consider cyborgs as a real thing. The soldier (man) is the one controlling the machine and there’s no fusion between them whatsoever. Secondly, it is mentioned that certain technologies are not available for female use in certain military divisions. This shows that even if women can use such technologies to reach equality, they won’t be able to because they’re not even allowed to use them in the first place. Again we go back to the whole gender issue where now such technologies only enhance the state of MALE soldiers only giving them more power and they become even more superior over women than before. I’m more convinced with this argument than the first one which was completely optimistic even though this is also slightly pessimistic.

                Another concept arises which is technosubjectivity which means empowering the state itself rather than any of the genders. It simply says that once the chip is embedded in a soldier, he basically becomes military (government) property. He’s subject to constant surveillance on and off duty. Every bodily function is monitored which is claimed to be a possible reason why such technologies can’t be used in female bodies because of issues of privacy and autonomy. Even if this is the case, I still think female soldiers should be given the choice of accepting or refusing such technologies in the hope of achieving equality, which Haraway argued in inevitable after the drastic enhancement in cybernetics. We can reach a conclusion that we can change the concept of gender being performative if we use the available technology correctly. It can be viewed as having emancipatory power but from what’s discussed in the article, it’s just a step further towards absolute patriarchy.

An interesting idea that was in the “Becoming Unmanned: The Gendering of Lethal Autonomous Warfare Technology” article by Mary Manjikian was the interdependence of automated warfare and gender roles. Manjikian talks about how there is always an allusion to gender when talking about warfare and politics. I use allusion because the meaning or connotation is not so explicit however direct the words may be; people usually won’t link two-and-two together, but I believe that a lot could be said by the unsaid. She gives an example of when George Bush was discussing the war in Iraq and he said that they need to “protect the innocent woman and children.” From this sentence, we can draw on that he puts America out as the protector (masculine) and Iraq as the protected (feminine; hence why he specifies women and children because they need protecting), therefore reinforcing gender roles within warfare. Manjikian says that when we use robots in warfare instead of people, we can finally get rid of those roles that are enforced. As neither men nor women would be in the battlefield, that would get rid of the whole “protector/protected” idea of how men are the protectors and the soldiers and women are the ones being protected, as now both men and women would be protected by those robots. I thought this was extremely interesting and it shows the interrelationship of gender and robotic warfare very clearly. She also mentions cyborgs and how there are already people who use technology to enhance their capabilities, so to use technology and robotics in warfare to strengthen a woman’s upper body, as Manjikian states as an example, the physical strength aspect of the requirements for warfare would no longer be an issue for women and, in turn, allow more women to enter the battlefield. I don’t completely agree with this because while it is hopeful, it’s not very probable, because sexism and the gendered division will still exist even if women enhance their abilities to participate in warfare activity. I think Manjikian’s point when she says that the soldiers will be “seen as controlling the technology, subduing it in the ways in which man has traditionally utilised and subdued nature and thus, in this way reinforcing a binary distinction between that which dominates and that which is dominated” is a more probable thing to happen, unfortunately. Since it has been something that has been reinforced for such a long time, I think most men will always think they are dominant, if not all, and will keep striving to prove that no matter what is done to prove otherwise. While those enhancements by technologies may help in spreading a new, altered image, I don’t think it will change societies’ collective perceptions of traditional gender roles alone.

The chapter talks about how machines are becomes more and more involved in war, making it unnecessary for there to be gender diversification in war. However, the writer sees that this is not the case, as she implies that even though the military jobs, or will be required, have no relation to the physique or strength of a person, aggression in military jobs will still be seen as masculine, rather than feminine or gender neutral. I do not agree with her as I see that as long as there is no need for physical strength, the job will be gender neutral, as these jobs will require technical ability more than physical, and it has nothing to do with a person’s gender, so I think that people will not view them as masculine jobs. She also states that more people will be willing to join the military, as only technical ability is needed plus there is a low endangerment of one’s life. She also says that the people who do these technical military jobs from military bases, such as controlling drones, feel extreme stress during their work as if they were the ones on the battlefield. This could discourage some people from these military jobs but I do not think that there will be a gender issue. She then makes a point that I completely disagree with, it is that the technological advancements that will create super soldiers will be mainly applied to males to increase gender diversity so that males become more powerful than females. She states that this advancement will create an opportunity for men to demean women. Why would these advancements be only applied to men? There is absolutely no reason for them to be applied to men, no one has a political, or war related, desire to demean another gender. It will be to demean the country’s enemies, so the technological advancements will be applied to the most fitting for them, regardless of the gender, but to the technical ability and intelligence of the person. She then talks about how the military suit monitors everything about its user, and that it could be used for the wrong reason, which is to spy on women. I only partly agree on this part as it could be used to spy on women if the suit is used by someone outside the military, but I really do not think that during a violent war related situation the military will focus on spying on the woman’s body.

The article talks about how the use of unmanned drones in military situations breaks the gender stereotypes of war as well as dehumanizes the conduct of combat. The stereotype being that in most cases men are the protectors (active) while women are the protected (passive). However since autonomous drones distance men from the physical battlefield then men are also a passive member in the war and thus could be considered a female. The war in Iraq is given as an example. The Iraqi soldiers surrendering to a drone were seen as weaker than those surrendering to humans (because they are surrendering to an inanimate object), but also the soldiers “hiding behind” the drones are seen as cowards. Both traits lead to the same conclusion that the use of drones has weakened the assumptions often attributed to war-fighting soldiers.

Major General Stephen J. Miller says that a new dimension to warfare has been created. In addition to land, water, and airspace, nations must now fight on a new front called cyberspace, i.e. the internet. However soldiers in the cyberspace are not the conventional masculine soldier. These “cyber soldiers” are more inclined to be gender neutral as they require technical skill rather than physical ability .

The article then gives examples on how the US military plans to use biotechnology and prosthetic to enhance soldiers, or in other words creating a cyborg. Which as discusses in Donna Haraway’s manifesto (and also mentioned in the article) would help bridge the gap between both genders. However the article then goes to suggest that enhanced soldiers would not necessarily merge with technology but rather subdue it to their command, and hence creating not a cyborg but a super soldier, which is just an amplified version of the traditional masculine soldier.

I believe that the integration of autonomous drones and cybernetic enhancements to the military would help blur the difference between both genders as women would be able to play a more active role in warfare.

This chapter started by giving us an insight of how automata is practically replacing humans in the battlefields, and for the safety of human beings they are no longer necessary for many missions during a war. It also tackled a very emotional aspect since automata started to be used for domination and showing off power, as a result people started to horrify automata more than fearing human beings which is even more humiliating for them. Moreover, the chapter was stressing back and forth on the gender inequality issue, as depending on technology and robots in war fields this gives women the opportunity to take place in combats even by controlling a drone from their offices. Unfortunately, women had this dream of participation, but it turned out to be the opposite as according to the article the most powerful states with the most updated technology are actually males, which means that the state itself won’t encourage taking such action to depend on females in war fields. For instance, exoskeleton was supposed to be a golden opportunity for some to be part of the war fighters, on the contrary, it turned out to be a new enhancement for men to be more superior and dominant not even for their protection, and Mary Manjikian added to this fact by saying that “again, robotic technology would thus reinforce hegemonic masculinity rather than eliminating it”. I believe that the change begins by making some amendments in the culture itself and try to introduce more feminine concepts in the society to ensure their acceptance for such new practices like taking part in the battlefield and so forth.

Finally, the chapter also tackled a very important topic related to the traditional hierarchy; this part is crucial to think about as the introduction of technology in general usually destabilizes the traditional hierarchal structure either in the military or in other jobs in general. I personally think that such instability is vital for real a change in old retrospective mindsets, as shaking some unjustified norms leads to more in-depth thinking about improving them to reach some sort of equality.

Ever since the evolution of technology throughout the past centuries, people amongst different cultures and ethnic groups were all exposed to technology and automation in various ways; either by living the era of mythologies when automatons took a great chunk of the Greek and Roman literature, or by vividly witnessing the progression of all technological advances and experience the application of most of these myths in real life. Generally, the motive behind creating artificial life is that humans cherish perfection and they want to create their own utopia which would definitely be considered a dystopia for others. We simply love to be in control and handle issues which is beyond creation. Therefore, such embedded concepts lead to the integration of people with technology resulting in a hybrid human-machine; this is obviously reflected in the economic and medical fields where human beings are meant to be a combination of both an organic body and a functional machine.

From an economic perspective, the introduction of automata had a booming effect on production levels; however, the unpleasant consequences on workers were uncountable. It all started back in the 6^thcentury BC when Mayor (2007) said “ Historians of robotics suggest that automata fall into three basic functions: labor, sex and entertainment or spectacle”; by focusing solely on the labor function one can infer that increasing the production efficiency was one of the main goals of any economy in various eras. For instance, during the 18^thcentury Karl Marx accused Adam Smith for inventing the category of unproductive laborers (Schaffer,1999). Marx’s claim was supported by the rise of Luddism in the 18 hundreds as the “interpretation which places Luddism less in the context of the French and American wars and more in the context of the rise of Laissez fair”(Thomis,1970), apparently the introduction of such economic system which was once introduced by Adam Smith had a major role in substituting workers by machines for the sole benefit of the owner’s wealth .This actually was the beginning of replacing humans with machines in the work place in the modern world, when the owners of factories started to take advantage of the technological advances to maximize their profits with the least possible production costs, and since then the role of workers started to diminish and is replaced by automation. On the contrary, there is a research “Will Robotization Really…” by Sorrels (2018) that negates Adams Smith’s claim of replacements as it said “For the short-term coming times, robots and computers will be more complements to, than substitutes for, human labor, in spheres of discernment, reasoning, and creativity, improving human workers more than replacing them”.

Moving on, by looking at the image from another perspective and examine the benefits of human labor in the work place, we would find many forgone advantages only for the sake of maximizing the profit. For instance, Schaffer (1999) referred to “La Metterie’s man machine was not an iatromechanical reverie of clockwork and pulleys, but a natural body subject to exercise and training, imbued with innate vitality and therefore simultaneously capable of, and requiring external discipline”; in addition a similar article tackled some human traits that should be valued such as “humans do provide judgment, logic, experience, and opinions. As a component in the system, we are interactive, variable and adaptable”(Haight et al, 2005). Surprisingly, a book called “the luddites” at the very beginning suggested some rewards for these traits such as “ a legal minimum wage, opposition to sweated labor and compensation for redundancy”(Thomis, 1970). Moreover, we have this opinion that machines and human labor are substitutes at the beginning, however, “due to complementarity effects, especially high-skilled workers may become more productive as they become co-workers of machines and both complement each other even at the same level of value creation”(Decker et al, 2017); the previous suggestion could bind with another research conducted by Elvira Nica (2016) who said “when automation or computerization advances in a labor mechanism more trustworthy, less expensive, or swifter, this raises the significance of the outstanding human connections in the production chain”. 

The other spectrum of this literature review is about the integration of humans and technology for medical uses. Surprisingly, technological advancements reached a very updated level where the introduction of some devices is either necessary for living or give someone the opportunity to overcome a specific disability. Such inventions became part of the human body interacting with organic materials to provide a healthy normal life for a person. One of the major inventions was the pacemaker which is a device that is implanted inside the body to regulate one’s heart beats. Another article discussed an interesting invention related also to the heart where it operates using wireless network, the author said “in establishing a wireless network the human body is broken down into pieces of information and then reassembled through data flows”(Grew and Svendsen, 2017). Hence, according to David Bell (2004) he defined cyborgs as a “hybrid of organic life with cyber technology”. This is a very controversial debate about declaring peoplewith implanted devices that are essential for their life to be cyborgs. However, this could be justified by the claim of Nelly Oudshoorn (2015) who conducted an experiment on heart patients that “people living with internal devices represent distinctive human-machine hybrid”. Also, people with such implant are performing their lifestyle based on the device inserted; for instance, any vigorous exercises without the support of the pacemaker would cause many discomforts and fatigues. As a result, patients have no choice except going to the technician for device adjustments to accommodate any changes in their daily routine.

The inventions that result in creating cyborgs are various and control many functions in the human body. The second invention is the cochlear inserted in the ear to enhance one’s ability to hear, and for many people this is another sort of being a cyborg. Such enhancement contrasts the trials in (AD 54-68) when “Daedalus created his human enhancement of flight by imitating the power of birds”(Mayor, 2009); although the latter experiment was criticized by many people at that time, it kept evolving until the invention of the airplane, However, people with hearing disabilities are not giving the cochlear invention the chance to progress and they said that any development would be considered “ taking steps which tend to reduce a minority culture who wish to remain as a community is regarded as unethical according to international law”(Lee, 2015). Although the divergence between these two situations is quite obvious, such medical invention would benefit the entire humanity and ensure them a healthy life. The fact of surveillance for medical uses too a great portion in the article “ Wireless Heart Patients and the Quantified Self” when the authors Grew and Svendsen (2017) said “The notion of the quantified self has continuity with the governmental forms that Foucault characterized as the panopticon: a form of power in which disciplinary surveillance shapes the making of the self”; this same discomfort was approved by the author Oudshroon (2015) saying “ during the observations and the interviews, I learned that many patients did not like this ‘hacking’ of their heart”. Accordingly, patients started anguishing for being controlled by an inanimate device that gives all the necessary information about their organic body.

I believe that the integration of technology with human lives has so far resulted in marvelous inventions whether in the economic or medical field. Humans may be reluctant to change at the beginning of any emerging invention like trying to imitate the flight of birds as humans, by nature, are skeptical and fearful of any change that is to come. However, when foreign ideas start to slowly settle and appear attractive to humans, this is when development and innovation takes place. The idea of a hybrid human machine was inevitable throughout history as one cannot operate without the other. Technology alone could not have boosted production forward or gave life to the pacemaker or cochlear without human cognitive and critical skills which are currently a human being’s most valuable asset, and technological advancements will never be allowed to take place without first passing through human acceptance and familiarity to change. In regard to the future, technology has become so embedded in our cultures that people will stop at nothing to develop and innovate new inventions and tools that would challenge current findings. Governments will continue to fully utilize their resources to excel economically using technology and machinery. Similarly, scientists and doctors will continue to capitalize technology to its limits to discover breakthrough medication, cures or even inventions to ease pain and humans. The human mind’s curiosity and endless need to control and challenge beyond creation as I mentioned above will always enable the concept of hybrid-human machines to flourish both technologically and mentally. Finally, I am a strong believer that, much like what Sorrels said, technology will continue to be a complement for the human mind; not just for the time being, but for many eras to come. 

This is a picture i took in a famous and crowded plaza in Madrid, Spain called Plaza Mayor. It took me a while to figure out that almost everybody in the picture is either on their phone or holding their phone. Before anybody says that i’m on my phone too because i’m taking the picture, this is a camera not a phone. what surprised me the most is that most of the people in the photo are tourists, so they are not used to the view or the marvel of a city they are in. Also, this is something that i have noticed in many other places, be it at home, on an outing, or even at a hospital as i was visiting an old teacher of mine in the hospital and there were 9 people in the room on their phones. This is something that i have been discussing for years and nobody seems to care about it because it is what is normal nowadays. Not just for millennials like the elders say, but for all ages and recently it’s really manifested in the ages between 40 and 80. I still think this is unnatural and it should be stopped. I am not saying that we should all leave our phones and never use them again, i am saying that we need to stop living in a virtual reality and enjoy the actual life around us.

after reading the chapter titled “Remote Intimacy” in the book titled “Drone: Remote Control Warfare” (Gusterson, 2015), i felt surprised that some people enjoy watching people die that much, especially Americans when they enjoy innocent civilians of Afghanistan or Iraq. Almost two months ago, when the massacre of the New Zealand happened and someone sent me the video i felt disgusted and irritated. Not just because Muslims were dying but also because this was real life. Even though i enjoy playing video games including violence, i know that this is a game and i’m not hurting anyone. However, i do believe that a person really thinks that he is the one in the screen and instinctively try for survival which actually happens to me and a lot of my friends when we’re playing video games. Furthermore, as i mentioned many times in class before i think that our relationships with technology and especially our phones nowadays are unnatural. so, when i found out that drone operators feel that they have a connection with the people they are watching, it creeps me out. Mainly because this drone operator is sitting thousands of miles away in an office looking at a screen, while invading other people’s privacy without their permission to the extent that they would watch the civilians have sex with their wives. Which to me is a new level of invading privacy. In addition, i think the concept of voyeurism is sick and demented to be applied here in this context as watching someone die through a screen shouldn’t be fun or amusing, it should be horrifying and traumatizing. As for the remote narrativization, it is fully understandable and relate able because everybody tries to put a face on the unknown and a story to the stranger. We do it in movies, Youtube clips and pictures just to satisfy our curiosity. However, the stress results from killing all these people especially civilians who didn’t deserve to die. As far as i am concerned, these drone operators deserve the PTSD they suffer from.

Technology is now developing very fast that machines are becoming more human like day after day. Robots now can do human tasks and can realize people and act as humans. Moreover, machines can do many tasks that workers do and they are replacing them. This reminds me of the luddites and this shows that they had a vision of what may happen in the future because actually machines are taking the place of humans jobs that they took a lot of time to learn how to do. I also read that many jobs are not going to exist in the future because all those j0bs are going to be done by machines.

Last assignment that i did about my relationship with technology and how i use it on daily basis made me wonder if it really was necessary or not. For sure when i wrote the essay i realized that it became something necessary and no one could live without it, I personally can’t imagine not having my phone for only one day. But after the class i also realized that we are the ones who made it this necessary, as I thought about the people in the 20th century for example, they had no technology and they didn’t feel lost or anything and they lived they life normally. Of course technology made life easier and things can be done faster, but life is not impossible without technology as we think it is.