HUMAN CYBORG MALFUNCTIONS
Last month in the DDP we had George Perez among the cadavers, whose many superhero creations included one Cyborg. Now for a man who tried to make himself one. Computer scientist Peter Scott-Morgan was the first in England to earn a Ph.D. in robotics, a fascination that began after watching Star Trek and Doctor Who in his youth (msc’s bio for him really was on the nose there). Following a 2017 ALS diagnosis, he made the ambitious decision to undergo multiple surgeries in the early stages of the disease, including a “triple-ostomy” that handled nutrients and waste and a laryngectomy that prevented potentially choking on his saliva at the cost of losing his speech several years early. Preemptive surgery in ALS patients was unprecedented, and Scott-Morgan was only able to achieve it by persuading an on-the-fence doctor with his enthusiasm.
“Peter 2.0”, his alias for his post-surgery self, was unveiled in late 2019, now in a state-of-the art robot wheelchair with an AI-generated 3D avatar. His synthetic voice could even translate words into foreign languages, a gift he particularly relished for allowing him to curse multilingually. An ability that probably came in handy in his final days when he fell considerably short of the extra decades he thought his roboticisation might give him. He was 64 and among his DDP pickers were Reptile’s B Team, Dead And Dusted, and The Walking Dead. Which Scott-Morgan was not.
Peter Scott-Morgan
c. 1958 – 15 June 2022, aged 64
6 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 8 POINTS)