My friend Owen sends on this video:

It’s of an amputee using a robotic arm being developed by the inventor of the Segway, Dean Kamen. (We saw a monkey working a similar device, in a more controlled setting, here.)

It’s pretty hard to wrap one’s head around, but it seems virtually inevitable at this point that humans will have Luke Skywalker quality prosthetics in most of our lifetimes. I mean, we may not be able to fight like a Jedi with them, but in a couple decades they could be indistinguishable from real limbs in everyday life — able to manipulate small objects, send sensory information to the brain, etc.

With the concept at this point proven — we can decode what the motor cortex is trying to tell the limb — it’s all a process of endless refinement. Those refinements, of course, will all represent major breakthroughs. But the direction things are heading is clear.

And, of course, we’re likely to reach the day when prosthetics will have advantages over normal limbs. Just ask this guy.