Rob Spence Discusses Living as a Cyborg with a Camera Implant

Neural Implant podcast - the people behind Brain-Machine Interface revolutions

Rob Spence is a documentary film-maker. He lost his right eye as a child during a shotgun accident at his grandparents home. Thirteen years ago, he replaced his prosthetic eye with a wireless video camera. He continues to make improvements on the eye and has produced films about people living with bionic implants. In today’s episode, Rob talks to us about living with a camera implant and the fast-moving world of bionics.

Top three takeaways:

1. There’s room for improvement in the area of eye prosthetics, especially to increase the adoption of cameras that can restore vision for the completely visually impaired.
2. Ethics and privacy are big issues when you have a camera installed into your eye socket.
3. 3d printing has injected a new wave of possibility in the world of prosthetics

[0:00] Ladan introduces the episode and the guest, Rob Spence

[1:40] Rob Spence shares the story behind losing his eyes during a shotgun accident as a child.

[3:40] After living a few years with an eye patch, Rob, now a filmmaker, decided to get a prosthetic camera.

[6:50] Rob works with a team on improving the camera and making it better. He talks in detail about what goes into making a good ‘eye camera’.

[11:15] On some of his filmmaking projects, Rob is giving enough creative freedom that he occasionally includes footage from his camera.

[13:20] It’s difficult turning the ‘eye camera’ into a mass prosthetic product because each one has to be made custom for the wearer.

[18:50] For blind people, there’s some benefit in connecting an implanted camera to the optic nerve to restore some level of vision.

[24:00] There is quite a bit of ethical consideration to keep in mind when you have a camera in your eye. People often bring up how it threatens the privacy of the people I capture with my eye.

[26:05] “I just have a hole in my head and I wanted to put a cool camera in there”