IN THE FUTURE, teachers will be directly connected to students and there'll no longer be any need for exams. Information will travel seamlessly to and from the brains and nervous systems of everybody in the classroom in a neural network that could even be extended using computers and the internet.
Most people would consider this the stuff of science fiction, but Professor Kevin Warwick disagrees. He believes the technology may already exist in embryonic form, needing only the bravery and vision of creative scientists to make it reality.
Warwick does more than talk the talk. As professor of cybernetics at the UK's University of Reading, he is world-famous for his commitment to his specialist field of artificial intelligence and robotics.
He gained notoriety in 1998 by having a silicon chip transponder surgically implanted in his left arm. 'Machines are phenomenally powerful,' he said. 'There are important differences in human and machine intelligence and I am interested in the possibilities of linking the two. Humans already alter the brain using substances like alcohol, why not electronically as well?'
Four years after the first, a more sophisticated implant, this time fired pneumatically into his nervous system, demonstrated that electro-chemical brain signals can be translated into mechanical movement and vice versa. Not only was Warwick able to manipulate a robotic hand simply by moving his own - even from over 3,500 miles away over the internet - but also receive feedback from the hand directly through his nervous system to his brain telling him how hard it was gripping.
He sees developments in cybernetics as falling into two main strands. The first is helping those who have medical difficulties.