Kevin Warwick (born 9 February 1954 in Coventry, UK) is professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, UK.
He carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and biomedical engineering. He is also Director of the Reading University Knowledge Transfer Centre, which links the University with Companies and raises £2.5Million each year in research income for the University. He is probably best known for his studies on direct interfaces between computer systems and the human nervous system, although he has done much research in the field of robotics.
Warwick is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. He is also presently a Visiting Professor at the Czech Technical University in Prague and in 2004 was Senior Beckman Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

Project Cyborg
Warwick and his colleagues claim that the Project Cyborg research could lead to new medical tools for treating patients with damage to the nervous system, as well opening the way for the more ambitious enhancements Warwick advocates. Some transhumanists even speculate that similar technologies could be used for technology-facilitated telepathy, or "techlepathy."

Implications and criticisms
Warwick is known for taking opportunities to publicise his work, and often appears on radio and TV interviews. He also has very outspoken views on the future, particularly with respect to artificial intelligence and its impact on the human species: he is a proponent of the strong AI view that machines will eventually become at least as intelligent as human beings, and argues that we will need to use technology to enhance ourselves in order to avoid being overtaken. He also points out that there are many limits, such as our sensorimotor abilities, that we can overcome with machines, and is on record as saying that he wants to gain these abilities: "There is no way I want to stay a mere human." His supporters assert that the publicity he deliberately courts around his research is also important as it generates interest in his work and helps to show the public, as well as skeptical academics. It is also claimed to be valuable outreach for the field of Cybernetics as a whole.

Personal opinions
As well as his implant studies Warwick presently heads an EPSRC supported research project which investigates the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques in order to suitably stimulate and translate patterns of electrical activity from living cultured neural networks in order to utilise the networks for the control of mobile robots. Hence a biological brain actually provides the behaviour process for each robot. It is expected that the method will be extended to the control of a robot head.
Along with Tipu Aziz and his team at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, Warwick is helping to design the next generation of Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson's Disease . Instead of stimulating the brain all the time, the aim is for the device to predict when stimulation is needed and to apply the signals prior to any tremors occurring to stop them before they even start.
Warwick also heads the Reading University team in a number of European Community projects such as FIDIS looking at issues concerned with the future of identity and ETHICBOTS which is considering the ethical aspects of robots and cyborgs.

Present Research
As well as the Project Cyborg work, Warwick has been involved in several of the major robotics developments within the Cybernetics Department at Reading. These include the "seven dwarves", a version of which was given away in kit form as Cybot on the cover of Real Robots Magazine.
He is a self confessed Indophile and has been to India five times. On two of his visits he has delivered lectures at Techfest In a more complex setting, it may be asked whether a "natural selection" may be possible, neural networks being the major operative.

Other activities
Warwick has headed a number of projects aimed at exciting schoolchildren about the technology with which he is involved. In 2000 he received the EPSRC Millenium Award for a Schools Robot League. Meanwhile in 2007, 16 school teams were involved in designing a humanoid robot to dance and then complete an assault course - a final competition being held at the Science Museum, London. The project, entitled 'Androids Advance' was supported by EPSRC.
He also lectures widely to general audiences.

Bibliography

God helmet
Ray Kurzweil and The Age of Intelligent Machines
Stelarc
Steve Mann
Transhumanism