Where Augmentation Meets the Assembly Line, the Old Questions Return

DETROIT — Augmentation has reached about five percent of the human population, and nowhere is the friction plainer than on a factory floor where enhanced and unenhanced workers stand side by side. At a Detroit retraining center, line lead Dolores Iwu has spent the summer building shifts that pair augmented workers — steadier hands, longer focus — with colleagues who have none. "The machine does not make her better than him," Iwu said of two workers on her line. "It makes her different, and the schedule has to be honest about that." Somaform Augmetics' neural-interface line remains under an open, contested safety review, and Iwu is careful not to push anyone toward hardware whose long-term record is unsettled. The floor, she said, is where lofty augmentation debates get their real test: not whether enhancement is good or bad, but whether two kinds of worker can be treated fairly on the same clock.