Michael Chorost

Michael Chorost (pronounced like chorus with a T at the end) is a technology theorist with an unusual perspective: his body is the future. In 2001 he went completely deaf and had a computer implanted in his head to let him hear again. This transformative experience inspired his first book, "Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human." He wrote about how mastering his new ear, a cochlear implant, enabled him to enhance his creative potential as a human being. The critics agreed; in 2006 "Rebuilt" won the PEN/USA Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. Shortly afterward it was reprinted in paperback under the new title "Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World."Dr. Chorost earned his B.A. at Brown University and studied computer programming, Renaissance drama, and cultural theory on the way to his Ph.D. at UT-Austin. He doesnt draw sharp lines between programming, science, writing, and art; to him, these are all profoundly creative human endeavors. This freewheeling approach infuses his second book, "World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines, and the Internet." In this book he ups the ante, proposing that humanity can incorporate the computer into its collective soul in a way that enhances communities and creative work instead of diminishing them. As a freelance science writer he has written for Wired, The Washington Post, Technology Review, and The Scientist, among others. He wrote the screenplay for a TV special on brain implants titled The 22nd Century, which aired on PBS in January 2007. He sits on external advisory boards for neuroscience research at Northwestern and Brown. He has given over 85 talks at institutions such as Google, MIT, Stanford, Brown, the Brookings Institute, and the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco. Dr. Chorost was born in New Jersey and has lived in North Carolina, Texas, and California. In 2008 he moved to Washington D.C., where he now lives with his wife and their three cats Harper, Posy, and Elvis. "