Annette attends a lecture on bionics. "What is bionics?" the lead researcher asked, looking questioningly from his podium to blank faces. "Simply a word formed as a portmanteau of biology and electronics. Just as planes, trains, and elevators are computerized today, robots were implanted with new hips and integrated circuits as body parts as early as the last century. Artificial life was thus already present in the tools. Bionics to live healthier and longer, to be able to do more, to have more money."