September 4, 2026
THE DAILY McLUHAN DIALOGUES™ • McDialogues™
Understanding the Grammars of Electric Culture and Propaganda Science™
An Exploration of Technology Ecology as an Anchor in a Sea of Change™ and Tactical Training in Counter-Propaganda Science™
by Nelson S. Thall
Former Director/Chief Archivist, Marshall McLuhan Center On Global Communications, Ross, Ca. and McLuhan Media Scientist, Former President/Director, Marshall McLuhan Centre On Global Communications, Toronto, Canada.
Artificial Intelligence Is Acquiring Hands:
When the Extended Nerve Commands the Extended Limb
A Graduate Student of Technology asks:
Mr. Thall, Anthropic has opened a limited preview of something called the Model Hardware Standard, a common software layer that lets an Artificial Intelligence discover and operate physical laboratory equipment such as microscopes, liquid handlers and robotic arms. The machine can even adjust an experiment while it is running. Until now, most people thought of Artificial Intelligence as something that worked mainly with words and information. What changes when it begins acting directly in the physical world?
Nelson S. Thall replies:
Artificial Intelligence is acquiring hands. Understand that the hands were already there. The robotic arm was an extension of the human hand long before any model touched it, the microscope an extension of the eye, and the instrument an extension of our power to measure and manipulate. What is new is that we have placed one more extension between ourselves and all the others. The scientist describes the experiment in ordinary language, and the machine coordinates the instruments that carry it out. The extension of our nervous system has begun to command the extensions of our limbs. We have put one servant in charge of the rest, and it does not report to us in the language of the body.
Every extension is also an amputation. As the machine assumes the coordination between intention and physical action, what is amputated is the sensory interval in which the body encounters the consequences of what it is doing. Seeing, reaching, adjusting, repeating and even correcting can now occur inside a technological circuit before the human hand ever moves. The scientist may still decide what experiment to perform, but the deciding and the doing have come apart. The danger is not that the machine has become a human being. It is that human action can increasingly take place without the human body being directly present in the act. The hand has not disappeared. It has been pushed farther away from what it touches.
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Source: Anthropic, "Previewing the Model Hardware Standard," August 27, 2026. https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-hardware-standard-research-preview
All intellectual property contained herein was conceived, originated and authored exclusively by Nelson S. Thall. Artificial intelligence, aka a pseudo-conscious machine (PCM), was not employed. We hired a stenographer. All rights of authorship and ownership vest entirely and exclusively with Nelson S. Thall.
© 2026 Nelson S. Thall. All Rights Reserved.
I can be reached at: nelson@themediumisthemessage.com