ABSTRACT
The final chapter considers the relationship between nursing and humanities in light of current developments in health care. The link between modern nursing and technology is reviewed, noting recent changes in the pace of technological advances and how they reach farther into human functioning as such. The idea of the cyborg is used to look at the shifting borderlines between humans and machines. Implications for nurses include robotics and artificial intelligence, that can take on many nursing functions, and the potential for surveillance and self-surveillance linked to big data. Trends in so-called transhumanism are introduced since they reflect modern concerns about overcoming previously accepted limits to human life. The importance of the humanities for nursing is restated in terms of how humanities are necessary to map the shifting boundaries of human and machine, and to reaffirm continuing human values and concerns in spite of technological change. Turning to the future of nurse education, there are current concerns about how humanist interests can be promoted in modern business-oriented universities.
