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from the Louis-Wu-would-like-a-word-with-you dept.
"What I think is so interesting is that the future is always flying cars," Leuthardt says, handing the resident his Sharpie and picking up a scalpel. "They captured the dystopian component: they talk about biology, the replicants. But they missed big chunks of the future. Where were the neural prosthetics?"
It's a topic that Leuthardt, a 44-year-old scientist and brain surgeon, has spent a lot of time imagining. In addition to his duties as a neurosurgeon at Washington University in St. Louis, he has published two novels and written an award-winning play aimed at "preparing society for the changes ahead." In his first novel, a techno-thriller called RedDevil 4, 90 percent of human beings have elected to get computer hardware implanted directly into their brains. This allows a seamless connection between people and computers, and a wide array of sensory experiences without leaving home. Leuthardt believes that in the next several decades such implants will be like plastic surgery or tattoos, undertaken with hardly a second thought.
The article reports Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are working on neural implants as well.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by urza9814 on Friday December 01 2017, @08:54PM (3 children)
I think this is fundamentally different than the existing surveillance devices.
Basically...I think these kinds of implants generally depend on the brain learning to use the implant rather than the implant interpreting brain signals. Which means it's not the standard sci-fi implant where you "hear" a ringing sound then tap your neck to answer the phone call and speak to another person without actually vocalizing anything...instead it's a subconscious connection, where your brain will mediate interactions possibly without even consciously thinking about it. If you have a question and someone else has an answer, you'll just know it too.
And if that's the case, it's not so much a device that reads your mind as it is an extension of your own brain. And if you're linking directly to other people it's more of a single hive organism rather than other people reading your thoughts. To talk about such a device invading your privacy is like saying your eyes are invading the privacy of your hand. It's nonsense.
Of course, whether or not creating a human hive organism is actually a good idea is open for debate. But the question I think is not about spying or privacy but about individualism. I think it's inevitable though and probably necessary if we hope to explore and colonize the galaxy. An individual human can't hope to explore the galaxy any more than a single cell might explore the earth. But combine those cells into humans and they can collect a hell of a lot of information and cover quite a lot of ground. Combine those humans into a planetary mind and maybe we *could* have a meaningful conversation with star systems hundreds or thousands of light-years away.
The way I see it...atoms combine into molecules; molecules combine into cells; cells combine into organisms...why should it stop there? You could certainly argue that the next step is governments or corporations or other social structures...but I don't think that's quite the same thing. A human being is more than just a colony of single-cell organisms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2017, @09:14PM
Or it will be like every commercial device on the planet, with a closed source proprietary baseband modem with the power to lowjack the main cpu (your brain), 'cause security...
In other words, there's a lot of room for interpretation in "internet connected brain implant" and I'm skeptical we'll get the one we want anytime soon.
I don't want to know how quickly my subconscious would blow throw a 4g data cap...
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday December 01 2017, @11:23PM
Will be fun being old and having people hate me for not wanting to be part of the net. Will probably be forcefully implanted or purged over it, whatever. Thanks future, instead of flying cars you made or species a botnet.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday December 02 2017, @09:54AM
Yes, both my hand and my eye are completely controlled by my brain. The difference is that neither my hand nor my eye is a separate sentient being.
And no, I don't think the danger is in the chip being connected to the brain. The danger is in the chip being connected to both the brain and the internet at the same time. While at the same time not removable.
Yes, I can also be manipulated through things I see or hear. Or information about me might be derived through observing my actions. Bit I have quite a bit control about what I see or hear. I cn easily close my eyes. With the ears it is not quite as easy, but the finger method works quite well. And in both cases, I can mostly avoid certain stimuli by simply avoiding the places where those stimuli are to be expected. This is a big part of the privacy of your home; it's that you have high control of what you see and hear there. Also, you have high control of the information that others get from there.
With this chip, you'll be constantly connected, probably through a proprietary interface which you don't know what exactly it does with the information. And the only way to disconnect will probably be to enter a Faraday cage.
Maybe a tinfoil hat will actually become a useful anti-surveillance tool.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.