"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: 2) by Thexalon on Friday December 01 2017, @09:37PM (1 child)
Forget the Matrix: This concept is a staple of cyberpunk going back long before the Matrix. And it can be both good, and very very very bad.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday December 01 2017, @10:17PM
IIRC, the Cyberpunk RPG has rules about losing your humanity as you upgrade your character with cybernetics. Too much of them cybers, and your character becomes crazy and unplayable.
Oh, look. a wiki: http://cyberpunk.wikia.com/wiki/Cyberpsychosis [wikia.com]