"Why You Will One Day Have a Chip in Your Brain" Topic

"Implanting a microchip inside the brain to augment its mental powers has long been a science fiction trope. Now, the brain computer interface is suddenly the hot new thing in tech. This spring, Elon Musk started a new company, Neuralink, to do it. Facebook, at its F8 developer's conference, showed a video of an ALS patient typing with her brain. But earlier to the game was Bryan Johnson, an entrepreneur who in 2013 made a bundle by selling his company, Braintree, to Paypal for $800 USD million. Last year, he used $100 USD million of that to start Kernel, a company that is exploring how to build and implant chips into the skulls of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients to reprogram their neural networks to restore some of their lost abilities.

But helping to restore a damaged brain is only an entry point for Kernel. Johnson, a 39-year-old from Utah, is looking forward—with almost unseemly enthusiasm—to the day that healthy people can get neural augmentation. He has emerged as one of the most eloquent evangelists of reinventing the human brain. Needless to say, this effort raises lots of questions—the very questions I raised to him in a conversation recently. (It's been edited for clarity and brevity.) Will his answers make you sign up for a brain computer interface? (Warning: it's kind of invasive, but Johnson hopes that we might figure out how to do it without major noggin demolition.) Read it and make your own decision—albeit with your obsolete, unmodified brain…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Nope, never going to happen.

No way. The arrogance of the man!

My brain is full of chips. It keeps getting damaged every time I drop it.

Dan

Nope, never going to happen.

No way. The arrogance of the man!

Really?

I can see it's use for medical reasons. ALS sounds the the perfect application for this. How about for progressive MS? How about building neuro sensors for vision and hearing for those impaired? Memory enhancement for those with brain damage or Alzheimer's?

It will happen. Tech addicts will demand it as soon as feasible. They want to be in their tech and of their tech. People are already chipping their KIDS to keep track of them. Pet and human med info, such as allergies, may already be available. Why do we think brain chips won't be welcomed? Ethical limitations aren't even worth considering in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist. Don't you believe that many governments are doing chip control research? Cyborgs will come and soon.

Chipped Lives Matter! My Brain, My Choice! Cyborg* is the next protected group.

Just wait until your kid tries to compete against "enhanced" ones in school tests. But then they'll call you every name in the book for complaining.

Dan
* Both the ones for legitimate medical reasons and the ones who feel they have a right to upgrade themselves.

I can see it's use for medical reasons.

Well I see it as a way to either:

Keep track of you

or

Control you

Mithmee,

Remember this?

link

Dan

Yup that is what will end up happening.

I'll wait until I can upload my consciousness into an android body.

Several years ago I read an article about a company that specialized in artificial tattoos. They would often attend events like music festivals etc.

The owner said there was a strong taboo about tattoos, which still had a reputation of being something for oddballs and people on the fringe of society. He didn't expect people to suddenly become enamoured with tattoos, but artificial ones were the wave of the future …

I recall talking to some people about a mysterious invention called a "mobile phone". They seemed appalled by the idea of having a device with them that would allow others to disturb them at every possible moment of the day. "What's the possible use, everyone has a perfectly fine telephone at home ?"

I also recall a mention not ten years ago about future fashion trends and if we might see certain trends surface again. The "experts" believed that by 2015 we'd all be reliving the 1980's like they never went away and we'd swear we all lived on the set of Dallas, flaunting neon-coloured outfits with massive shoulder pads, huge hair and redecorate our houses with neo art-deco furniture. Things like grunge clothing, beards etc would die and never return like vinyl.

I used to believe that Cyberpunk was unrealistic, that no sane person would give up a perfectly fine arm or leg in exchange of a set of cybernetic ones, no matter how perfect and superior they were to the original. These days I'm not so sure with all the surgery and body modification going on, the switch to a cyberlimb seems almost tame these days.

I guess a brain chip will be as common as dirt in a few decades, though I have one question, what will happen when the inevitable hack happens and millions of people who rely on a brain chip in their daily lives suddenly are subject to something like a global wave of ransomware ?

Well I see it as a way to either:

Keep track of you

or

Control you

Of course you do.

Mithy's fear is legitimate. And so is the prophecy that our descendants will be cyborgs.

We already have cyborgs. They drive like drunks and walk off cliffs while staring at their significant other half of themselves, their damned cellphones. People already have audio visual chips in place of handheld or earpiece phones. Increasingly people in high tech, high security clearance jobs have ID and access chips. And on the errotica scene, a new toy is installing a vibrator under the skin over your pubic bone, hooked up to your computer, and stimulated by a virtual person "at the other end". We know of brain implants hooked to computers, which in turn are connected to robot hands; and what the robot hands touch or pick up, the person interfacing with the robotic hands can feel.

All of this stuff is already going on, and tons more besides, I am sure.

When a segment of the human race is enhanced to the point of lethal advantage, the great die off will happen……….

My belief is that we are already "cyborgs", in the sense that ultimate "technology" governs the universe, and we govern the tech. We do this mortality thing, which is virtual reality to immortals. So we literally can adopt any of the forms our imaginations conceive of, and we do, endlessly…………

Fine. So, if I get chips do I also get fish?

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

We know of brain implants hooked to computers, which in turn are connected to robot hands; and what the robot hands touch or pick up, the person interfacing with the robotic hands can feel.

Are you saying the person with the implant is moving the robot hands and feels sensations through the robot hand via the implanted interface? Can you give me a reference to this?

I'm aware of this work:

link

But that's a far cry from sensory feedback from the robotic arm. That would require even more implants.

I am sure that this is not what I read less than a year ago. The reference is lost to me. The text said in essence that the person felt what the robotic arm was touching. As for controlling the arm at the same time, I don't think so. But could both be that far off?

The text said in essence that the person felt what the robotic arm was touching. As for controlling the arm at the same time, I don't think so.

Hmmm……the other way around sounds more accurate. The mechanical arm/hand would need to send back feedback signals to the sensory parts of the brain based on the mechanical pressure it uses. That's quite a tall order.

Maybe the robotic prostheticl arm was previously owned by a serial murderer, and the arm was trying to make its new owner commit similar crimes.

Dan

Great, the computer glitches and digital breakdowns that only annoy and rob us today can soon destroy our individual bodies and society as a whole.

I hope to be long out of here before the world is assimilated by the New Borg.