Well, it’s happening now. Tech giants like Apple, Google, and Facebook are busy at work developing new, advanced technology to finally merge human and machine. Their tests and research is focusing (non-exclusively of course) on the smartphone now being part of you. Imagine instead of staring at the small screen of your smartphone, you instead just look straight forward, as the images are beamed directly onto your eyes, like a projector in a lecture room. Sound a bit like the matrix?
This all seems fascinating, but my question/concern is the same one that pops up when we discuss cognitive computing and artificial intelligence: How far is too far?
Sure, it seems super cool and makes us feel like we’re in a movie, getting computer readouts beamed directly onto our eyeballs like we’re Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 10. But what does this mean for our freedom and independence from technology? We’re already addicted to our mobile devices, with the average adult spending over 4 hours a day on phone/social media (millennials can expect to be nearly double that). If they’re physically wired into us, how much worse will it get? How will people maintain focus on anything that is in front of them, when they have the entire world being beamed onto their eyes? How will it affect our friendships/relationships? How will we protect our privacy?
What data will the device collect on you? Your health? Your movements? Your conversations? And who will have access to this data? Our smartphones are already guilty of this. If you have “Hey Siri” activated on your iPhone, have a conversation with a friend one day and see an advertisement for a related product on Facebook the next day.
So again, how far is too far? You can’t stop progress. No one, not even the government can prevent new technologies from being invented, despite whether they’re good or bad. People and organizations will march on. So when this new technology is available, how will the public react? Who will adopt it?
I’ll end with a question: would you implant a chip or device into your brain, that would allow you to be connected to your smartphone (or computer) 24/7? Why or why not?
Source: https://www.businessinsider.nl/death-of-the-smartphone-and-what-comes-after-2017-3/?international=true&r=US
Very interesting topic! This development to humans becoming cyborgs is very scary. My opinion today is that I would never implement a chip in me that could partly control/help me in my daily live. This thought can of course change in the years to come. However, I think that this will go too far for a lot of people. People like having the control over their own life and just partly giving this up to a robot is a big step to take. For now I don’t consider this as very likely to happen, because of all the resistence it will face. Then again the public opinion about technology chances very quickly. For example, now most people accept the fact that they could be spied on every moment of the day. For now I don’t consider this as a real threat to humanity. However, completely disregarding this technological innovation would be naive.
Dear Ross,
This is an interesting blog you wrote. I am firstly wondering in what time span you expect this technology to take over. Although it can definitely provide opportunities for a lot of companies as well as start-ups, I am wondering whether it will come so far that people actually allow technology to take over their body in such a way. What do you think yourself? Will the technology be adopted in the first place. And if so, are more and more people going to give over to it at some point, because they have the feeling they need to? Because their peers do have that chip in their brain, requiring them to have the same in order to be able to keep on communicating properly with them? What do you think?
Best,
Pauline
Hi Ross,
Very interesting article, reminds me a little of the movie Divergent indeed! Let’s hope it never gets this far.
Actually, I would like to pick up on your comment regarding ‘hi Siri’. This is something I was not actually aware of. You say that no government can prevent the new technologies of being invented. That’s completely true ofcourse, however in a couple of months a new, European wide law will be implemented, the EU GDPR (General Data Protaction Regulation), see http://www.eugdpr.org/eugdpr.org.html. I wonder to which extent this law will change the behaviour of companies such as Apple or Google in terms of sales of our data!
With regard to your question, whereas I think not many consumers will be (atleast at first) willing to implant a chip in their brains, it could be very interesting for for exapmle athletes, such as football players. Their phone/another system linked to it can track how they are feeling in a more advanced way than they tracked it previously! However, overall I view this advancement as more of a threat than an opportunity.