2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORY
2023 FUTURE OBSERVATORYIn our original work we highlighted a possible wild-card, that of implanting computer communication chips into the brain. At the time it seemed quite interesting, albeit rather speculative. Since that time, however, we have investigated this further, and now think this is an even more important development. This is for two very different reasons:
PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT - it now seems clear that we will soon place considerable emphasis on methods of improving our individual intellectual ability - much as in previous times we used machines to enhance our physical abilities. This enhancement may come, especially in the short-term, from new drugs.
In the longer term, though, it may well come from computer communication chips implanted in the brain. These potentially offer the ideal interface with the computer, and the communications networks. We would need no other equipment; no screens to view the data, no keyboards - or even voice input - to enter the data. We would be free to do what we wanted, yet we could always be in touch with our computer. This is a freedom which goes way beyond that offered even by other forms of mobile communications.
In addition, we would - for the first time - be able to communicate what all our senses perceived directly to others; touch, taste and smell as well as sight and sound. Even more radically, we would be able to communicate our feelings directly; love, hate, nostalgia etc. etc.
All of this will add extra dimensions to our communications, and to our art.
We were originally rather cautious about the timescales, not because the technology would be available - various labs are already working on this - but because we though it would take much longer for people to accept the idea of the brain surgery needed, even if it were to become routine. We have now revised our position, as a result of a contribution by a member of one of our discussion groups. He quite simply asked "If you knew that it would enhance your performance so dramatically, would you hesitate?" He also posed the analogy "If you were blind and someone offered you this operation in order to see, would you hesitate?" The obvious conclusion seems to be that we will be queuing for the operation as soon as it becomes available!
SYMBIOSIS WITH THE COMPUTER - our investigations revealed that, regardless of whether chips are ever implanted in our brains, the revolutionary changes are already taking place. The 'chips' debate merely highlights the fact that we are already entering into some form of symbiosis with our computers. The 'chips' will enhance that, but the most important elements are already there. We receive input through our PC's screen as fast as we can take it, and we send output almost as fast as we can create it (and, with voice input already upon us, we will soon send as fast as our brain can cope).
The result is that most of the communications symbiosis is already there. We can no longer live without our PC. You only need to watch a colleague whose PC has 'gone down' to realise the traumatic impact this can have! At the same time we are putting more and more of ourselves onto our databases, now pictures and sounds as well as words. When we want to remember something we increasingly turn to that PC, rather than to the filing cabinet or even our own memories. In the ultimate, this will result in something like immortality. More of us will be on the computer than inside of us; and that will be there until someone shuts the electricity off!
16 May 2003
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