If you could ‘upgrade’ your brain, would you do so? Think about it, if there was a chip that could, for example, improve memory, or allow you to interface with computers using thoughts, would you want it? What if everybody was getting it? Like the smartphone revolution, would you feel left behind without the latest brain machine interface or BMI?
This might seem hypothetical, however we are fast approaching this technology becoming available. Already technology has been developed that allow the mind to interface with machines, allowing control of robotic limbs, moving mouse pointers and sending thoughts across the internet. BMIs have existed for almost 20 years, and while still in development, prominent tech figures are developing interfaces that could eventually connect the human mind to the internet. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have both independently come forward with their intentions to make interfacing with computers and AI a reality for all.
Futurism Infographic - Building a Better Mind - How Human Intelligence Will Be Supercharged By AI
The ability to communicate with others by thought would be a revolutionary leap in communication, while brain chips could be great for the control of pain and provide ‘cures’ for mental illnesses, there is the very real threat of giving others (technology, companies or individuals) the ability to read and manipulate our thoughts.
What many people don't realise is that deep covert operations have been experimenting with manipulating the human mind for years. They have already perfected EMF weapons that can broadcast the frequencies of the human brain in certain emotional states, causing the recipient to respond to those states, or project certain thought patterns, causing them to perform certain acts, go mad or even commit suicide.
While such technologies are already in use, there is a plan to expand this influence by implanting EMF emitters in our minds. A time is approaching when most people would willingly conform to this transhumanist agenda, without fully realising the grave danger it presents through mind manipulation.
Now that AI can hack any password, there has been a recent move to push microchipping people as a means of identification or even using the patterns of your thoughts to identify you. There has also been a push to put microchips in pills as a means of monitoring the body.
And once the majority of people have willingly participated, it won’t be long until everyone will require a microchip and/or brain implant to participate in society. We already have smartphones that have a grip on our behaviour. Once our brains are connected to ‘The Cloud’ we will be much easier to control and our reliance on technology could pass the point of no return.
We are on the verge of melding human and machine within the brain but we have not yet fully considered the consequences of this on our freedom of thought, free will, our personalities and even what makes us human.
Musk argues that brain chips will be a necessity in order for us to assimilate and keep up with developing AI. He addresses the future of AI and human computer interfaces in the video below.
With the coming Internet of Things, most everything around us will be connected together. Most everything will have some means of sending and receiving information, which various AI will absorb and process, searching for patterns and behaviours. The industries behind the AI and technologies will have the means for not only mass surveillance (which is already around us) but also manipulation of behaviour. Sooner than we might think, our thoughts will not be private, or even always our own.
With AI able to learn from any system and potentially hack anything, it wouldn’t take much for them to learn how the brain works once they have the data from active brain chips to review. It is only a short leap then to the ability to hack our thoughts, and while this may sound paranoid, it is entirely within the range of possibility and the steps towards it are already happening.
Already smartphones have become addictive, with apps designed to keep us scrolling feeds and checking back. If you lose or forget your phone, most people feel lost and itchy for that android companion. We are already far detached from the world around us, what would it be like if we could access the internet with our minds? Would we become lazy in our mental prowess when we can get an AI to do the legwork?
Once thoughts can be sent, it is not a far stretch for them to be received. We are already subject to the mind manipulation of education, mass media, advertising, toxicity and electromagnetic field weapons (I hope to expand on this in future posts), with a BCI connection, there is no limit to the manipulation that could take place. What if they could implant thoughts like ‘I’m hungry for McDonalds’ when passing the restaurant or dreams of burgers throughout the night? Or what if they could implant thoughts like ’I want to kill myself’ to those that have spoken out against the system?
I am by no means a technophobe and I am not against progress, however I believe it to be a good idea to have a serious think about the philosophical and ethical consequences of such technologies and whether, upon reflection they are really the direction we want to take ourselves.
What do you think? Would you willingly get a chip if it provided ease of identification or communication? Let me know in the comments below!