- Neuralink and the such.
- Today I had a conversation that shifted to neuralink, this essay will outline my general predictions about the matter. For those unfamiliar with the subject here is a rundown: Neuralink is another side project of the "entrepreneur" Elon Musk, the rationale for which is a pharmaceutical company which will specialize in performance enhancing implants. Using the term "will" is very apt in this situation as with most of Musk's miracle projects, it is yet to deliver a viable product. Though not here yet, it is irrefutable that such innovations, for better or worse, are on the horizon.
- The crux of my friend's argument for why such an innovation must be opposed was that implants of this kind will be used by the governments or corporations to control what the user may think. It might be true that such technologies will be outright to spread the interests of those player's, but personally I don't find such a scenario likely. Rarely do new technologies get used for outright mass surveillance immediately, it took years before the internet was big enough to be surveilled on such a massive scale as it is now.
- Once such implants are available for purchase to the general public, at first they would most probably be used as status symbols,. You won't be able to open any of your social media sites without seeing one of those annoying articles about a musician or some other influencer installing one for an exorbitant amount of money. After the first month or two the buzz will quite down and you'll notice some first adopters with an antenna sticking out of his ear while you go about your daily commute.
- After the big splash some smaller companies will start offering more affordable options. More regular people will get access to the product, while most still opting in to go with the major market players. Headlines of people looking up answers to questions during interviews, students using them to cheat on exams, texting and driving incidents increase. There will be luddites that vehemently oppose the tide of the future, but that conviction will just keep them at a disadvantage in many aspects of life, most will give in eventually.
- Some time passes, 3 maybe 5 years, everyone is expected to have a brain assistant installed. Everyone's subscription to the service is deducted from their bank account at the beginning of the month, most choose to upgrade to the newest model every year. Whatever coffee shop you enter will automatically send you a brain pop up welcoming you. Laws surrounding what can be beamed into your cranium will be ignored as every bus stop will be spiked with a rasberry pi that shoots images of hot single ladies whenever you pass it. Benevolent tech overlords will allow us to turn off annoying pop ups, but as always there will be workarounds. All things that are deemed problematic will be cut out from your vision, no more seeing those pesky homeless people on the sidewalk, if that doesn't make you feel better upgrade to a plan that includes automatic dopamine injections.
- Frankly, even I don't believe this is exactly the way it will go down, yet still it is fun to wonder what horrors the future might bring. One thing I'm certain of is that no matter how bad the consequences might be, no politician or big business executive will slow down to think about the repercussions of their actions. Big business will do anything to get as much of the market share before any party has even the slightest idea of how to regulate the industry. After all, what are we but play things to test new gadgets on. Lab rats of the future, I wish you good luck.