
Intel scientists are hellbent on integrating the human mind with computer chips, and they plan to do it by 2020. While we long for a world more akin to the one we were promised in our youth (ie: flying cars, jet packs, pretty much anything revolving around personal flight) we are still pretty unsettled by this. Seems like there's potential for a lot to go wrong. And Intel isn't the only group pursuing this avenue:
Plenty of other researchers have also tinkered in this area. Toyota recently demoed a wheelchair controlled with brainwaves, and University of Utah researchers have created a wireless brain transmitter that allows monkeys to control robotic arms.
There are still more implications to creating a seamless brain interface, besides having more cyborgs running around. If scientists can translate brain waves into specific actions, there's no reason they could not create a virtual world with a full spectrum of activity tied to those brain waves. That's right -- we're seeing Matrix creep.
Let us reiterate that we fully support mankind's efforts to realize a world in which, for starters, we're not driving cars that operate on the same basic principle on which the Model T was conceived. But monkeys controlling robotic arms? Have we lost all sense of perspective regarding our own self-preservation? We hate to sound like alarmists, but this is disconcerting at best. We are essentially ensuring that the advent of an apocalyptic future be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It would be great to do away with the tedium of actually having to move one's hand in order to waste time on the internet, but this smacks of flying too close to the sun. We, at least, will spend the next decade stocking up on canned foods and small-arms ordnance.
TROUGH
via popsci