Each passing generation seems to accept a greater level of intrusion into its life. When George Orwell wrote 1984, most people were aghast at the level of scrutiny by "Big Brother"-- this doesn't seem to be the case anymore! We accept that cameras follow us all day long, our email is screened and our wireless communications are not protected by the constitution. We accept that the president does not need a warrant to tap our phones if he thinks we are a risk to national security, or even just says so ... or perhaps we do not accept that last.
Our great grandchildren will have access to information about us that will give them insights never before imaginable. They will understand what made us tick better than ever before. There will certainly be internet archaeologists. They exist now, but they're called data miners.
Some day soon you may have an internet memory chip in your head that is installed at birth, giving you instant access to all data ever created -- a real memory chip. As scary as it sounds, it may be coming. Each generation accepts a greater level of techno insidiousness; just look at all the people happy to have a phone sticking out of their heads. Perhaps people will first have cell phones implanted in their heads before memory chips. Not only will it happen, but future generations will ask their grandparents why they wouldn't want such a thing.
So who will be developing these chips?I don't know for sure, but Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE: AMD) would have to be two contenders. Maybe Texas Instruments, Inc. (NYSE: TXN) could get into the act as Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) chases the software. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) could decide to store everything you are thinking in its universal database; it has already committed to storing all world information. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) could help you download the music into your internal memory chip -- iPods are small enough already.
This just gets scarier and scarier to my generation and those gone by. But what about today's generation and the next? Already we have medication patches, phones sticking out of our ears, pill size cameras for less invasive internal exploration, pace makers, insulin drips systems with remote monitoring, artificial hearts, joints, limbs, body-piercing everywhere -- what are the limits? Are we far from being Cyborgs? Are there limits? None that I see.
We can already use credit cards, open doors, start cars and much more without physical contact, might as well identify ourselves with a microchip under the skin. We saw this in the most recent James Bond movie, Casino Royale, and it did not even seem novel at the time as our cell phones make us all traceable already. Each of these steps is, or will be, rationalized in very practical terms and accepted by new generations of people whose resistance to change is ever decreasing and whose moral compass is more monotone.
Okay, I have to stop for now, I'm making myself depressed (mind control) -- I do not need emails to my brain, I can hardly cope now. Keep your eyes and ears open, I think most of you are thinking the same thing.
Disclosure: I do not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story.
Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. Check out his other posts for BloggingStocks here.
Entrepreneur's Journal: Putting together a solid sales contract
The week in preview: Earnings from Walmart, Macy's, and other retailers
Six top trades for the rest of 2009
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-07-2007 @ 1:45PM
LRR said...
You forgot about NanoBots! You want need memory chips the nanobots can just retrive the info for you. But then again maybe they will be preprogrammed with all the info you need before injection.
5-07-2007 @ 3:41PM
Michael Hannon said...
The emphasis in capitalist structure is and should always be what we can accomplish first. The second step is does it need Federal control. Let's invent the wheel first and let the governments design traffic tickets second. Never, never, never, never never, stifule initiative. The market and all its related dynamics will sort it out. But never do anything that would stifule initiative.
5-15-2007 @ 12:29PM
Hogan said...
I can totally see why these brain implants could be scary...But consider this. My son who was born prematurely, has mild mental retardation. All he wants is to be able to think like most of us. He saw a documentary on TV that showed a brain chip that could help him. I don't know what he saw, so I thought I'd research a little bit. Using something like a chip to help people with disabilities would be profound don't you think?