The Flip
May 2019 Editorial
www.ink2quill.com

Yes, so many articles have been written about how far we´ve come as a global society. As that conversation progresses it inevitably leads to a discussion on technology and how far it´s come. Some of us remember the days before smart phones and the more aged of us remember the days of typewriters, home phones, cathode ray TV, analogue technologies and the list goes on. We can look back and sigh but I´d rather look forward. More specifically, how are our lives changing and what tipping points have we passed, or are we due to pass soon? That exact moment of great change can be easy to miss. Like the sudden flip in our relationship with technology.

So, in the past two centuries we have the Industrial Revolution, the Computer Revolution, the Internet Revolution to name a few great moments of change off the top of my head. Revolutions to come are the Robotic Revolution where robots and machines will take the place of people in a lot of areas. There´s also the Fusion Revolution, where people and machines will fuse together to solve certain problems. Think of a person who lost their arms and so use mechanical arms that respond to that person´s thoughts translated from electrical brain activity. That´s another revolution.

What about when an advanced machine or group of unconcerned people can read or influence the thoughts and actions of a single person hooked up to a machine? That might not be the best use of technology.

I recently visited a lab where a group of people are working on reading and decoding the electrical impulses from a person´s brain. They are making huge strides. I wore electrodes and they were able to see and give a vague interpretation of what I was doing, i.e. resting, meditating or speaking. When they are done, or maybe in some other lab, we will have cracked the mind as a black box of unknown content. That is, the mind of people, animals or anything that thinks will be revealed to us. Some of the possibilities of emerging technologies are reading and influencing thoughts, (such as the case of robotic arms replacing the function of real ones.)

The head of the lab spoke of people being born into the internet, like a hive, with their thoughts and actions subject to the whim of some authority or group. Now me being a sci-fi buff I gobbled it up and spoke on of all the terrifying possibilities as well as the benefits. We spoke of the benefits and dangers of such technology but one thing was sure, this technology is needed and there´s no stopping it. We will have people who´ve lost their legs walk again with robotic ones just as we will have stores or airports beam messages directly into our skulls. Once the privacy of our minds is gone society to the individual seems a little like a bathroom without curtains, shutters or doors. Would it be that way? This is a flip in the role of technology as we´re used to where technology is no longer just another passive tool. The emerging technologies are soon to become symbiotes with people.

John

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