Not quite as elegant as the genetically manipulated physiological
human-computer interface I was describing - but same basic concept. The
difference might be that a geneered interface to an external microprocessor
almost guarantees that the human controls the interaction - I don't like
this "data beamed directly into your brain concept". Instead, I should be
able to access data directly *from* my brain.
>Saylor would do it by having a tiny transmitter surgically implanted in
your
>skull or by sewing a computer chip into your wrist and having it transmit
to
>an embedded radiolike device near your ear bones.
Does anyone have any information on how MicroStrategy plans to interact with
the brain (it's obviously not as easy as inserting a silicon wafer, power
supply, and wireless reciever into the body).
----- Original Message -----
From: "BillK" <bill@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2000 5:42 AM
Subject: Uploading news item
I received this from another list and I haven't noticed it posted here, so
as I think it might be of interest to extropians, see below:-
Best wishes, BillK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From The Asbury Park Press,
http://www.app.com/news/app/story/0,2110,273813,00.html
-
May 15, 2000
High-tech guru offers a chip for your thoughts
Published in the Asbury Park Press 5/15/00
Second of three parts
By JOHN HANCHETTE
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
Privacy advocates fear that as rapid advances are made in technology, the
personal lives of Americans may be shadowed by a cloud no bigger than a
computer chip.
Gannett Photo Network
MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor proposes uploading information direct
to people's brains via computer chip.
One proposal, drawn from a recent science fiction film, is close to reality.
Michael Saylor the 35-year-old founder of MicroStrategy, who perhaps is most
famous for watching his personal net stock worth drop $6 billion in a single
morning without whimpering is involved with the concept.
Saylor wants to beam information directly into your mind; he calls it
"telepathic intelligence."
Saylor would do it by having a tiny transmitter surgically implanted in your
skull or by sewing a computer chip into your wrist and having it transmit to
an embedded radiolike device near your ear bones.
His computers already process a mammoth amount of data; pertinent portions
would be tailored to your life and interests, then transmitted to brain or
ear instantaneously 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Your stock is tanking sell. You're on the wrong street turn here. Your
spouse wrecked the other car call the insurance company. Your house is being
burglarized call the cops. The doctor called in your prescription visit the
pharmacy.
"I don't know who in their right mind would let somebody implant this in
their head," says Fordham University Law School professor Joel Reidenberg,
an expert on information privacy. "To the extent that we begin to create a
system of automatons responding to chip implants in people's brains, we will
be destroying the foundations of a democratic society.
"Without question, there would be a great opportunity for mischief here."
MicroStrategy spokesmen confirm that Saylor "sees potential in the future of
such a chip" and that the firm's Strategy.com subsidiary a network of
"customer intelligence channels" that sends 300,000 people some 2 million
personalized messages a week is working long term on the idea.
But MicroStrategy spokesman Michael Quint said this would be what computer
business calls "opt-in": ""It's all permission marketing. If you're talking
about the privacy thing, we'd need to get the permission of the customer or
the consumer."
Reidenberg is not impressed: "The notion that it's "permission marketing
only' is a hoax. There's no way a citizen in our society can make an
intelligent, informed decision about the risks of these implants, which
would be sold through very sophisticated marketing by organizations with
large economic interests whose goals are not to promote the public interest.
That's a very scary vision for a democratic society.
"Forget the health and safety issues. Assume they figure out how not to kill
people when they put it in. The information-control aspects are beyond what
George Orwell could have dreamed about."
Not everyone is upset by this techno-vision.
When online prankster Bill Cross a few months ago put up a hoax Web site
that offered $250 for letting surgeons insert an electronic chip under the
right palm for cashless purchases, he was stunned at the response. People
signed up for the nonexistent implant "in droves," he says.
And the techno-vision is reality.
Three months ago Applied Digital Solutions a publicly traded firm based in
Palm Beach announced it had developed a high-tech transceiver chip, thinner
than a dime, that could be implanted in flesh and used as a tracking device
by transmitting the person's whereabouts to a global positioning satellite.
Trademarked as the "Digital Angel," the chip could be inserted in children
at the behest of parents who fear kidnappers or in elderly parents at the
behest of children who fear those afflicted with Alzheimer's will wander
off. The chip can hold medical and financial information.
Applied Digital says the implant would be voluntary, making the privacy
issue moot.
But David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information
Center in Washington, D.C., worries the device could evolve into a workplace
requirement one that "would dwarf polygraphs and drug testing."
And more than 500,000 pets now carry between their shoulder blades an
implanted, scannable computer chip carrying owner and vaccination data.
"The technology is there to implant chips allowing programming of devices,
like in your pacemaker," says Washington privacy consultant Robert Gellman,
who calls Saylor's idea "Big Brother on steroids."
Says Gellman: "I keep thinking one day soon they'll be able to beam
commercials into your pacemaker that warn, "Buy our product, or we're going
to skip a couple of heartbeats.' Think of all the people who believe the CIA
is beaming rays into their heads already."
Saylor bothers privacy advocates in another way.
He wants the government to make the huge Medicare database available online
so it easily could be compiled and searched by his firm to discover
dangerous medications and unsafe physicians, about whom you would be warned.
"Give me your medical records, and I will give you more life," Saylor says.
"Privacy advocates should take him seriously," said Evan Hendricks,
publisher of the watchdog Privacy Times. "He's putting out his own version
of "Mein Kampf.' Saylor is very genuine, I think. The more data they have,
the more strategic decisions they can make."
© copyright 2000 Gannett News Service
Published on May 15, 2000
-------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:11:19 MDT