Is The Future Dangerous?
3 Reasons — Neuralink should not be commercialized
Is too much technological progress a threat to mankind?
How many times have we found ourselves thinking or saying “Oh.. So cool! I wish, I could also interact with my devices using my brain. I wish this was the future” after watching every sci-fi movie.
We all grew up saying this or wishing something existed in real life. Oblivious of real-world challenges and the criminal aspect. We kept imagining a beautiful future that was created and displayed to us in the movies or books.
Already, the technology that are in existence are being misused on a wider scale than it is being used for good. With the recent US treasury getting hacked along with many other tech giants, because of a program by SolarWind that had a malicious code that went unnoticed for months.
It suffices to say without a second thought — everything is corruptible (hackable) in this modern age.
Let us look over at the 3 reasons why Neuralink shouldn’t be commercialized.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth has had a notorious reputation for its weak security factors all its life. In fact, Bluetooth was always criticized for being one of the weakest forms of communication device.
It is sophisticatedly possible via Bluetooth to track, jam, spoof, or sniff.
Neuralink uses Bluetooth to connect to our smartphones for all communication, data transmission, or for any kind of interaction.
It’s hard to imagine, with so much security weakness and a device such as Neuralink that connects to our brain — which has access to our thoughts, memories and so much more, is working on a technology as Bluetooth that has a history of bad repute and safety concerns.
Memories
Memories are beautiful and also painful. The human being’s ability to forget certain memories or incidences from our life is a blessing. Neuralink promises superhuman capabilities, i.e. Extremely powerful brain, which would allow us to think hyper-fast, remember our memories and moments accurately to the tooth, and so much more.
The problem is defying human nature and trying to mechanize the human species. The intermixing or converging technology and human species — that so-called “Humanoids” may certainly look cool and may seem helpful for the world. But we are living in reality, and we don’t have a scriptwriter that could change a particular event to our liking.
Surveillance — Data on Cloud
Whilst, everyone is familiar with Black mirror’s “The Entire History of You” episode. This episode and this technology are not totally estranged to the reality of Neuralink being implanted in our heads and how our futures may turn out, for better or worse. In fact, this may happen someday — in an unimaginable manner.
Also, the cloud is not all safe and secured from any threat or attack. Our memories, data, and whatnot will be forced to be uploaded by the government to some cloud-storage company of our choice.
This will be made mandatory like present-day life insurance, where one has to have the data/memory cloud-stored in order to avail services or in extreme cases — to be recognized as citizens.
This could even be made mandatory by law in most countries.
While this technology, on the whole, is not bad — but mass commercialization, sure will enable a mass surveillanced world — which would be far terrorizing than present-day surveillance of China — or an outright slavery-like life.
Neuralink for disabled
The perfect candidate for this product are all the people that are facing challenges — be it a mental health disease, paralyzation, blindness, anything and everything where this device could help.
This is a life-changing product that is best in a restricted form and to a limited selection of the population.
Although this product has been designed and launched for this demographic. It is not a strange thing for this technology to be later commercialized — therefore, the point I am trying to make is. Let the Neuralink be used for which it was introduced for, and the expansion of the market to other demographic — has the high possibility of bringing havoc on ourselves.
Final Say…
The future was told as going to be bright and shining. We see and realize now how much that sidetracked, and how we could be on the verge of self-annihilation. The recent breakthroughs such as AI, smartphones, smart gadgets — we all cheered when the tech industry was booming unlike ever before — we now see its implications on us already, with, be it mental illness, lack of motivation, cyber-bullying, body image issues. Every individual these days wishes life was simpler like it was in the past.
And the AI that has barely started crawling — all of the world is skeptical about its use cases and worried if it would be a threat to the human species.
I’m not saying movies or books dictate our future or our technological progress.
In fact, Elon Musk, who is cheered by citizens of the world as a visionary and counts him as one of the greatest minds to be born before us. He expressed his worries with AI and basically the way where humankind is heading to and may end up. On the podcast show of Joe Rogan.
I am just drawing an alternate reality, whilst also equally showcasing how many times we have caused ourselves a tool of anguish, destruction, exploitation, and a product of creating mental health issues unknowingly in hopes of a better future.
I just wish us a safe future!
