Wetware and you. How I learned to not fear silicon.
In a world where all our expectations are routinely exceeded I have the expectation that we will one day have comprehensive, multi-faceted, robust wetware. What I mean by wetware is portable, ubiquitous, virtually invisible brain computer interface [BCI].
Some of you out in the audience may scoff at this prediction on several grounds: it's only science fiction, it's too complex, the brain will never be understood to that degree, it's icky, who would be stupid enough to stick electronics in their brain.
My goal of this post is not to refute those arguments but to describe a potential outcome. I will only say that many things written about in science fiction years ago have come to pass, this could be another.
Capabilities. Google as my outer brain.
Among the many capabilities that I believe we will have at the tip of our mind will be the near instant access to all the information on the Internet. Think of it, we will be able to channel any and all the information, from any source in the world.
We will be able to view the world though enhanced sensations, what is called augmented reality. Visually directions might be placed over our world, a mobile heads up display as it were. We will have information provided to us about everyday objects, what they contain, how we might use them, are they helpful? Are they perhaps harmful?
Visual augmentation is already under research: eyetap.
And there is no reason why it only has to be visually enhanced. What you hear and feel and SMELL, could all be enhanced.
Will we still think in the same way if any and all information we want is at the wish of our brain? The power of memory will at least decrease as it will be unnecessary to remember anything. Already we see this occurring with handsets controlling peoples phone books. How many phone numbers do you know? How many phone numbers did your parents know?
The result will be far reaching and certainly a mixed bag of good and bad.
Personas. Part of you for everyone to see.
We will expose a part of our thinking and wishing to the outside world. This will be in some form of a persona or perhaps a simplistic statistic sheet. It will probably take many forms and there will likely need to be some sort of consortium that will establish industry standards...and Microsoft will probably create a competing standard that will in many ways be better but in some ways crippled.
This exposed persona or avatar or datasheet or "comic-bubble" will be a form of interface with other people. It will let them see who we are, what we are looking for, maybe what we are feeling, what we think about them.
And we will be able to see the avatar of others.
For all intents and purposes...Telepathy.
If we can see thoughts and feelings of others and they can see the same from us...isn't that the definition of telepathy?
[Definition: Telepathy...is a term used to describe the transfer of information on thoughts or feelings between individuals by means other than the five classical senses. Wikipedia]
I guess it isn't quite the historical fantasy of reading someone's mind, but in a way the reverse. Our mind (or a small portion of it) is exposed externally for the viewing.
What sort of interface will there be? Will our software mind automatically attach with another persona and exchange information? Or will it be a passive listening/watching interface? Will we be able to attach to more than one person? What sort of new crimes will be created from this technology? How do you define your personal space in this new world?
I of course have no answers to those questions? Merely more questions?
Will we end up hating EVERYBODY?
With regards to human interaction, we could see a greater polarization within the public much like we've seen in media consumption as the Internet has matured. With our viewpoints and emotions harder to hide and more on our sleeves as it were, people might tend to automatically gravitate towards only people of similar thinking as themselves.
This could hurt friendships as people have a more difficult time accepting people when some of their disparate thoughts and feelings are on display for the world to see.
How do you hide your politics, your religious feelings, your bigotry, your distaste? Because we all do right now. The bottling up inside our heads of all our unorganized and contradictory thoughts and feelings allows us to deal with everyone around us in a civilized manner. What if you can no longer edit your thoughts and feelings from the outside world?
There of course will need to be a way to prevent the display of all your inner most thoughts. I assume there will be differing levels of display. In public you show the bare minimum: first name [or handle], occupation, public contact info...and nada mucho.
With friends and family you would show more. Perhaps much more. It would bring a whole new meaning to the word homepage.
There would grow up around the exposed persona a whole range and breadth of supporting applications. This is a brand new market for software development that has no entrants in it yet.
Software that you can create and make billions off of
Filter programs: An easy means of controlling what is exposed to whom. This software package will probably be included with the original installation, but after market suites will probably have a niche to fill as well.
Spoofers: Do you want someone to think you like them but your true feelings get in the way? An emotion spoofer is perfect for this. Politicians will absolutely require this mind-mod.
Detectors: Do you want to know if someone is spoofing you? With the emotion spoofer detection application, you may not be able to find out what they truly think, but you will know if they are lying about it.
Environment overlay: Does your city look dull and gray? Get this package and make all the buildings rosy and pink. Hide the garbage, dull the stink. Change the settings to suit your tastes
Adware: Ah yes there will be money in them thar hills. Every new medium is followed by advertising. Why should this be any different. As you walk through the world targeted visitor ads will be displayed at any opportunity, trying to entice you to spend your hard earned money.
Ad-blocking software: With adware comes ad blocking software. They are two peas in a pod.
Who will build it?
Who will write the software?
What will the OS look like?
Will it be Linux or Windows?
Of course if its inside my brain I will probably want a Mac.