Facebook wants your very thoughts
For the past ten plus years I have been attempting to write a cyberpunk novel “Sympathy for the Devil”. I make little time for it, putting my kids first. I suck at writing dialogue, and I still have no clear idea how my hero will be transformed by the hero’s journey. What I do have is a great feeling of the world where the story happens.
In this world there is something like Facebook, more advanced, a neural interface network called Sympathy (play on words for both simulated path and emotional connection). This network is aimed at adults and offers services like shopping (commerce), virtual trips, and dating. This environment is aided by Big Pharma companies who pump you full of “travel drugs” to make sure your virtual experience is supreme, and ease you off with “anchor drugs” to make sure your mood is stabile when you leave the virtual space.
This is a society of laws where AIs police the virtual world and one’s thoughts and are protected from being interfered directly by a set of “Sanctity laws”.
People are open to use the neural interface and have their “mind read” because they feel secure in the system. They feel safe. There is a set of laws protecting their minds form being imprinted (outside of regular advertising), their thoughts being exploited by the governments (self-incrimination, Manchurian candidate), their bodies being hacked and taken over by hostile persons for the purpose of exploitation etc.
Today, we all know you cannot stop progress, and the recent announcement, or a slipup, by Mark Zuckerberg has made it crystal clear. This type of technology is coming.
Rudimentary “mind controlled” mouse is wrapped in research for the handicapped. “Imagine what this technology will do for the lives of the bedridden” — great PR. It will grow, develop, early adopters will embrace it. “Look, haha, I can play video games using only my mind.” Soon true mind to machine interface will be built. I hope there are limits to this technology.
Now, Mark wants your very thoughts. He wants to split your mind open without splitting open your skull. He wants to gorge on it, yet in return he will give you nothing. He does not want to, nor is he competent to do so. Like an Illithid he is — a Mind Flayer.
Seems funny I know but I am just not comfortable having this kind of power in the hands of a man like Mark. Mark has transparency issues. Mark has leadership issues. Mark has ethics issues.
This technology will be unregulated. It will grow. “We will see how it turns out, if it makes money, then we will regulate it, just like the Internet.” Today’s congressmen cannot understand Facebook, how will they understand something more complex like mind reading?
It will become widely popular and one day Mark will get a call from someone in the Government. They will tell him lives are at stake. They will spice it up with patriotism. They will threaten legal action. Mark is no Tim Cook. He is a coward. He will buckle, or worse he will leap at the chance — moving fast and breaking things — he has been loose with privacy before. Pandora’s box will be opened. Governments are cruel to their subjects so they treat subjects of other governments even worse. They will have tools to read your thoughts. Then the hackers will. Then there will be an app.
Is your husband thinking of the neighbor’s wife? Is she thinking about leaving you? Unsure about making decisions — we will sort this out for you. Finally, the men will be able to unravel the age-old mystery of the woman’s mind. What a brave new world!
My point is:
Whatever happened to — “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Whatever happened to thoughtful planning of our laws, our society, while staying connected to our values? Was that even real?
Great minds like the Founding Fathers, like that of Asimov who wrote laws of robotics, thought about the challenges we will be facing in the future and how to proceed before we ram into it blindly like the Titanic in the night.
My point is:
Mark is no Asimov. I have no illusion that the Governments will do anything about it (maybe EU, but after the fact). Nothing will be done before we rush headlong into this new mind-cracked future. Enjoy your thoughts while they are still yours. I just thought I’d warn you.
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