Brain Implants: Hope or Hype

Brain Implants: Hope or Hype — Katina Michael:

From therapy to entertainment, to the technological singularity — a recent hire to the School for the Future of Innovation in Society opens a window into the endless possibilities, dangers and uncertainty of brain implants at ASU’s TEDx event. 

“I'm looking at how they are presently being used and why they are being used,” Michael said. “For example, a person suffering from Parkinson's disease, Tourette syndrome, or dystonia — when they become resistant to drugs and pharmaceuticals — will opt for this procedure as a last resort because it’s the only hope they have of having some quality of life."

Michael will also explore a future where implants are used beyond therapeutics for entertainment, and eventually, the possibility of uploading our own consciousness to technology. 

“We don't know the long term effects of being disembodied," Michael said. "But I'm arguing at the end of my talk that to some degree we have already been disembodied by the technological interventions we are using, whether it's smartphones or, whether it's our social media, we have less physical contact with those we love and we have more contact with inanimate objects even if we're using them as vehicles of communication. So this decrease in face-to-face is going to cause problems.”

Source: Isaac Windes, 22 March 2019, “ASU students and faculty look to the future at TEDx NextGen”, StatePress, http://www.statepress.com/article/2019/03/spscience-asu-students-look-to-the-future-at-tedx-nextgen