Imagine your brain being integrated with a network so you can scan your e-mail or listen to music in your head. Sounds farfetched? Hardly, say experts, and advanced individual enhancement will have implications for the workforce:

We’re not talking “superhuman” but close. Under the practice of transhumanism–or enhancing people through technology–we could soon be walking around with diamondoid teeth, self-cleaning ears, and hair that can style itself. While banishing bad hair days is a tantalizing thought, what has garnered the most attention about transhumanism is the idea of integrating brains with computers–particularly brains and networks. For example, we could become capable of virtual telepathy, through cell phone implants. Or gain advanced mental and physical prowess through memory augmenters and reflex accelerators.

Futurists say that one day we could even upload and download entire minds in and out of host bodies. That means self-consciousness would know no boundaries, achieving a kind of immortality. But that’s getting a little bit ahead of ourselves.

For now, researchers are examining the concept of brain enhancement. In fact, Francis Fukuyama, a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, has already sounded the warning bell against neurotech in his book Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. He writes that the idea of equal rights can’t hold up to the complications that transhumanism will introduce. And when Fukuyama was asked by Foreign Policy magazine to identify the single idea that currently represents the biggest threat to humanity, his answer was transhumanism.

Ignoring this new practice may not be viable, however. Individuals who shy away from it won’t be able to keep up with peers who can, say, perform Google searches in their head or function without ever sleeping. And companies won’t be able to turn their backs on the advantages of an enhanced workforce.

While it will be many years before we see any transhumanist applications, when they do arrive they will bring up a lot of tricky management issues. For instance, upgrades will explode in number because of the vastness of transhumanist devices, posing selection challenges to even the most affluent users. And digital rights will require a lot of attention. Since “remembering” will become tantamount to “copying” information from hard drives, intellectual property policies will have to be formulated carefully.

Neurosecurity could be the most problematic issue of all. Hackers, spammers and criminals could have a field day with brains running on networks. Through “brainjacking,” they could infiltrate minds and pilfer assets and even trigger behaviors. Fortunately, unlike today’s highly uniform hardware and software, brains are much more unique and thus conceivably much more difficult to tap into.

For now, the mind-boggling implications of transhumanism are being mulled by researchers, ethicists and futurists. But someday, we will have to sort through its consequences as well. Perhaps when that day comes, our enhanced brains will help us along.

Source:

More Than Human – THINKING AHEAD
Fred Hapgood
CIO Magazine, December 15, 2004
www.cio.com/archive/121504/et_article.html