Daily Commentary

May 03, 2000


CYBORG:
A Brave New World

By Allan B. Colombo

The 21st Century will bring with it seemingly wonderful innovations that promise to enhance mankind's natural abilities, such as new mental processing powers, along with a fresh global purpose.

Today, computers allow men and women to do more with less and in a reduced amount of time then ever before. Not only does this increase our output, but it will likely propell society at break-neck speed into a brave new world where man and machine become one. Some see this as a benefit while others believe it will usher in new abusive powers that those at the helm are almost sure to exploit.

Next year, Kevin Warwick, author of "In the Mind of the Machine" (1998), will be fitted with a special computer chip that will enable him to think in new ways and at speeds unheard of before.

"Although today's computers can consume and spit out megabytes of information in seconds, it takes us hours, days, or even months to enter data into a PC. With only crude tools like keyboards, mice, and voice recognition software available to use, our communication with computers is agonizingly slow and awkward," says John R. Quain, I Am Cyborg, Popular Science, March 2000.

As an experiment, Warwick had a biochip with limited capabilities installed in his upper left arm in 1998, but then had it removed no more than 9 days later. As an elaborate, high-tech access control device, this biochip enabled him to leave his keys at home.

For example, someone with an embedded biochip would be recognized by an access control reader at the main entrance of a facility after hours. During or after hours, the same hidden chip would be recognized by a lift when he or she first enters. The lift would "know" what floor the individual is authorized on and would take them to that area only.

At the same time, the building management system would immediately turn on the necessary lights bettween the lift and the individual's assigned work area. It would also activate the environmental systems within that area--all because of one, little chip buried under the skin of that individual. Sounds great, doesn't it?

A Brave New World
In The Making

Worwick and others see a brave new world in the making where we will carry within our bodies special microprocessor chips. Besides increasing our mental capabilities, it will also allow us to interface with external computer networks in a direct fashion, without the customary keyboard and mouse that we of the 20th Century have come to expect.

High-speed processing performance is not the only thing that an implanted microchip will do for mankind. For the governors in control, it could offer an alternate means of controlling the governed. Biotransponder chip technology most assuredly will bring with it the potential for mental and emotional control.

No you say?

In his article that appeared in the March 2000 issue of Popular Science, Quain, said;

"Of course, it takes two to communicate, so the second half of Warwick's experiment will involve computer-to-human transmissions. Once the cybernetics department's computer has finished storing every tiny electrical impulse Warwick's arm emits, it will begin trying to assimilate that information--and then send it back to the implant in Warwick's arm. In what could turn out to be a computer-controlled version of a game of Simon Says, the computer may even make Warwick wave or tap his fingers."

NASA has long been interested in this capability for their astronauts. Since the late 1980s, article after article has appeard in NASA Tech Briefs that describe the efforts of scientists to marry solid-state technology with human biology. The reason for NASA's interest hinges on the prospect of direct astronaut interface with on-board computer and communications systems. Not only would this allow these men and women to interact more efficiently with their crafts, but it would also allow them to do it without the traditional manual means.

In order to do this, these biochips will have to connect directly with the human nervous system. Perhaps the time necessary for this to occur is not as long as we might think. As you will see in the following article, which appeared in Safety & Security Magazine, January 1998, science has long been working on this chip-to-brain connection:

Neurochip Technology: Connecting
Chips to the Human Brain

Caltech researchers recently announced the creation of the "neurochip," an invention that some believe will someday make it possible to plant solid-state chips within the human brain for a variety of enhancements. Dr. Jerome Phine, Professor of Physics and coinventor at Caltech, said that the neurochip technology is a major step forward in the study of neural networks, something that scientists have been working on for more than a decade.

"This is pretty much a small brain connected to a computer, so it will be useful in finding out how a neural network develops and what its properties are. It will also be useful for studying chemical reactions at the synapses for weeks at a time. With conventional technology, you can record directly from at most a few neurons for at most a couple of hours," said Michael Maher, one of the coinventors.

Neurons from the hippocampus of rat embryos are used in the making of the chip network. The process involved is slow and painstaking process; but, Maher says that there is no reason why millions of cells cannot be linked together using this technology.

The other Caltech neurochip coinventors are Hannah Dvorak-Carbone, a graduate student in biology; Yu-Chong Tai, an associate professor of electrical engineering; and Tai's student, John Wright.

Publication: Safety & Security Magazine
Title: Connecting Chips to the Human Brain
Author: Allan B. Colombo
Issue Date: January 1998

Is it Really A Brave New
World In The Making?

In the future world envisoned by the famous author, Aldous Huxley, the family unit is seen as a threat to civilization. Citizens are encouraged to sleep with multiple partners and even punished if they focus on only one partner. In Huxley's Brave New World children are communal, born not of parents, but among many, by the wonders of modern technology. The author only infers and never describes in detail the horrors of this new world--horrors that many today would embrace as the norm if they but could.

The fact is, there has long been an effort afoot to derail the family unit and to curb population growth. The author, when a mere child, can still recall being told that the mission of Planned Parenthood was to control world population. These and similar aims are also part of the Communist Bible: The Communist Manifesto!

In his enlightening book, Brave New World, 1932, Huxley said;

"Our Ford--or Freud, for some inscrutable reason, he chose to call himself whenever he spoke of psychological matters--Our Freud had been the first to reveal the appalling dangers of family life. The world was full of fathers--was therefore full of misery; full of mothers--therefore of every kind of perversion from sadism to chastity; full of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts--full of madness and suicide."

The Communist Manifesto says;

"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.

"On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois (capitalists) family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians (communists), and in public prostitution.

The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital."

Genetics will also play a major part in the Twenty First Century.

What does Huxley see for mankind in the 21st Century and beyond? An assembly line where people are programmed genetically for certain tasks.

A birthing system where some by design will become scientists; others ditch diggers, laundry workers, floor scrubers, and others poets and artists. He foresaw a world where there are no fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, grandparents of any kind.

Through genetic manipulation, the outcome will be closely controlled by process and elimination. In Huxley's dark, cold world of the future, love is physical and mistakes are eliminated before they have a chance to blossom, much like the abortionists of today only worse. He foresaw a class system where friendships and unions with those aside from one's own subclass will be discouraged, even outlawed.

In the not-so-distant future, implanted biochips could enable authorities to better control people. Even the simple chip that Warwick had implanted in his left arm more than two years ago is capable of much in this regard. For example, Quain says that, "Convicted felons could be monitored or preventd from entering certain buildings, such as schools."

Using satellites in earth orbit, they could easily track the biochips implanted within specific individuals. In a world where every man, woman, and child has one, anyone who has access to these tracking systems could determine the whereabouts of anyone at any time of day. For police work, this would certainly prove beneficial, although it would violate the precepts put forth in our very own Bill of Rights.

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Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in today's commentary are that of the author and not necessarily that of Al Colombo or others who appear in this publication. Thank you.

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Thank you. --Al Colombo


Allan B. Colombo
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