Hello net, it's Steph Janson.
Last week, Elon Musk, one of the most prominent
inventors of our time, announced that he wants
to put tiny electrodes into human brains in
order to increase our intelligence and memory.
Some experts are even predicting a future
in which we can upload and download memories
"Matrix Style".
"I know Kung Fu".
But before you write this
off as science fiction, consider that Musk
has already built multi-billion dollar companies
that are building electric cars, roofs that
can harvest sunlight, reusable space rockets,
magnetically levitated pods that in 35 minutes
will take you from San Francisco to Los Angeles,
where yet another of his companies is trying
to solve traffic by boring tunnels under the
city.
It's like Musk has some kind of condition
where every year he just has to revolutionize
a new industry.
So when he says electrodes are going in our
brain, it's worth paying attention.
But perhaps even more worth noting is the
fact that there are already people experimenting
with all kinds of implants.
Amal Graafstra, sick of losing his car keys
all the time, planted near field communication
chips and radio frequency transmitters into
the fleshy piece between his thumb and finger,
allowing him to unlock all kinds of things,
like his phone, his computer, his car, and
even his home.
And now he's crowdfunded development of his
own chips.
Amal is part of what some people are calling
the "biohacker movement" and he's not alone.
Another biohacker nicknamed "Left" implanted
into her fingertips a rare earth magnet called
neodymium which responds to electromagnetic
radiation.
Using these magnets, Left has added a sixth
sense to her body.
She can now detect how strong reception is
from nearby cell phone towers.
Yet another biohacker, named Rich Lee, implanted
magnets into his ears, which received information
from a magnetic cord connected to his music
player, acting as hidden earbuds.
He also connected his magnets to a range finder,
which gave him sort of an echolocation ability,
which would hum in his ears as objects became
closer.
He's also talked about plans of connecting
his magnets to his phone's GPS systems, so
that he can transmit directions directly into
his head.
Then there's Neil Harbisson, who implanted
an antenna inside his skull, allowing him
to overcome his colorblindness.
This antenna translates about 360 different
colors into sounds which he hears inside his
head.
He can even see, or hear rather, colors like
infrared or ultraviolet, which we can't see
with the naked eye.
Incidentally, Neil is also the first person
to be recognized as a cyborg by his government,
on his passport.
Now if all of that sounds trippy, consider
that any device that can receive a signal
can in theory be hacked.
And biohackers aren't just hacking gadgety
devices - they're also hacking the devices
which we need to live.
An infamous biohacker named Barnaby Jack
demonstrated that, using only using a radio transmitter,
he could remotely cause an insulin pump to
release a lethal dose of insulin, or cause
an implanted pacemaker to deliver a lethal
shock.
Now Jack kept on pushing the boundaries and
was scheduled to deliver a demonstration whereby
he would show how he could an implanted defibrillator
to deliver a lethal shock to a dying patient.
But in a twist, one week before the demonstration
was scheduled to happen, Jack was found dead
in his apartment.
Though Jack never completed his demonstration,
he highlighted the massive vulnerabilities
of medical devices, leading some device manufacturers
to issue warnings that they weren't safe,
and leading some celebrities like former US
VP Dick Cheney to disable all remote control
functions on their devices.
Understandably, biohackers themselves have
been some of the most concerned, organizing
themselves into groups which advocate for
the rights of people with implants and also
into companies that create and emphasize the
safety and security of the devices which they
implant.
And that's the real story here, because while
biohacking used to be an underground experiment,
it's now starting to touch companies and governments
with real power.
The vision behind biohacking is to blur the
line between person and machine to create
extra senses, and if they've been able to
do that on a shoestring budget, imagine what
they could do with a billion dollars and a
thousand engineers.
Which brings us right back to Elon Musk and
Neuralink.
The mission of Neuralink and its brain implants
are going to be to help us communicate with
machines in a much faster and more intuitive
way.
Think of how long it takes you to get something
done on your phone.
The gap between thinking about something that
you want to have done, and the time that it
takes your phone to deliver that to you.
Think of how long it would take you to find
this video on YouTube.
You'd have to unlock your phone, find the
YouTube app, painstakingly type something
with only two thumbs, scroll through a list
of options which YouTube returns to you, and
then select the right one.
With Neuralink, you may just be able to picture
the layout of YouTube with my face on it
(that's a scary thought)
and use that as a search
query to return the video that you're looking
for.
But getting to the right video on YouTube
is a bit of a trivial use case for this technology.
But it highlights how we can merge our brains
with computers so that they can interface
and communicate with each other.
But once you can do that, you can do everything,
from setting the thermostat, to creating an
Amazon shopping list, to dialing 911, queuing
up a playlist, sending your pet robot on complex
errands, or even making a mental note, in
the most literal sense of the word.
And so what we're really talking about is
a world in which the gap between thinking
about something and having that something
happen, shrinks to zero.
This has been your Ounce of Awesome.
Be good, and I'll see you next week.
