Incoming: Brain Implants and Bot Laws

Issue 09: Your Brain as Smartphone and Bot Laws

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Issue 09: Your Brain as Smartphone and Bot Laws

If all goes to plan according to Elon Musk, soon your smartphone will be linked to your...brain? This week, we look at brain implants and the struggle between legislators and big tech companies over policing the 'free speech' of bots. Read on for more about how the line between human and robot is becoming blurred...

Elon Musk Wants to Insert Bluetooth-enabled Implants Into Your Brain

The future is here: Neuralink, Elon Musk's company that focuses on making implantable brain–machine interfaces a reality, recently unveiled their new design: "the devices will consist of a tiny chip connected to 1,000 wires measuring one-tenth the width of a human hair."

If that doesn't weird you out enough, Musk assures everyone that the devices will be 'installed by a robot built by the startup'. One of their goals is to help stroke victims, cancer patients, quadriplegics or others with congenital defects, and Neuralink plans on running trials by the end of 2020.

The idea of linking our brains with computers isn't entirely new—one paralyzed man, Nathan Copeland, who already has a brain implant, considers himself a cyborg and claims that he'd use Musk's invention to play video games.

Californian Bots Now Must Reveal Their Artificial Identity

On July 1st, California passed a law to try to reduce the power of bots "by requiring that they reveal their “artificial identity” when they are used to sell a product or influence a voter."

Bots on social media sites are so sophisticated that it's hard to discern their true nature. But opponents of the bill claim that bots "are a new medium of self-expression that is in danger of being silenced".... to which author of the bill, Senator Hertzberg replied: "Bots are not people."

IRL Prompt: Play the Phone Stacking Game

Perhaps you've heard of this game before. If you haven't, the premises are simple: go out to dinner with a group of friends and have everyone pile their electronic devices in the middle of the table.

The first diner to break and pick up their phone picks up the bill. Bonus twist: have everyone throw in their Juuls or e-cigarettes, too (before they are banned everywhere—oh the irony of banning e-cigarettes and not brain implants?).

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