Technology has always been a double-edged sword. But the future doesn't have to be dystopian...
Embedded "chips" could someday help blind people see and deaf people hear, provide amputees with an interface to mechanic limbs, help minimize the effects of certain conditions such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and severe depression, and in-general make longer and more productive lives possible.
Agree. "There's always a tradeoff", as society itself is. The problem is that we have not addressed the real nature of the tradeoff in any kind of philosophically nuanced way, if even at all. Instead the doable is hastily done, for the sake of novelty, fame, power, money. "If I/we don't, someone else will. I/we can worry about the implications later but in the meanwhile, let's not get behind the curve." And so ensues a great tragedy of the commons, or so we might think if we can convince ourselves to be cockeyed optimists. We believe we are getting the better side of a dicey and exciting bargain, but so did the Indigenous Americans who sold Manhattan for a box of fused silicon beads.
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Rather them than an authority with the power to abuse it. But neither is ideal. Its kind of scary to think that privacy will one day be a myth amongst people.
Privacy is a myth. Scott McNeally had it pegged 14 years ago when he told us that consumer privacy is dead. His advice to get over this fact was, IMO, unhelpful. And those were the good old days.
