DIGITAL IMPLANTS PICK-ME-UPS FOR THE CYBER AGE

Kevin Warwick, University of Reading (UK), on electronic drugs, the future of

communication and the usefulness of implants
Key words: global digital security, para-information cubicle, cultural theory, biotech convergence
Prof. Warwick, you have performed an experiment on yourself in which an electronic
implant was used to communicate with a computerised environment. What did it feel
like?
Kevin Warwick: It did take something of an effort to get accustomed to things
happening around you without any action being performed, e.g. when doors open and
lights switch on and off because the system has detected and identified you via the
implant. Physically, it is like any other implant, and one gets used to it rather
quickly. The important point was that we succeeded in sending and receiving
information between the body and the computer.
In a year and a half, you are planning another implant experiment. What is the
purpose of digitised implant technology?
The main interest in these technologies is medical. You could use implants to
compensate physical impairments, e.g. in somebody who is partly paralysed because
of a stroke. If we succeed in influencing emotions the same way we can physical
processes, then implants could also work as electronic drugs, as pain killers or
anti-depressants. This would allow medicine less intrusive forms of treatment. The
pharmaceutical and software industries are very interested in these kinds of
applications. But there is a danger of these technologies being abused in the
illicit drug market. Therefore we also need to think of applications for law
enforcement, because such electronic drugs could be traded via the Internet, and
the police need to be prepared for that.
If you were to name a single technology as the most challenging and important in
the years to come, which would it be?
I think our research points at the development of a new form of communication, a
kind of speechless mind-to-mind communication. Language is a mere tool for the
expression of our thoughts. Compared to electronic mind-to-mind communication,
ordinary language will be what baby talk is today. This technology will change what
being human and what society is all about.
This suggests we are talking about a technology that involves great risks. How can
such risks be dealt with on the level of society, and how do you assess the
responsibility of the individual scientist?
The way how such risks will be dealt with will also be circumscribed by the
technologies which are available. Technology also dictates how we assess such
risks. Equally, technology will predetermine the moral and ethical standards we
apply. Scientists must be completely open about the research, and make clear what
the pros and cons are.
Interviewer: Wolfgang Suetzl, World-Information.Org - Chief Researcher

Date: 10 December, 1999