I have, on several occasions, pointed out humanity’s increasing love affair with technology and forecasted that we would one day become essentially the same as the fictional Star Trek characters known as the Borg. These humanoid beings have embraced technology and integrated it into their very bodies to increase their awareness and effectiveness to the point that they have become something beyond a society. They have no concept of individuality, but rather they work in concert as cells in a body do. This is accomplished through a collective consciousness that connects their minds together into a neural net that spans the galaxy, sharing their every thought with every one, knowing every thought of all.
I am often chided for my refusal to become so dependent on a cellphone that I would hyperventilate if I discover I’d left home without it. (I know people who do this!) In fact I don’t own a cell phone at all. I refuse to get to the point where, if I were to be cut off from the internet for more than a day or two, I’d curl up in a ball on my bed and whimper. (I don’t know anyone THAT bad, but pretty close!) People don’t believe that we will ever implant cell phones or create a permanent brain to internet connection. People say these are just conveniences, just gadgets, nothing to worry about!
I came across this yesterday, and all I can say is “See, see, I TOLD you!” It’s already happening…
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Infancy of Borg
Did you catch the part at about 7 minutes in where Greg Stock (Univ. of Cal.) says: “We are aggregating into a super-organism that is glued together by all of our technology. It can be seen most organically in the Internet, which almost has a life of its own.” That, sounds very much like the Borg to me. Researchers are framing this as “enhancing” humanity’s capability, and “reconnecting” us with one another as we become a global community.
Assuming that this transformation will occur fairly slowly and will be embraced by the majority of humanity because of the power they feel with all this knowledge at their disposal, the big questions in my mind are:
1) Who runs the show?
2) Will it make us better people?
3) “Will this transformation enslave us, or free us in ways we can’t imagine?”
I have some thoughts on these, but would like to let you chime in first. What do you think of all this, and these three questions in particular.
Fascinating – and scary!
I think the big corporations will be running things – as depicted in movies like Robocop.
Better people? No. People are going to lose individuality and the ability to think for themselves when all this knowledge is so available they won’t be able to make decisions without first consulting
As to your last question – that’s likely to go both ways, I think. Stronger minded individuals may find themselves able to make full use of such overwhelming input – others will simply stop thinking for themselves, polarising the human race into effectively two different sub-species.
This will probably prove the biggest and quickest leap in human evolution ever.
You’re probably right, Deborah: Google and Amazon will be running the world. And we’re already seeing the social split that you mention. So many people turn on the television and let popular media tell them what to eat, what to wear, what to think… those folks have no chance of escaping domination once all that is being pumped directly into their brains through Google Goggles. You KNOW advertisers will want to tap that market and Google will grab up the money to deliver.
Reminds me of an old ‘The Outer Limits’ episode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_Consciousness_(The_Outer_Limits)
Should it alarm me that the future is starting to look more and more like a bad sci-fi movie?
Oh, Wow, Kevin, I don’t remember seeing that episode – I thought I’d seen all of them at least once – but that is dead on target! Thanks for sharing that. And: yes – I think we should be alarmed. I’m glad I ‘m old and will probably not live to see this come to fruition. But, at least we will dress better than the Borg!
The devil doesn’t want you to be bad, the devil wants you to be nothing. My own research and pursuit of philosophical & theological knowledge has led me to believe that evil is that which is inhumane. Anything that makes people less human and less real, more like avatars, is evil. The reduction of people down to characterless consumers, just mentally and physically atrophied beings, is part of a process of dehumanization that is in essence evil. I do have a cell phone, but I rarely use it these days and I never take it out with me. I make sure that I spend more time in the real world than the virtual one. You are right, this is scary and ultimately a process of reducing human beings to machines. Great blog mate. I’ll be spreading this message.
Thank you for your great input Richard. I can’t think of anything to add to that, except “True!”
Allan, I love computers because they connect me to the wider world, but I have no desire to become one with the machines. I finally got a cell phone, but I use it rarely. When I am out in the world I want to be aware of reality. This seems dehumanizing to me… and honestly I have no desire to know everything about every stranger I meet. I believe in forming relationships the old fashioned way, by learning about someone by what they reveal to me. This vision of the future is somewhat scary to me. Reminds me of the biblical beast, maybe it is not inherently evil, but it would be easy to manipulate with evil intent.
Thank you for sharing this. It is very thought provoking.
I sometimes think about how the way we learn stuff has changed over the past half-century. No more do we need to go to a library and search through card catalogs then pull books and read them to search out the information we seek. Now we type a few words into a computer and viola, knowledge on tap! It’s wonderfully convenient. I wonder, then, once we can slip on a pair of Google Goggles and as we walk around just look at something, tap a small keyboard strapped to our forearm and find out what the thing we’re looking at is, who made it, where we can get one and how much it costs – who wouldn’t want that? I fear the Evil Machine Intelligence is already sucking us in… 🙂
Thanks for joining in, Jo Ann!
The narrator uses the word “data” numerous times in the video. I hope that if this peek into the future is at all accurate, we will learn to value information and knowledge, rather than data. The quality of what we know will be the key — not the quantity, or how readily accessible it is. I’m already a little nervous about that, given that every online search I do produces so many results contributed by self-appointed experts.
Good point, Charles, just because the Google Goggles can pull up all manner of information on any item or person does not mean it’s accurate. If we just blindly trust it (as so many do now) all manner of trouble could result. Thanks!
Every Sci-Fi author should watch this video and read your thoughts on it. There’s so many story possibilities here.
I’m not worried at all. I tend to believe there will be a few geeks who’ll love being connected like this but overall I think most of us will worry about being tracked or controlled.
As for the smartphone I have to say it’s one of the best purchases I ever made. I don’t talk to a lot of people but it offers me entertainment during those times when I’m waiting for something or when I’m alone. I have lots of books to read electronically so I don’t have to carry them around with me. I can access Twitter which I find to be a lot of fun. But I rarely give my phone number out because I don’t want people bothering me all the time.
If I were ever to give in to the smart phone rage, Mitch, I’d go that route as well; give the number only to a select few (or keep it turned off most of the time).
Marie and I were discussing encyclopedias the other day; remember those? And libraries? And how we as kids had to do research for school work before the internet existed? A computer with internet access has radically changed how we research things. I know many people who whip out their smart phone to look up this or that on the net at the drop of a dime. Ready access to most anything you want to know, right in your pocket. I expect that integrating that ease of access even further into everyday life: look at something and squint you left eye to get full product info and manufacturer data, will be irresistible to many. Too many use things like Facebook to “track” their acquaintances and co-workers so closely it borders on stalking. Being able to look at someone and get all the lasted dirt on them would be too much to resist.
Or it could be another flash in the pan that never really works out – like flying cars.
Allan, there’s a beauty in being able to access information whenever and wherever you are. Last week I was in Washington DC and had no idea where anything was. Pulled out the phone and had it give me the directions to wherever I wanted to go. That’s a beauty that we didn’t have in the past, and I was thankful since, as you may know, I’ve had a tendency to get lost. lol
As for encyclopedias, I had a few sets of them, and with my love of books I loved going to university libraries to browse, which of course I was only allowed to do for a short period of time. However, I’m betting you don’t remember or may not have heard of the Book of Knowledge, which was wonderful. I actually still have a set of books from the 1920’s; scientifically inaccurate now, but the history and the way they told stories… priceless. Now that you won’t get on the internet but then again, it seems most people won’t miss what they never knew about.
Good point; and yes, I too have gotten spoiled. Just yesterday I was researching chipper/shredders and accomplished in 20 minutes on the internet what would have taken half a day at the library with back issues of Consumer Reports and gardening magazines. I like having ready access to information, just don’t want it thrust upon me. Especially since you *know* the ad hounds will get hold of that and pop-up ads will be splatting themselves over everything.
The Book of Knowledge sounds familiar, but when I looked it up (http://www.hstreasures.com/bookofknowledge.html) can say that no, I’ve never had my hands on one. One of our encyclopedias had a similar name but was quite contemporary (for the day). Looks like a treasure indeed!
Now that we know where to find you, you will be assimilated.
Beware: I keep a large can of borg spray with me at all times.
This sort of thing is the theme if you like, of one of my books. I’m a geek, been a computer programmer back in the day. Yes, we’ll end up with implants, yes there will be real issues over control. Yes, people will be ‘fed’ information – of course, that’s already happening. It’s like most things, we need a balance. The internet and computers have made huge, profound changes in the world – some (many) of them good. For instance, dictators can’t get away with covering things up anymore. Too many people can share the vision with the world. Something like the Arab Spring could not have happened ten years earlier.
The Borg mentality is something we will have to grapple with, both personally and (dare I say it) collectively. And I don’t think it’s so far away. Twenty, thirty years?
You’re probably right about the timeline. And while I lament the loss of privacy and destruction (conversion — evolution?) of “society” I’m already finding it hard to give up my internet connection. It makes information management so convenient. Once we have wearable or implanted internet capable computers, that ease of access will likely become an integrated part of our lives. Even now smart phones have people right on the brink of that.
Thank you for your insightful comments, Greta.