6.14 Neurocapitalism
121
Helping to predict the future
Essentially, the end-game is to come up with a model designed for patients that
is fine-tuned to recognize evolving patterns of intersecting clinical, behavioral,
mental, environmental, and genetic information…
“Ensemble” approach to integrated behavioral health
This “ensemble” approach is already feasible within population health
management. But today, it can only be applied on a limited basis to complex
cases that include comorbid mental health and chronic conditions…”
You may like it or not: it seems that companies are already working on digital
ways to correct behaviors of entire populations. Are they even willing to break your
will, if this appears to be justified for a “higher purpose”? Since the discussion about
strict COVID-19 countermeasures, we all know that such kinds of proposals are
increasingly being made…
6.15 Human Machine Convergence
By now you might agree that many experts in the Silicon Valley and elsewhere seem
to see humans as programmable, biological robots. Moreover, from their perspective,
robots would be “better than us”, as soon as super(-human) intelligence exists. Expectations when this will happen range from “fifty years from now” to “superintelligence
is already here”.
These experts argue that robots never get tired and never get ill. They don’t demand
a salary, social insurance, or holidays. They have superior knowledge and information
processing capacity. They would decide in unemotional, rational ways. They would
behave exactly as the owner wants them to behave—like slaves in Babylonian or
Egyptian times.
Furthermore, transhumanists expect that humans who can afford it, would technologically upgrade themselves as much as they can or want. If you wouldn’t hear
well, you would buy an audio implant. If you wouldn’t see well, you would buy
a visual implant. If you wouldn’t think fast enough, you would connect your brain
with a supercomputer. If your physical abilities were not good enough, you might buy
robot arms or legs. Your biological body parts would be replaced by technology step
by step. Eventually, humans and robots might get indistinguishable.
64 Your body
would become more powerful and have new senses and additional features—that
64 „In Zukunft werden wir Mensch und Maschine wohl nicht mehr unterscheiden können“, Neue
Zürcher Zeitung (August 22, 2019), https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/mensch-oder-maschine-interviewmit-neuropsychologe-lutz-jaencke-ld.1502927 (accessed on July 31, 2020).
121
Helping to predict the future
Essentially, the end-game is to come up with a model designed for patients that
is fine-tuned to recognize evolving patterns of intersecting clinical, behavioral,
mental, environmental, and genetic information…
“Ensemble” approach to integrated behavioral health
This “ensemble” approach is already feasible within population health
management. But today, it can only be applied on a limited basis to complex
cases that include comorbid mental health and chronic conditions…”
You may like it or not: it seems that companies are already working on digital
ways to correct behaviors of entire populations. Are they even willing to break your
will, if this appears to be justified for a “higher purpose”? Since the discussion about
strict COVID-19 countermeasures, we all know that such kinds of proposals are
increasingly being made…
6.15 Human Machine Convergence
By now you might agree that many experts in the Silicon Valley and elsewhere seem
to see humans as programmable, biological robots. Moreover, from their perspective,
robots would be “better than us”, as soon as super(-human) intelligence exists. Expectations when this will happen range from “fifty years from now” to “superintelligence
is already here”.
These experts argue that robots never get tired and never get ill. They don’t demand
a salary, social insurance, or holidays. They have superior knowledge and information
processing capacity. They would decide in unemotional, rational ways. They would
behave exactly as the owner wants them to behave—like slaves in Babylonian or
Egyptian times.
Furthermore, transhumanists expect that humans who can afford it, would technologically upgrade themselves as much as they can or want. If you wouldn’t hear
well, you would buy an audio implant. If you wouldn’t see well, you would buy
a visual implant. If you wouldn’t think fast enough, you would connect your brain
with a supercomputer. If your physical abilities were not good enough, you might buy
robot arms or legs. Your biological body parts would be replaced by technology step
by step. Eventually, humans and robots might get indistinguishable.
64 Your body
would become more powerful and have new senses and additional features—that
64 „In Zukunft werden wir Mensch und Maschine wohl nicht mehr unterscheiden können“, Neue
Zürcher Zeitung (August 22, 2019), https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/mensch-oder-maschine-interviewmit-neuropsychologe-lutz-jaencke-ld.1502927 (accessed on July 31, 2020).