The Singularity Is Near

When placed alongside the same day's news that the House voted to repeal internet privacy rules, this idea makes for all sorts of discussion about dystopian scenarios:

- Who will be the test subjects: will they be paid, who will run the tests, and who will fund the project?
- Whose government will write (or repeal) the laws governing how these interfaces will be used? What are their views on sexual preference, eugenics, eminent domain, and cheap labour?
- would a brain API make school obsolete? Why study when you can upload?
- And in that event, who gets to be the doctors and lawyers, and who are the labourers? Who decides?
- Would even, say, voting become obsolete?
- Would this be the end of professional sports, and gambling? Talk about performance enhancements, and never mind helmet radios!
- Would teenagers become suddenly communicative and cooperative?
- Will Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel finally beat the chicken at tic-tac-toe?

As every good sci-fi writer knows, the path forward here is pre-written: technology is used to improve people to the extent that cyborgs become a reality and rule the world. There's an anti-tech resistance, of course. And eventually, the resistance wins, leading to genetically superior--with no tech enhancements--people...who rule the world. There's still remnants of the cyborgs, who then organize a new resistance by duping people, leading to yet another civil war.


Meanwhile, Cletus raises chickens and watches Netflix; his life doesn't change one bit.