In 2003, when I read a news story about the first human being monitored by satellite in real time, as was already being done with vehicles and cargo, I made some reflections that, I believe, are still pertinent.
This article is basically the same one that was published in Revista Vitruvius that year, and its title is inspired by Aldous Huxley's homonymous novel from 1932.
Computing and technologies in materials and telecommunications have evolved to the point that they allow the implantation of artificial devices in living organisms with minimal risk of rejection or contamination by radiation from energy sources, replacing and even improving natural functions.
This allows us to consider the abstractions of the greatest science fiction writers of all time as quite viable. In fact, the term science fiction is increasingly losing its meaning, since the timeframes for realizing our abstractions are being reduced at an exponential rate.
Imagine that a similar processor were implanted in a human being with some functions interactive with the organism, such as: monitoring organic functions, alerting when any anomaly occurs or correcting it automatically through stimulation of glands, the immune system or nervous system, or through controlled injection of chemical substances also stored in the human body; programming dreams or pleasurable stimuli; controlling, reversing or eliminating the effects of degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, or perhaps psychiatric and behavioral disorders, and the very process of aging; stimulating the brain, increasing our cognitive capacity and our artistic, scientific and sporting abilities; adapting our organism to the environment, allowing our survival in inhospitable environments or risk situations; preventing kidnappings or locating hideouts through tracking; punishing or, preferably, preventing the commission of crimes of any kind, corruption, sexual perversions through the operation of a simple and microscopic behavioral "chip".
We could be almost eternal, always healthy, always happy and without pain! Darwin's natural selection would be considered a museum piece! All kinds of discrimination would disappear, since everyone would be perfect and self-sufficient! What a wonderful world, but artificially manipulable!
The human being would be transformed into a hybrid entity, into a terminal of a computerized network!
Now imagine that, instead of autonomous activities, this system would allow interference by third parties in our vital, motor or behavioral functions, and that unscrupulous individuals would have the "strings" to direct or condition us according to their interests, assuming an almost divine condition.
What if the microprocessors had varied qualities, abusive costs, adulterated copies, inferior quality materials, energy supply systems with inadequate insulation? What if they were used to induce crime, transforming "ordinary" citizens into cold-blooded murderers with induced amnesia afterward? What if they were used for birth control, inhibiting or adulterating reproductive functions? What if the figure of "intellectual doping" were created, generating individuals endowed with effectively artificial intelligence, regardless of their actual capacity? What if they allowed demographic control on a large scale? What if they were used to create invincible and insensitive armies, or transform human beings into slaves controlled by pain or the risk of "shutdown"? What if some of these "chosen ones", who would be free from this monitoring and controlling the system, decided who should live or die according to their logic or morality?
``` ```htmlThe principal characteristic of the human being—free will—would be neutralized, transforming "homo sapiens" into an organic machine subject to the same process of quality control, obsolescence, and longevity (or will we also be able to do an "upgrade"?). Individualism would be replaced by a standardized, aseptic, and reprogrammable "collective consciousness"; our brilliant ideas would be appropriated by the "controllers"; we would become hostages to our own thoughts, which would cease to be intimate; our destinies would be determined against our will; we would be reduced, definitively, to the condition of cattle, of manipulable masses!
And who would stipulate these "values"? The powerful? And would they submit themselves to the same system?
Surely not!
A tool so powerful could diminish discrimination among individuals, but, if misused, could also widen the social abyss we find ourselves in, regressing to abominable caste systems or justifying the adoption, by the "controllers," of artificial selection measures based on market factors.
Scientists never cease to discover wonders, as instruments of human evolution that they are. But their financiers are not always imbued with the same noble ideals, or interested in the evolution of mankind. They prefer, rather, to obtain and secure their control. Some, surely, must regard humanity as a great laboratory for their experiments in power, and human beings as their test subjects.
For these reasons, ethical discussion must always be present, questioning scientific evolution, although we know that widespread disapproval does not imply the elimination of risks or the suppression of research deemed concerning. Besides, we only have knowledge of the controversial research that financiers allow to be disclosed. Our imagination, even for the most abstract and radical, could scarcely grasp the studies that the powerful keep under absolute secrecy!
The discussion about the implantation of identification "chips" in human beings must therefore be much more profound.
Miniaturization, the ever-growing capacity to store information in these devices, and the ignorance most of the population has about their potential and operation make it inevitable to fear that this is not simply a bureaucratic change in the process of identifying and locating people, as its defenders want to make us believe, but a dramatic revolution in the parameters of freedom and human relations.
It is a considerable risk of subjecting the masses to a process that, disguised as modernity, may actually be aimed at securing and perpetuating the current ruling classes, suppressing the possibility of natural evolution of social relations, as has occurred since the beginning of civilization.
Many, surely, have already seen these films and read these books. They should, therefore, be considering the potentiality of the consummation of these facts.
Indeed, much of what was fiction or an exercise in futurology in 2003 has already become reality and is incorporated into daily life, not always transparently. Ethical questions only arise at certain levels.
``` ```htmlThis is not an apocalyptic, ideological or paranoid vision, exaggerating risks or seeking hidden designs, conspiracy theories, but rather a philosophical question based simply on aspects of human nature.
Scientific innovations are welcome and necessary, but similar historical examples have already caused more irreversible damage than actual benefits.
It is therefore inadmissible that the implementation of artificial identification devices through invasive methods or complex removal procedures be established in, or even merely contemplated for, human beings as mandatory. Nor may any form of discrimination or constraint be generated against those who refuse to use them.
After all, there should be no other condition for being recognized as a human being than to be, to think and, therefore, to exist!
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