If you don’t hear from me ever again, it’s probably because I wrote this piece. Facebook, I’m fairly positive, is watching my every move and knows everything about me. Actually, I’m not sure where my mind ends and Facebook begins. Facebook could actually be writing this post, and not me. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s real anymore.
But, just in case it is real – Facebook, I love you. You’ve done so much for this little comedy blog in Nashville. We wouldn’t have anything without you. Anyway…
Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed that Facebook is working on technology that will allow people to directly send their thoughts over the internet.
The Facebook founder, who has hinted at mind-reading technology in the past, said the company was hard at work at creating “direct brain interfaces”.
Yep – I don’t think Zuckerberg is Lex Luthor at all. Not one bit. It is totally normal for an eccentric genius billionaire to start exploring reading peoples’ minds.
“We’re building further out beyond augmented reality, and that includes work around direct brain interfaces that are going to eventually one day let you communicate using only your mind,” Zuckerberg said
He admitted that “that stuff is really far out”, but said Facebook would reveal more details of what it is working on on Wednesday.
Whew. Sounds like I’ll be dead by then. I don’t know if I want to be apart of this or not. I mean, yeah – that’s probably the reason I’m sitting here writing this post instead of actually driving change for the future, but I’m still a big advocate of studying the future.
Which, of course, is just a fancy way of saying I spend way too much time on the futurology subreddit. If we’re setting the over/under on this happening, I think 2050 is fair.
Regina Dugan, who left Google last year to work on advanced technologies last year, is due to speak at F8 on Wednesday evening. She leads a mysterious division inside Facebook called Building 8, which earlier this year advertised for PhD-level roles for jobs such as “brain-computer interface engineer” and “neural imaging engineer”.
The adverts suggested Facebook is working on telepathic technology that can detect brain waves, decipher them and share them with friends, describing a “communication and computing platform of the future”.
Yeah, if I see an ad on Monster or CareerBuilder for a “brain-computer interface engineer” and “neural imaging engineer,” I’m automatically thinking super villain. Like, you might as well just include a line in the ad stating, “we’re basically looking for henchmen.”
But, it is what it is. Like it or not, this is the future of the world. Zuckerberg sure as hell isn’t the first person to posit this idea. By 2050, we’re going to be half-human, half-computer creatures that can do just about anything with our minds, including sharing our thoughts simply by thinking them.
Eventually, our conscience will be immortal. But, that shit’s way too deep for this blog.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. A strong advocate of GSD (get shit done) and #BeBetter, he’s down to talk Tennessee Titans and Alabama Crimson Tide football over a beer any day. Check him out covering the WWE for WrestlingNews.co. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley, @WrestlingNewsCo
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