The technology presented in these Science Fiction shows isn’t very far off from what we currently have. For the Black Mirror episode of Nosedive, there is research and development for a smart contact lens by Mojo Vision at the moment. https://www.wired.com/story/mojo-vision-smart-contact-lens/
The idea takes eye-tracking technology and utilizes it to create a visual display with the contact lens and your field of vision through the use of widgets. Here are some features the article describes about these smart contact lens, “If you’re looking straight ahead while wearing the lens, you won’t see anything visually disrupting. But peek to a corner in any direction and you’ll see icons pop up, ranging from a calendar, weather, notifications, music playback, and more. Stare at the arrow next to these icons to expand them even further to see more details—like a three-day forecast, for example—or all your calendar events for the day.”
With The Feed (this show kind of reminded of The Matrix series where people of the future “jack” themselves into a computer network), it shows a piece of technology that “connects” our minds to a network where everyone else is connected to (just like how we connect with the internet today).
But it seems from the trailer that there is some sort of invasive surgery for a device to be implanted into your head in order to connect ourselves with others. There are medical devices that currently exist with something similar (not following the concept though) known as Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS). https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-11/DownloadingConsciousness/tandr.html
DBS consists of implanted an electrode or lead into a persons’ brain, which is connected to an internal pulse generator (IPG). This intervention is used to treat numerous mental disorders including Parkinson’s Disease. I could see these devices being converted into the tech industry if and when we get to having our thoughts being displayed in real-time shown in The Feed series.
The same thoughts go with Altered Carbon; the concept of being able to download our experiences and memories onto a chip that can be taken out and installed onto another human being. According to researchers at Stanford, they think “Although a brief examination of our current technology reveals that we are still years away from downloading our conscious minds into other media, recent advances in supercomputing, brain mapping, and invasive imaging techniques are certainly a cause for hope.” This could mean we are getting close as technology has advanced exponentially. https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2010-11/DownloadingConsciousness/tandr.html
One issue about Altered Carbon becoming a reality is the sheer amount of data a human brain could contain and the article also states, “a complete map of the human brain containing detailed information about each neuron and synapse would occupy about 20,000 terabytes and require 1016 flops (floating point operations per second) of processing power to function.” That’s a lot of storage and processing speeds to consider.
As far as ethics goes with these hypothetical concepts, I don’t think these are matters we should be aiming for as a society. Although it might help us find ways to improve technology, the moral of having such devices for social media can take a quick turn for the worst as seen with these Sci-Fi shows. In these cases, the benefits wouldn’t out way the risks in my opinion. These concepts seem interesting, but I wouldn’t want to live like this at all. I would say the idea of recording and downloading the conscious, used in a beneficial way such as within the medical field to understand physical and mental ailments would be something to consider.
I got so attracted to your topic. I agree that for our society, hypothetical concepts from those Sci-Fi shows are appropriate to exist.
Again, I love your medical background. You bring such a unique perspective into our whole class.
Regarding your topic, I’m thinking, although it may not be a good idea to “duplicate” a brain, similar technology can be applied to fix memory loss caused by brain damages and diseases. In that way, we are not creating anything “extra” that is “scary”, but just helping people bring back their normal life.
This is pretty much in line with my thinking as well. I feel like “we are in these futures” in that we exhibit these behaviors already but in such systematic ways that it almost makes it hard to notice it’s happening at all. I’m also interested in advancing the medical fiield the way it’s always portrayed in on tv. I think one of the scariest things about being alive is knowing I could potentially face an issue that modern medical science can’t do anything about. (i’ve also literally never been to the hospital so i’m just generally unsure about everything having to do with medical things)