Another powerfully transformative technology on the way is brain-computer interfacing -- BCI -- the ability to plug computer hardware into our brains.
It's hard to predict the precise transformations this will enable, but they are sure to be dramatic ones.
Adding new sense organs and actuators is just the start. Seeing at night ... gathering data directly from weather satellites or a car's or plane's sensor system ... driving or flying as if one were operating one's own body....
Adding new cognitive abilities -- like instantaneous cognitive access to Google, calculators, Mathematica, Wikipedia, etc. -- will transform the way we think.
Brain-to-brain linkages will allow a form of "telepathic" communication without any psi power required, and transmitting both emotions and thoughts. Mutual understanding in a whole new way.
And what about the potential for enhanced self-control?
Want to focus on studying for that test? Just program your brain-computer interface device to focus your attention properly for the next 8 hours.
Tired of being attracted to the wrong romantic partners? Program your interface to stimulate your love centers when around folks you want to be attracted to. Etc.
The most exciting applications, in all probability, will be the ones we haven't thought of yet, and won't imagine till they're here.
And then there's the possibility of using brain-computer interfacing to interlink human brains into a global distributed human/digital computing system ... a global brain mindplex ...
Beta testers, anyone? (I know, maybe the dictator that comes after Obama will test it on prisoners, convicted of scary "mala prohibita" so that the first artilect is someone who watched their family starve from inside a prison, while they were force fed high-glycemic index carbohydrates, repeatedly raped, stabbed, and told when to shit and wake up. Nothing like giving homo sapiens the battle of their species!)
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