Welcome to the rise of homo electricus

May 17, 2007

Last night's (Wednesday 16 May) "Uni in the Brewery" session looked at why there are thousands of people volunteering to be injected with microchip implants for monitoring applications and location tracking.

Presented by Dr Katina Michael and Dr M.G Michael from the Faculty of Informatics, issues of ownership, accessibility, property, safety, accuracy, trust, and privacy were addressed.

In 1948 when the first ENIAC computer was officially launched, who could have imagined that the giant technological beast covering 1,500 square feet of floor space could fit neatly inside the human body, measuring no more than the size of a grain of rice.

Today, there are thousands of people who subscribe to VeriChip services, voluntary subjects being injected with tiny transponders implanted in the subdermal layer of the skin.

"Humancentric" tracking and monitoring applications based on technologies such as radio-frequency identification (RFID) are now even being fitted to passports, and have some civil libertarians questioning whether they will soon be implanted into every citizen under the guise of national security.

It is this potential for mandatory consignment that was once seen as a far-fetched conspiracy theory that has some researchers debating the ethical implications behind chip implants for anything other than diagnostic medical purposes or corrective medical treatment.

One international group known as the transhumanist movement, welcome advances in technology as a way to extend life, and hope that eventually humans can do away with the flesh altogether.

Another group made up by some members of the Christian faith believe that chip implants may well be the mark of the beast. There are still other groups such as privacy advocates who oppose the implantation of chips into humans because they believe it is in breach of basic human rights.

The presentation addressed such questions as - what lies beyond chip implants? A mandatory universal lifetime identifier for every person? Or the rise of homo electricus and the continued speciation of humans?