Kids set for 'Matrix' future

[TimberWolf]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/2008053...e-dba1618.html

"It's a very short route from wireless technology to actually getting the electrical connections in your brain to absorb that knowledge."

[BrilloPad]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/2008053...e-dba1618.html

lets just say it is technically possible - which I am not convinced of. Will it be allowed on moral grounds?

I remember hearing that during the test tube baby experiments some eggs started to divide. they reckoned 10 years and they could have single-sex reproduction. But never followed up on moral grounds.

[Board Game Geek]

It'll come.

I was trying to convince my MD at the time, 20 years ago, that we'd have virtual communities online where we could shop, work, relax within a silicon environment. He poo-pooed the idea. Now look at it now.

Yes, I can envisage a future where knowledge is stored on "Skill Chips".

Going to a business meeting in Tokyo ? Can't speak Japanese ? No problem.

Insert a skill chip and off you go.

The same can hold for any knowledge-based skill (as opposed to physical, which would be harder to achieve without plug and play "bionics").

Want to program in C++ ? Easy. Insert a skill chip.
Want to fly a plane ? Easy. Insert a skill chip.

Quite what this would mean to the labour market, and the cost of salaries is another matter.

Perhaps by then, people like Dodgy could truly say they are "body shops", because once the skills become hard-wired and transferable, all you are left with is looking for bodies to insert the skill chips in to.

I absolutely, positively guarantee that this will come about.

Whether it is a good thing or not, I'm not qualified to say.

[EternalOptimist]

It'll come.

I was trying to convince my MD at the time, 20 years ago, that we'd have virtual communities online where we could shop, work, relax within a silicon environment. He poo-pooed the idea. Now look at it now.

Yes, I can envisage a future where knowledge is stored on "Skill Chips".

Going to a business meeting in Tokyo ? Can't speak Japanese ? No problem.

Insert a skill chip and off you go.

The same can hold for any knowledge-based skill (as opposed to physical, which would be harder to achieve without plug and play "bionics").

Want to program in C++ ? Easy. Insert a skill chip.
Want to fly a plane ? Easy. Insert a skill chip.

Quite what this would mean to the labour market, and the cost of salaries is another matter.

Perhaps by then, people like Dodgy could truly say they are "body shops", because once the skills become hard-wired and transferable, all you are left with is looking for bodies to insert the skill chips in to.

I absolutely, positively guarantee that this will come about.

Whether it is a good thing or not, I'm not qualified to say.

er
bear with me whilst I try a little bit of extrapolation on this one.
Are you suggesting that you could get a 'maths chip' and insert it into an ordinary person, say BGG , and then he would have the maths skills.
Now you insert it into someone not as bright, say a chimp - the chimp now has the maths skills
now you insert it into someone who is uber bright - like hawking. does he lose half his maths skills ?
and what about someone who had the maths skills but had basic philosophical disputes withe original donor, would his head explode ?

[ThomasSoerensen]

This Cunning Plan is going to be even more effective than those "blank" audio cassettes were...

message "blank" received

I am awaiting instructions.

[VectraMan]

The same can hold for any knowledge-based skill (as opposed to physical, which would be harder to achieve without plug and play "bionics").

Want to program in C++ ? Easy. Insert a skill chip.
Want to fly a plane ? Easy. Insert a skill chip.

Neither are entirely knowledge based. Knowledge based could mean a chip with your local telephone directory on it, but knowing about C++ or about an aeroplane doesn't make you a programmer or pilot respectively. I'd suggest skill and experience are much more difficult concepts to put on a chip than just data.

A C++ chip might be more like having a C++ book, or an expert at your disposal. You'd still have to learn.

[ace00]

"It's a very short route from wireless technology to actually getting the electrical connections in your brain to absorb that knowledge."

Sounds like a government expert. Perhaps he should try sticking an RJ45 cable up his backside, then he could email s**t through the matrix as well as talking it.