{"id":270720,"date":"2017-04-05T16:55:26","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T20:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/?p=270720"},"modified":"2020-08-26T17:01:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T21:01:34","slug":"real-life-cyborgs-a-company-is-implanting-its-employees-with-microchips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/real-life-cyborgs-a-company-is-implanting-its-employees-with-microchips\/","title":{"rendered":"Real-life cyborgs: a company is implanting its employees with microchips"},"content":{"rendered":"
RAEL\u2019S COMMENT:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
I would love to have one in my body!<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Would you let your boss implant a microchip in you instead of giving you an ID card?<\/p>\n

A company based in Stockholm, Sweden, is turning its employees into \u201ccyborgs\u201d using\u00a0a microchip implant about the size of a grain of rice. Though not the first time such microchip implants have been used, this program is the first example of\u00a0such implants being made available to a company\u2019s employees on this sort of level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest benefit I think is convenience,\u201d Patrick Mesterton, co-founder and CEO of Epicenter,\u00a0told\u00a0the Associated Press. Epicenter provides network and office space to budding digital startups, and it is currently home to more than 100 companies and about 2,000 workers. The company\u00a0calls itself\u00a0\u201cStockholm\u2019s first digital House of Innovation,\u201d and it only started implanting workers in January 2015.<\/p>\n

The microchips, which are implanted in the hands of employees and startup members, function as swipe cards.\u00a0\u201cIt basically replaces a lot of things you have, other communication devices, whether it be credit cards or keys,\u201d Mesterton said, who demoed opening a door just by waving his hand near it. The implant doesn\u2019t just open doors, though. Epicenter\u2019s \u201ccyborg\u201d employees can operate their printers with it or even order smoothies with a wave of their hands.<\/p>\n

The devices aren\u2019t mandatory, but \u201cbeing chipped\u201d has become popular amongst Epicenter\u2019s employees, with more than 150 now implanted with\u00a0the devices. The company even hosts monthly events where participants can get the implants for free, as well as parties to celebrate those who got implanted.<\/p>\n

Cyborg Security
\nAn obvious concern is security and privacy. \u201cOf course, putting things into your body is quite a big step to do, and it was even for me at first,\u201d Mesterton said, recalling his initial doubts about the implants, which carry information that can be transmitted to other devices via\u00a0electromagnetic\u00a0waves, but cannot receive information themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe data that you could possibly get from a chip that is embedded in your body is a lot different from the data that you can get from a smartphone,\u201d\u00a0explained Ben Libberton, a microbiologist at Stockholm\u2019s Karolinska Institute. Such devices, he said, can be exploited by hackers to gain huge amounts of information.<\/p>\n

\u201cConceptually you could get data about your health, you could get data about your whereabouts, how often you\u2019re working, how long you\u2019re working, if you\u2019re taking toilet breaks and things like that,\u201d Libberton added. The more sophisticated a microchip is, the bigger the ethical dilemmas that can come with them.<\/p>\n

For Mesterton, there really isn\u2019t a problem. \u201cI mean, people have been implanting things into their body, like pacemakers and stuff to control your heart,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a way, way more serious thing than having a small chip that can actually communicate with devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, devices that augment the human body, whether through implants or other means, have been\u00a0turning people into cyborgs for some time now. Some call the trend\u00a0biohacking, and it can potentially help us do much more than simply navigate an office environment. The tech could\u00a0be\u00a0used to monitor health conditions\u00a0or\u00a0to treat neurodegenerative diseases. Elon Musk is working on his own version of such a device with\u00a0a soon-to-be-launched company, Neuralink.<\/p>\n

As one Epicenter employee said while she was being implanted, \u201cI want to be part of the future,\u201d and that may just mean becoming a cyborg.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/futurism.com\/the-future-may-owe-itself-to-blockchain-technology-heres-why<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAEL\u2019S COMMENT: I would love to have one in my body!  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":270722,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/fp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}