Cyborgs at work: employees getting implanted with microchips
STOCKHOLM (AP) — The syringe slides in between the thumb and index finger. Then, with a click, a microchip is injected in the employee's hand. Another "cyborg" is created.
What could pass for a dystopian vision of the workplace is almost routine at the Swedish startup hub Epicenter. The company offers to implant its workers and startup members with microchips the size of grains of rice that function as swipe cards: to open doors, operate printers, or buy smoothies with a wave of the hand.The injections have become so popular that workers at Epicenter hold parties for those willing to get implanted.
"The biggest benefit I think is convenience," said Patrick Mesterton, co-founder and CEO of Epicenter. As a demonstration, he unlocks a door by merely waving near it. "It basically replaces a lot of things you have, other communication devices, whether it be credit cards or keys."
The technology in itself is not new. Such chips are used as virtual collar plates for pets. Companies use them to track deliveries. It's just never been used to tag employees on a broad scale before. Epicenter and a handful of other companies are the first to make chip implants broadly available.
And as with most new technologies, it raises security and privacy issues. While biologically safe, the data generated by the chips can show how often an employee comes to work or what they buy. Unlike company swipe cards or smartphones, which can generate the same data, a person cannot easily separate themselves from the chip."Of course, putting things into your body is quite a big step to do and it was even for me at first," said Mesterton, remembering how he initially had had doubts.
"But then on the other hand, I mean, people have been implanting things into their body, like pacemakers and stuff to control your heart," he said. "That's a way, way more serious thing than having a small chip that can actually communicate with devices."
Epicenter, which is home to more than 100 companies and some 2,000 workers, began implanting workers in January 2015. Now, about 150 workers have them. A company based in Belgium also offers its employees such implants, and there are isolated cases around the world where tech enthusiasts have tried this out in recent years.
The small implants use Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, the same as in contactless credit cards or mobile payments. When activated by a reader a few centimeters (inches) away, a small amount of data flows between the two devices via electromagnetic waves. The implants are "passive," meaning they contain information that other devices can read, but cannot read information themselves.
Ben Libberton, a microbiologist at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, says hackers could conceivably gain huge swathes of information from embedded microchips. The ethical dilemmas will become bigger the more sophisticated the microchips become.
"The 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," he says. "Conceptually you could get data about your health, you could get data about your whereabouts, how often you're working, how long you're working, if you're taking toilet breaks and things like that."
Libberton said that if such data is collected, the big question remains of what happens to it, who uses it, and for what purpose.
So far, Epicenter's group of cyborgs doesn't seem too concerned.
"People ask me; 'Are you chipped?' and I say; 'Yes, why not," said Fredric Kaijser, 47, the chief experience officer at Epicenter. "And they all get excited about privacy issues and what that means and so forth. And for me it's just a matter of I like to try new things and just see it as more of an enabler and what that would bring into the future."
The implants have become so popular that Epicenter workers stage monthly events where attendees have the option of being "chipped" for free.
That means visits from self-described "body hacker" Jowan Osterlund from Biohax Sweden who performs the "operation."
He injects the implants — using pre-loaded syringes — into the fleshy area of the hand, just next to the thumb. The process lasts a few seconds, and more often than not there are no screams and barely a drop of blood. "The next step for electronics is to move into the body," he says.Sandra Haglof, 25, who works for Eventomatic, an events company that works with Epicenter, has had three piercings before, and her left hand barely shakes as Osterlund injects the small chip.
"I want to be part of the future," she laughs.
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May you live in interesting times
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Chinese curse" redirects here. For Chinese-language profanity, see Mandarin Chinese profanity.
"May you live in interesting times" is an English expression purported to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. While seemingly a blessing, the expression is always used ironically, with the clear implication that 'uninteresting times', of peace and tranquillity, are more life-enhancing than interesting ones, which from historical perspective usually include disorder and conflict.
Origins[edit]
Despite being widely attributed as a Chinese curse, there is no equivalent expression in Chinese.[2] The nearest related Chinese expression is "寧為太平犬，莫做亂離人" (nìng wéi tàipíng quǎn, mò zuò luàn lí rén), which is usually translated as "Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a chaotic (warring) period."[3] The expression originates from Volume 3 of the 1627 short story collection by Feng Menglong, Stories to Awaken the World.[4]
Evidence that the phrase was in use as early as 1936 is provided in a memoir written by Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the British Ambassador to China in 1936 and 1937, and published in 1949. He mentions that before he left England for China in 1936, a friend told him of a Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."[5]
Frederic René Coudert, Jr. also recounts having heard the phrase at the time:
The "Chamberlain Curse"?[edit]
Research by philologist Garson O'Toole shows a probable origin in the mind of Austen Chamberlain's father Joseph Chamberlain dating around the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Specifically, O'Toole cites the following statement Joseph made during a speech in 1898:
From this it is likely that the Chamberlain family may have inadvertently transmitted a folk etymology by expanding Joseph Chamberlain's use of the concept to refer to some Chinese curse.
*The saying was used by Robert F. Kennedy in his Day of Affirmation Address in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1966*
In 1966 Robert F. Kennedy delivered a speech that included an instance: There is a Chinese curse which says “May he live in interesting times.” Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.
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This morning I fixed our usual pot of coffee, percolating in the kitchen, while I read Google News.The political headlines of the day did not particularly surprise me or provoke any extraordinary interest in my mind, until I clicked onto the headlines in the business section. I read the article about Cyborgs and implanting "rice chips" into the palms of employees working at the start up business called, "Epicenter". I couldn't help, but feel a littIe anxious and uncomfortable, when I considered the far reaching implications for the future.
My childhood memories of Sunday morning church services came to mind. I would often sit with my sister at the end of a pew, pretending to listen to a hell fire and brimstone sermon, that seemed to last forever. I didn't realize the gravity of it all, back then as I subconsciously absorbed some of the scariest parts of those fiery sermons. When the preacher would start talking in suddenly elevated crescendos and begin flailing his left hand in the air, while holding onto the Bible in his right hand, you could depend on him calling out one or some of the congregation.
Pastor would furiously extend his right forefinger, accusingly panning the audience, before he eventually settled on some guilty soul. He preached hard and then about half-way through his sermon, the Preacher stopped and called out the names of the shameless sinners caught sleeping or carelessly daydreaming.
Pastor ferociously railed against the abominable sin of inattention and the disrespect for the word of God. In my childish, elementary school mind, I likened the emotionally punishing exercise, like the same kind of mental torture, that an innocent man felt, lined up and blind folded with the other prison captives, against a brick wall, in front of a firing squad, waiting for the gunshot to kill him. I could imagine hearing Pastor give the command, shouting,... "Ready, Aim, Fire!!!
Many in the congregation, of the "Holier-Than-Thou", group of Christians I was forced to attend church with sitting in the audience, (among some of the hell-bound heathen daydreamers... like me), enjoyed their self-righteous gratification and implied moral superiority, granted to them by the pompous parson.
But,...somewhere along the way, in spite of my feelings of resentment, fear, humiliation, dread of hell, anger and days of indifference toward religion,... I started listening to the written message.
I particularly remember one Sunday sermon, out of the thousands, I had heard and summarily forgotten, that stood out happened to be about the Biblical prophecy of the future.
I think I was about 15 years old at the time.The preacher warned that Christians would recognize when the end times were near, explained by the book of Revelations. When you are 15 years old,... the book of Revelations reads more like a scary Sci/Fi novel, than Holy Scripture.
Reading this article today, drew me back in time to that long ago admonition contained in Revelations. I revisited that verse in the Bible, seeing it again, with fresh eyes.
Is this so-called, Chinese curse of "living in interesting times", a blend of Sci/Fi and ancient prophecy from Holy Scripture?
Revelation 13:16
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