The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World

by Nick Harkaway

  And that’s just one technology. The first consumer biohack is on its way. Body Architect Lucy McRae and biochemist Sheref Mansy are creating swallowable perfume. According to the press release: ‘Fragrance molecules are excreted through the skin’s surface during perspiration, leaving tiny golden droplets on the skin that emanate a unique odor. The potency of scent is determined by each individual’s acclimatization to temperatures, to stress, exercise, or sexual arousal.’ In other words, it’s a pill that speckles your skin with gold and causes you to produce ‘a genetically unique scent about who we are’.

  Tiny though this change may be, it’s an example of something that could become a fad – or a powerful tool – in the near future: rewriting our bodies to make them do something new. There are other possibilities. A 2006 article1 in Wired magazine by Quinn Norton discussed the implantation of a rare earth magnet under the skin of the ring finger. The magnet responded to the presence of electromagnetic fields, allowing Norton to sense them. If that sounds useless, consider running your hand along a plaster wall and knowing where an electrical cable was sited. Once again, neuroplasticity allows us to integrate new senses (and new variations on old ones) with surprising rapidity.

  It’s been suggested recently that we have simply integrated Internet access into our maps of ourselves. As when writing was developed (and contrary to the fears of Socrates) we haven’t lost the capacity to remember things. Instead, it appears that we only try to remember things automatically if we know we may not be able to retrieve them from a machine.2 If we think we will be able to find the data without retaining it ourselves, we don’t bother to learn it. If that’s true, it could be seen as an extension of the same phenomenon Maryanne Wolf describes: we’re saving brain power and energy for the real thinking. But if so, what thinking? What exactly do we need all this time for? At a certain point, we may have to stop and decide what ration of biological to prosthetic memory we want.

  Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, has gone further in the hope of connecting the human nervous system directly to a machine, allowing paralysed patients to control and feel a prosthetic limb – or even enhance the human experience with new senses. Warwick was successfully given an implant that allowed bi-directional flow of information between machines and the human nervous system. He used an ultra-sonic sensor to navigate blindfold, operated a robotic hand using his brain via the Internet, and ultimately was linked directly to his wife, Irena, so that he was physically aware when she moved her arm.

  In the extreme version of this technology, would it be possible to create a literal external memory store, so that we never forgot anything at all (so long as the external hardware remained intact)? One has to wonder, as well, what might be possible with a combination of Warwick’s technology and Kamitani’s direct mind-to-mind live streaming from the visual cortex? Or even the sharing of surface thoughts? What might be the effect on society of casual blurring of the lines between individuals? Would we remain individual at all? Would we grow together, losing our sense of being discrete from one another – or would it be more like having a constant Twitter feed in one’s head, a background murmur of opinion from which relevant information could be searched at will? At that point, we’re in the Happy Valley – or the grip of a ghastly Orwellian nightmare. It all depends, of course, on how we allow it to take shape.

  I’m not proposing that all these things will happen, or that all of them are even possible. The point is that they are not flat-out ridiculous. We will push the boundaries of what it means to be human, what it means to be an individual, what it means to be alive. We will continue to challenge our preconceptions. This is our world: we are reaching for these things, and day by day some of them get a little closer, even as others are consigned to the rubbish bin of scientific progress. These improbable notions or others like them will produce the next big societal shake-up, but if we choose to engage with them rather than simply letting that technology evolve in the dark without reference to what we believe is important, we may yet be able to help design the world that comes.

  When I started writing this book, I was concerned in the first place to unpick the idea that digital technology was responsible for all our ills. I felt that that was at best a superficial explanation for what ails us, and at worst a fig leaf for the failings of the way we do business and the relationship between work and home life in the industrial world. I feel that even more strongly now, and I do not believe in the end that the influence of computers and the Internet on the structure of our brains is malign; I think we are being changed, within limits, by the way we live, and I’m excited that we’ve noticed and can decide how we feel about it. I do accept, though, that some people may not be able to control their interactions with the technology, and I am concerned that the sheer power of the increasingly sophisticated tools of manipulation that are made available by digitization and its presence in our lives is not generally understood. I can see a possible social future that divides us tacitly into those who control the nudge, and those who are nudged, but I’m not sure, to be honest, that that is any different from how we live now, and the more we are aware of it, the more we can resist – if we want to.

  And in the end, it comes down to that: if we do find ourselves living in an ugly, unkind world where we could have had a bright one, it will for the first time be not because we could not have known what was happening to us, but because we chose to remain blind to possibilities where we could have chosen to see.

  blindgiant.co.uk/chapter10

  For further discussion, visit

  www.blindgiant.co.uk

  Acknowledgements

  Non-fiction is different from a novel. It’s a different experience, a different process and, I suspect, it uses different bits of the brain. My habit in general is to design countries, cultural and religious movements, cities and people to suit my needs; here I’ve had to rely on reality. I’m still amazed that anyone cares what I think about a world I did not personally make up. My first acknowledgement must go to you: thanks for reading.

  Thanks are also due to Roland Philipps, who commissioned this book and persuaded me I could actually write it, and to the team at John Murray who made it into a reality. Patrick Walsh and the gang at C&W (as ever) picked me up when I fell. Nice work, people!

  My gratitude is also due to all those who gave permission for use of quotes, in particular to William Gibson, who not only granted permission for the use of the brief section from Idoru, but also is probably responsible in some convoluted way for my being interested in all this in the first place.

  More formally, I should doff my cap to acknowledge the quotes I have used as follows: Flow: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, published by Rider. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited; The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo, published by Rider Books. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited; Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf, used by the kind permission of Icon Books; The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, used by permission of Atlantic Books; The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, used by permission of Penguin Books Ltd; On Human Communication: A Review, a Survey, and a Criticism by Colin Cherry (third edition), published by The MIT Press; Patrons and Painters by Francis Haskell © Yale University 1980, used by permission of Yale University Press.

  Loz Kaye and Andrew Robinson gladly agreed that I should quote my interviews with them despite knowing I might be holding them up only in order to object to their positions. That alone should inspire you to consider their ideas even if you think you disagree with everything they say.

  Richard Stallman took time out to engage in an email dialogue regarding copyright and other aspects of what I would term Intellectual Property, a usage he regards – not without justification – as a loose and misleading conflation of different concepts.

  Susan Greenfield was kind enough to talk to me regarding her worries about digital technology. I accept, obviously,
her deep understanding of the brain, though I disagree with her on social and political grounds. She’s a person of profound intelligence, and I consider myself lucky to have had her perspective.

  Finally, I could never do any of this without Clare.

  Notes

  Chapter 1: Past and Present

  1. Twitter’s Response to WikiLeaks Subpoena Should Be the Industry Standard, 10 January 2011

  http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/twitter/

  2. TEDxSantaCruz: Roger McNamee – Disruption and Engagement, 9 July 2011

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR6jLD1USW0&feature=youtube

  Chapter 2: Information Overload

  1. Mobile Effect on Sleep, 21 January 2008

  http://www.nhs.uk/news/2007/January08/Pages/​Sleepandmobilephones.aspx

  2. Here’s the Guy who Unwittingly Live-tweeted the Raid on Bin Laden, 2 May 2011

  http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/02/heres-the-guy-who-unwittingly-live-tweeted-the-raid-on-bin-laden/

  3. Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: the U.S. tilts toward Iraq, 1980–1984, 25 February 2003

  http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

  Chapter 3: Peak Digital

  1. Letter dated 23 October 2003 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council

  http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=S/2003/1027

  2. Raj Patel: The Value of Nothing–the $200 Hamburger, 5 February 2010

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oagmlbhobnY

  Chapter 4: The Plastic Brain

  1. Navigation-related Structural Change in the Hippocampi of Taxi Drivers, 10 November 1999

  http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/4398.full

  2. Discover magazine: The Brain on Sonar – How Blind People Find their Way around with Echoes, 25 May 2011

  http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/​2011/05/25/the-brain-on-sonar-%E2%80%93-how-blind-​people-find-their-way-around-with-echoes/

  3. Reading Fiction ‘Improves Empathy’, study finds, 7 September 2011

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/07/reading-fiction-empathy-study

  4. Some Preliminary Experiments on Vision without Inversion of the Retinal Image – Dr George M. Stratton, University of California (read at the Third International Congress for Psychology, Munich, August, 1896.)

  http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~nava/courses/​psych_and_brain/pdfs/Stratton_1896.pdf

  5. Journal of Mental Health: Online information, Extreme Communities and Internet Therapy: Is the Internet Good for our Mental Health? August 2007

  http://mindfull.spc.org/vaughan/Bell_2007_JMH.pdf

  6. New Scientist: Why Facebook is Good for You, 6 March 2009

  http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126986.200-why-face-book-is-good-for-you.html

  7. The Carter Center: Tune Out, Stay In; An Epidemic of Young Japanese Pulling Back from the World has Deep Roots, 20 August 2011

  http://www.cartercenter.org/news/documents/doc599.html

  8. Science magazine: Searching for the Google Effect on People’s Memory – John Bohannon, 15 July 2011

  http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6040/277.full

  9. MailOnline: Swine Flu Jab Link to Killer Nerve Disease: Leaked Letter Reveals Concern of Neurologists over 25 Deaths in America – Jo Macfarlane, 15 August 2009

  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206807/Swine-flu-jab-link-killer-nerve-disease-Leaked-letter-reveals-concern-neurologists-25-deaths-America.html

  10. Health Day News: Last Year’s H1N1 Flu Vaccine Was Safe, study finds – Steven Reinberg, 2 February 2011

  http://www.wunderground.com/DisplayHealthDay.asp?id=649531

  11. Science Fiction is the Most Valuable Art Ever. Discuss, 5 September 2011

  http://damiengwalter.com/2011/09/05/science-fiction-is-the-most-valuable-art-ever-discuss/

  Chapter 5: Work, Play and Sacred Space

  1. New York Times: Four Nerds and a Cry to Arms Against Facebook, 11 May 2010

  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html

  2. Did You Say ‘Intellectual Property’? It’s a Seductive Mirage – Richard M. Stallman, 20 September 2011

  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml

  3. Wikipedia: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas – a 1973 short story by Ursula K. Le Guin

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_​Away_from_Omelas

  4. Guardian: The Sun drops World Cup Sweepstake as Bloggers Cry Foul – Mark Sweeney, 16 June 2010

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/16/sun-world-cup-sweepstake-blogs

  5. Lovelace: the Origin – Sydney Padua, 19 April 2009

  http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/lovelace-the-origin-2/

  6. Reading Fiction ‘Improves Empathy’, study finds, 7 September 2011

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/07/reading-fiction-empathy-study

  7. New Scientist: Your Clever Body: Thinking from Head to Toe – David Robson, 21 October 2011

  http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228341.500-your-clever-body-thinking-from-head-to-toe.html?full=true

  8. View from the Crow’s Nest – Nick Harkaway, 29 September 2010

  http://www.futurebook.net/content/view-crows-nest

  9. Tesco-opted – George Monbiot, 10 August 2009

  http://www.monbiot.com/2009/08/10/tesco-opted/

  10. You Are Not Facebook’s Customer – Douglas Rushkoff, 26 September 2011

  http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/2011/9/26/you-are-not-facebooks-customer.html

  11. How Social Influence can Undermine the Wisdom of Crowd Effect – edited by Burton H. Singer, University of Florida, 13 April 2011 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/10/1008636108.​abstract

  Chapter 6: Tahrir and London

  1. Egyptian Activists’ Action Plan – translated by Alexis Madrigal, 27 January 2011

  http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/01/​egyptian-activists-action-plan-translated/70388/

  2. BBC News online: Analysis: the riots data so far – Dominic Casciani, 15 September 2011

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14931987

  3. New Scientist: Language may Shape Human Thought – Celeste Biever, 19 August 2004

  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6303-language-may-shape-human-thought.html

  4. New Scientist: Language may be Key to Theory of Mind – Anil Ananthaswamy, 23 June 2009

  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17352-language-may-be-key-to-theory-of-mind.html

  5. The Riots: What are the Lessons from the JRF’s Work in Communities? – John Low, 7 September 2011

  http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/riots-what-are-the-lessons

  Chapter 7: The Old, the Modern and the New

  1. YouTube: How George Lucas Got the Rights to the Star Wars Sequels – George Lucas, 6 Nov 2009

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPJ2gQdKXqk

  2. HM Government: How e-petitions work – Directgov, undated

  http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/how-it-works

  3. Weasel-necked Pencils. Part I Hope the Last – Neil Gaiman, 5 May 2011

  http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/05/weasel-necked-pencils-part-i-hope-last.html

  4. Discover magazine: Twitter as a Giant Global Mood Ring – Ed Yong, 29 September 2011

  http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/​09/29/twitter-as-a-giant-global-mood-ring/

  Chapter 8: Engagement

  1. Neural Responses to Taxation and Voluntary Giving Reveal Motives for Charitable Donations – William T. Harbaugh, Ulrich Mayr, Daniel R. Burghart, 15 June 2007

  http://www.sciencemag.org/content/316/5831/1622.full

  2. News Focus: The Theory? Diet Causes Violence. The Lab? Prison – John Bohannon, 25 September 2009

  http://www.ifbb.org.uk/files/Science-25-9-09.PDF

  3. New Scientist: Your Clever Body: thinking from Head to Toe – David Robson, 21 October 2011

  http://www.newscientist.com
/article/mg21228341.500-your-clever-body-thinking-from-head-to-toe.html

  Chapter 9: Being Human in a Digital World (Or Any Other)

  1. New Scientist: Natural Brain State is Primed to Learn – Jessica Hamzelou, 19 August 2011

  http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228341.500-your-clever-body-thinking-from-head-to-toe.html

  2. New York Times: Come On, I Thought I Knew That! – Benedict Carey, 18 April 2011

  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/19mind.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

  Chapter 10: Coda

  1. A Sixth Sense for a Wired World – Quinn Norton, 7 June 2006

  http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mods/news/2006/06/71087?currentPage=all

  2. Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at our Fingertips – Betsy Sparrow, Jenny Liu, Daniel M. Wegner, 2 May 11

  http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/07/​13/science.1207745#aff-2

  Index

  Abu Ghraib (prison)

  ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)

  Adorno, Theodor, 6.1, 9.1, 9.2

  advertisements: online, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3; and intrusion, 2.1; and human moods, 7.1; methods, 7.2

  Afghanistan

  Amazon, 1.1, 1.2, 3.1, 5.1, 7.1

  Amazon Prime

  American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

  Ames Research Center

  Android platform, 3.1, 6.1

  apocalypse: sense of

  Apple: dominance, 1.1; and operating systems, 1.2; profits, 1.3; and iPhone, 3.1; as gateway to the Cloud, 3.2; stores, 3.3; opposes free movement, 5.1; addresses, 5.2; design, 6.1; and publishing, 7.1; GameCenter, 8.1; company character, 8.2