BrainWeb

by Douglas E. Richards

  BLAKE: (smiling) Well, when it comes to men, at least, there might be a telltale, um . . . sign, shall we say, that they’re watching porn. But I take your point.

  (turning to Jacob) So how would you respond to the addiction argument?

  JACOB: Addiction will be a problem. No doubt about it. But people identified hosts of problems with every major technology ever developed, and we’ve never let this stop progress.

  I’ll raise another issue that I’m sure Ms. Finkel is about to bring up: driving. I’ll be the first to admit the danger of people getting behind the wheel with this technology in their heads. For many drivers, the temptation to have texts or e-mails displayed in one corner of their visual fields, or to thought-surf the web, will be too great to resist.

  But even this can be overcome with the proper planning. Congress is considering mandating that cars be equipped with Internet dampening fields. Fields that would automatically activate around the driver’s seat when the car senses a driver with BrainWeb implants. And consider this: the first self-driving cars are about to be approved for use. Within a decade, no one will drive their own cars anyway.

  BLAKE: So you acknowledge there are major issues. But you believe that for every problem, we’ll eventually find a solution.

  JACOB: Exactly. People innovate. And adapt. They have been since the dawn of civilization.

  A few weeks ago, I visited my brother in Denver. My four-year-old niece has had a kids touchscreen tablet since she was old enough to drool. While I was there, I handed her a kids magazine. She had no idea what to do with it. She kept swiping the cover with her finger to try to scroll through additional pages. There was a part she wanted to see bigger, so she tried to touch it and splay out her fingertips to enlarge it.

  Now I could be horrified at her ignorance of magazines. I could mourn the demise of print media. But instead, I choose to celebrate how effortlessly she’s adapted to the far superior digital media. People find solutions. People adapt. It’s what we do.

  In 1880, the US asked a group of the most accomplished experts in the world to analyze New York City, one of the fastest-growing and important cities in North America. They wanted to know what the city might be like in a hundred years.

  The experts extrapolated the likely growth during this period, and the expected consequences. They then confidently proclaimed that if population growth wasn’t halted, by 1980, New York City would require so many horses to stay viable, that every inch of it would be knee-deep in manure. Knee-deep! In horse manure! The result was irrefutable.

  The moral here is obvious. As Yogi Berra once said: “It’s tough to make predictions. Especially about the future.” The experts in 1880 couldn’t imagine a technology, a solution, that would completely obsolete the horse.

  And that’s where we are today. We can see the problems with BrainWeb easily. But there are solutions. It’s just that these solutions aren’t always as obvious as the problems. And paradigm-shifting technologies that are certain to come along, like the automobile, are all but impossible to predict.

  BLAKE: A compelling argument. (making a face) And given that our show is based in New York, I, for one, am quite happy that the manure here is, um . . . slightly less than knee-deep.

  SANDRA: (smiling) I understand Mr. Resnick’s point. But just because you can find examples of problems that resolved, that doesn’t mean this will always happen.

  BLAKE: Also a compelling argument.

  SANDRA: And Mr. Resnick’s story about his niece reminds me of another point. We’re adapting to the Internet, but the changes this adaptation is causing within us can be alarming. The Internet is making us superficial. Shallow. It’s reducing our mental acuity, not strengthening it. Our attention spans are shrinking. We’re stimulus junkies. BrainWeb will accelerate this as well.

  BLAKE: Do you have any evidence for this?

  SANDRA: Yes. A number of studies have shown that Internet use actually rewires our brains. Making addiction and shallow thought, not just a problem with our software, so to speak, but with our hardware as well.

  Americans are now averaging well over twenty hours a week online, and this figure is growing every year. But the reading of books has been declining just as rapidly. We get information and entertainment in staccato bursts. Sound bites. We don’t have the patience to focus and think deeply on a subject. Students struggle. The Internet generation is less and less capable of deep thought every year.

  I could cite endless studies, but let me finish by quoting Nicholas Carr. His book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, came out back in 2011.

  (glancing down at her notes) “The Net delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli—repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive—that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions. The Net may well be the single most powerful mind-altering technology that has ever come into general use.”

  (pausing and returning her stare to the camera) If it’s powerfully mind-altering now, how mind-altering is it going to be when we actually put it in our minds?

  And yes, with BrainWeb we could call up any information we needed, without ever having to commit anything to memory. But when we struggle to force information into our memories, this changes the structures of our brains in a good way, helping us to think deeply and to form creative connections. The implants are a nuclear-powered crutch. One that will neuter our intellect. To give an analogy, a technology that would do away with the need for us to use our own muscle power would definitely save effort, but it would just as definitely cause our muscles to waste away.

  BLAKE: (turning toward Jacob). I know you’d like to respond to these points, Jacob, but I’m afraid we’re running out of time. So could you give us a parting thought?

  JACOB: (nodding) Ms. Finkel is very skilled at inciting fear. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown.

  But consider this: she’s painted a terrifying picture of the Internet as it exists today. I’d be running for the hills if I didn’t have decades of personal experience with it. Think about how the Web has transformed every aspect of our society. And almost exclusively for the better.

  I won’t argue that there won’t be any negative side effects of BrainWeb, or any growing pains. I won’t even argue that we’ll all be the same people we were before installing implants. We won’t be. What we are now may even become obsolete. But, on the whole, we’ll be better. More capable. More versatile. Superior.

  SANDRA: The Net is amazing, Blake. No question about it. It’s hard to imagine what we did without it. So the danger has sneaked up on us. We’re lobsters loving the Jacuzzi we’re in as the heat is gradually turned up. But let’s throttle back and enjoy the Jacuzzi at its current setting. Let’s not turn it up to boiling in one burst, learning how fatal this is only after it’s too late.

  And we haven’t even touched on the possibility of foul play. Of hackers finding a way in. Infecting us with computer viruses. With all types of malware. And while Congress is aware of this issue, and is requiring triple redundancy firewalls and other safeguards, do we really think the bad actors of the world won’t find a way in?

  I’m not against technology. It’s been a powerful, positive force, on the whole. But let’s not take a step too far. Let’s keep the Internet outside of our brains.

  BLAKE: (nodding) Thanks very much to my two guests, Jacob Resnick and Sandra Finkel, for a fascinating and lively debate.

  16

  A message from Hall sounded in Altschuler’s mind. “We’re approaching the marina now.”

  Altschuler nodded to himself. The BrainWeb technology could give a powerful boost to the capabilities of the average man. But the current CEO of Theia Labs was not even close to average. As a world-class software and Internet expert, the capabilities it conferred to him were impossible for the average man to even comprehend.

  He sometimes felt like a god, his senses and his reach almost limitless.

  The Web consisted
of billions of interconnected computers and other devices, and most of these now had cameras and other sensors attached, a living, growing organism that had fully engulfed the globe. And there were very few cells of this organism, very few of its senses, that Altschuler couldn’t reach and manipulate from the command center in his skull.

  Before BrainWeb he was already too fast on a computer to follow. But now that he could operate at the speed of thought, hacking any but the most secure systems had become child’s play. He took control of the marina’s security cameras effortlessly and monitored all feeds while his friends approached the yacht.

  “No sign that you’re being followed,” he told his friend.

  Given Hall’s mind-reading capabilities, he would know this himself, but there was always the remote chance that someone following was like Megan and immune to his ability. Why take any chances?

  Hall and Megan joined them on the Eos and there were warm embraces all around. Altschuler untied his new ship from the dock and activated the autopilot feature to take them a few miles out to sea for added privacy.

  Minutes later they were all seated in the saloon, facing the 3-D virtual presences of Justin Girdler and Mike Campbell, each joining from different locations.

  “I’d like to start off,” said Girdler, when greetings and preliminaries were out of the way, “by catching Alex and Heather up on some recent events. Sorry we couldn’t do it sooner, but it’s been hectic, to say the least.” He gestured toward Altschuler. “And I know you’re doing the equivalent of two or three jobs right now,” he added. “So your schedule has been equally hectic.”

  Altschuler smiled. “Plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “But before we get started, congratulations again to you and Nick for saving the day at the Oscars. Really amazing stuff.” He turned to Hall sitting beside him. “I only wish you could get the recognition you deserve.”

  “Recognition? Are you kidding?” Hall shook his head and a broad smile came over his face. “I’d settle for a neutral reaction.”

  “Nick is pretty much getting vilified,” said Megan.

  “That really sucks, Nick,” said Heather. “Because you were amazing.” She smiled. “I guess now you know how Spider-Man feels. Misunderstood.”

  “Yeah,” he said good-naturedly. “But I can’t blame the press. I’ve seen the footage. I did look like a useless, drugged-out accountant staring zombie-like into space while all hell was breaking loose around me.” He shrugged and looked amused. “No one knows who I am anyway, so I’ve actually been getting a kick out of the coverage.”

  “You’re really taking this well,” said Heather.

  “You know who isn’t taking this well?” said Girdler. “The men Nick led on the raid. They know he was the only reason they succeeded, and that he did an extraordinary job of orchestrating the attack while under extreme duress. It’s not sitting well with them that he’s been the butt of late-night monologues. It’s been all I can do to stop them from anonymously calling the talk shows to defend Nick.”

  “If they could even get through with all the celebrities vying for attention,” said Campbell. “I get hundreds of channels, and I think half the programming lately on every one of them is a celebrity recounting his or her thoughts and emotions during the siege. They’re really milking this for all it’s worth.”

  “True,” said Megan. “But I give them a pass on this one. I can’t even imagine how traumatic it must have been to have been there. So I think they’ve earned their publicity.”

  Campbell was about to reply when Girdler jumped in. “We should probably get to it,” he said. “Alex, given recent events, are you still scheduled to testify before Congress in a week or two?”

  Altschuler nodded. As CEO of Theia Labs, he was intimately involved in all deliberations regarding the use and regulations of the new technology. “I should also add that progress at our pilot manufacturing plant has gone better than expected. The first batch of ten thousand sets of implants should be ready in the next two to three weeks.”

  “Why ten thousand?” asked Megan.

  “That’s the size of the clinical trial we’ll be conducting. We wanted a relatively large sample size to really get a handle on BrainWeb’s safety profile.”

  Megan whistled. “Wow,” she said. “I had no idea you were so close to finishing that many sets.” Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “When did you build this manufacturing facility? And given how fascinated the world is by anything having to do with Theia Labs, how is it that I never heard anything about this?”

  “Because we’ve kept it top secret,” said Girdler. “I lobbied to be put in charge of security. The technology is too controversial, and the impact of someone tampering with the implants too great, to advertise the factory. Its existence and location are as secret as what’s going on in Area 51, and at least as well protected. Employees either don’t know what is really being made there, or have signed such ironclad confidentiality agreements they’re afraid to even tell themselves. When the implants are moved across the country, they’ll be escorted like they were weapons-grade uranium.”

  Megan nodded, impressed. “Good to know,” she said simply.

  “Congratulations on the progress, Alex,” said the general. “But let me get started catching you up. It’s been a wild week. I know Nick’s filled you in, but I wanted to give you my perspective.”

  “I can use as many perspectives as I can get,” said Altschuler. “Nick told me that you and he met with the president’s National Security Council, and then senior politicians in the president’s camp, four days after the attack.”

  “Well, the general was there in person,” said Megan with the hint of a smile. “They had Nick video in. They wouldn’t let him within a hundred miles of that city if their lives depended on it.”

  “Nick told me,” said Altschuler. “But he said he didn’t need to read their minds to know it was a mixed bag. They were falling all over themselves with gratitude, but were less than entirely supportive.”

  Girdler frowned. “That may be an understatement.”

  “So how much trouble are you in, General?” asked Heather.

  “That remains to be seen. But I’d say it ranges from a whole lot to a shitload. I’ve continued to insist that Nick and I were a gang of two. Period. Mike is under suspicion, but no power on Earth will get me to admit that he knew anything about this, and we’ve been very careful covering our tracks.”

  “I still don’t feel good about leaving you hanging out to dry on this one,” said Campbell.

  “Why take anyone else down?” said Girdler. “This group still has important things to accomplish. Not that I’d throw you under the bus under any circumstances.”

  “Will you be court-martialed?” asked Heather.

  “It’s not clear.”

  “They realize you and Nick pretty much saved the world, right?” said Heather indignantly. “More or less. And you both chose to out yourselves to do it. You’d think they’d be giving you medals.”

  Girdler smiled wistfully. “They do appreciate the saving-the-world thing. They know that by coming clean about Nick, I enabled them to dodge the ultimate nightmare. Still, this doesn’t entirely erase the fact that I perpetrated a fraud on the military and government. Worse, they saw the ah . . . asset I was keeping from them, the great Nick Hall, in action. That’s what really has them pissed off.”

  “So if you were hoarding something worthless, it would be a slap on the wrist,” said Megan. “But since they found out you were hoarding something of incredible value, you’re screwed.”

  “Pretty much. The fact that I saved their asses by pulling Nick out of my hat is the only thing keeping me in my job right now. Nick and I explained at length why we made the choices we did. We spoke passionately about how widespread ESP would cause civilization to collapse. I explained that I only wanted to make sure Nick wasn’t a target, and that his very existence wouldn’t kick off a major ESP arms race.”<
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  “Were they receptive?” asked Altschuler.

  “Some were convinced I did the right thing. Some weren’t. So discussions are being had, and investigations are continuing. My fate rests on how much gratitude they feel, their assessment of the rationale for my actions, and the direction of the political winds.”

  “Nick says they did agree he should stay off the grid,” said Altschuler, “at least for now. And continue devoting himself to finding a way to counter mind reading if it’s ever widely developed.”

  “Yes, but for how long?” said Girdler. “Nick’s arguments were passionate and forceful. No one knows the dangers of widespread mind reading like Nick does. He described in disturbing detail the kind of thoughts he reads on a daily basis. To really press home how quickly society would collapse if everyone had instant access to all the ugly and dangerous thoughts and memories we all keep hidden from each other.” He sighed. “They said they got the point, but these are politicians. Mind reading may be fire, but the advantages to anyone able to play with it without getting burned are obvious. And the military intelligence types were drooling over the possibilities.”

  “Of course they were,” said Campbell. “Nick just provided the ultimate demonstration of the value of his abilities.”

  “Governments like keeping secrets, right?” said Heather. “They’re pissed off that you kept a secret, General. But if Nick is their secret, that should be a different matter. So maybe they’ll agree to keep him off the grid for good.”

  “Even so,” said the general, “if the powers that be know he’s alive and where to find him, how off the grid would he really be? What I’m worried about is that they’ll try to exploit his ESP. Have him abandon his defensive mission. They’ll convince themselves he should spend all of his time producing miracles like he did at the Oscars. A position that isn’t without merit.”

  “No matter what,” said Campbell, “the secret is out. The twelve men Nick led on the raid know he’s alive, and know he can read minds. The dozens of people at the National Security Council meeting, attendees and their underlings, know about him. And those in attendance at later meetings that Nick, himself, attended via video. All are sworn to secrecy, but you can bet this will leak. And when it does, any number of countries will do anything to get their hands on him.”