Page 110 - The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Shift 1: Implantable Technologies

The tipping point: The first implantable mobile phone available commercially
By 2025: 82% of respondents expected this tipping point will have occurred
People are becoming more and more connected to devices, and those devices are increasingly
becoming connected to their bodies. Devices are not just being worn, but also being implanted into
bodies, serving communications, location and behaviour monitoring, and health functions.
Pacemakers and cochlear implants were just the beginning of this, with many more health devices
constantly being launched. These devices will be able to sense the parameters of diseases; they will
enable individuals to take action, send data to monitoring centres, or potentially release healing
medicines automatically.

Smart tattoos and other unique chips could help with identification and location. Implanted devices will
likely also help to communicate thoughts normally expressed verbally through a “built-in” smart phone,
and potentially unexpressed thoughts or moods by reading brainwaves and other signals.

Positive impacts
– Reduction in missing children
– Increased positive health outcomes
– Increased self-sufficiency
– Better decision-making
77
– Image recognition and availability of personal data (anonymous network that will “yelp” people)
Negative impacts
– Privacy/potential surveillance
– Decreased data security
– Escapism and addiction
– Increased distractions (i.e. attention deficit disorder)

Unknown, or cuts both ways
– Longer lives
– Changing nature of human relationships
– Changes in human interactions and relationships
– Real-time identification
– Cultural shift (eternal memory)

The shift in action
– Digital tattoos not only look cool but can perform useful tasks, like unlocking a car, entering mobile
phone codes with a finger-point or tracking body processes.
Source: https://wtvox.com/3d-printing-in-wearable-tech/top-10-implantable-wearables-soon-
body/
– According to a WT VOX article: “Smart Dust, arrays of full computers with antennas, each much
smaller than a grain of sand, can now organize themselves inside the body into as-needed networks

110