Memory Chips For All!→

Gary Marcus writing for the New York Times:

However difficult the practicalities, there’s no reason in principle why a future generation of neural prostheticists couldn’t pick up where nature left off, incorporating Google-like master maps into neural implants. This in turn would allow us to search our own memories — not just those on the Web — with something like the efficiency and reliability of a computer search engine.

In between recycling ideas that have already been discussed and developed at great length by a number of other talented scientists and writers, Gary Marcus seems to have lost sight of his own words:

How much would you pay to have a small memory chip implanted in your brain if that chip would double the capacity of your short-term memory?

Apparently, the idea that some people would be able to afford memory chips while others wouldn’t does not present “in principle” any sort of ethical dilemma. This insight is so stupidly obvious I feel rather embarrassed for pointing it out, but evidently the Times has lower expectations than that, or at the very least an alternative agenda.