WOULD YOU PAY MONEY TO BECOME MORE INTELLIGENT?

We live in an age where people pay a pretty penny to go under the knife and change
their appearance. Tummy tucks, lip fillers, nose jobs, and breast implants are all now
commonplace. According to neuroscientist, Moran Cerf, one day there will even be an
operation to make you super intelligent.
Dr. Cerf is a smart cookie himself, and believes we could all be a lot smarter with a
little help from technology. He is working in Silicon Valley on brain implants that could
be ready within five years.
The science behind the smart chips is currently under lock and key. Yet it’s rumored
that recipients will have an internet connection in their brain.
In theory, when they think of a question, their brain can immediately access Wikipedia
for the answer. The internet’s entire reservoir of information will be tapped into by
thought alone.
Cerf’s research is groundbreaking, but he has concerns about its social implications. If
only the super-rich can afford super intelligence what kind of world will we create? On
top of gender, racial, and financial inequality, Cerf fears intelligence inequality.
He explained, “People with smart chips can make money by just thinking about the
right investments. So they’re going to get richer, they’re going to get healthier, they’re
going to live longer.”
An intelligent monkey has an average IQ of 70. That of a human is around 100. The IQ
of a genius is considered to be around 140. The IQ of a person with a smart chip in their
brain could be boosted to around 200. How would such a person view the rest of
us? Would they not feel a cut above and regard the rest of the human race as little more
than monkeys?
Dr. Cerf has already conducted experiments into training the brain to act differently. He
explained that the brain is currently wired like a one-way street. All information goes in
one direction: forward. By training the brain to make information flow in both
directions we could access areas of our brain we have no control over.
Cerf placed electrodes in his patient’s brains to create detours. By doing this the patients
were able to change their experience of reality. They could see and hear what they
wanted instead of what their senses were telling them. For example, they could see a
cat, but tell their brain it was actually a dog, and that’s what they’d see.
Cerf believes more control of the brain creates more control over our lives. Others argue
it would be used to deny aspects of reality we find disagreeable. Either way, would you
want to have a chip in your brain?