I’m just astonished by the terror that can be unleashed by these things. Who’s going to control all this technology? The corporations, of course. And will that mean your brain implant is going to come complete with a corporate logo, and 20 percent of the time you’re going to be hearing commercials?
Predictor: Sirius, R.U.
Prediction, in context:In a 1992 article for The Bergen (N.J.) Record, Laurence Chollet quotes Mondo 2000 editor R.U. Sirius (whose real name is Ken Goffman). Chollet writes: ”Brain implants that enable you to speak French, drugs that make you smart, holographic clothing that changed color according to your body temperature. These may sound like a cyberpunk novel, but in fact they are all part of the near future, according to ‘Mondo 2000: A User’s Guide to the New Edge,’ edited by Rudy Rucker, R.U. Sirius and Queen Mu … Some aspects of ‘The User’s Guide’ are mind-boggling, like ‘nanotechnology,’ a blend of computer science and microbiology that is working to develop microscopic machines that can be injected into the body and, say, programmed to clean out blocked arteries. What unsettles Goffman is not what future technology will do but who will control it. ‘I’m just astonished by the terror that can be unleashed by these things,’ he said. ‘Who’s going to control all this technology? The corporations, of course. And will that mean your brain implant is going to come complete with a corporate logo, and 20 percent of the time you’re going to be hearing commercials?'”
Date of prediction: November 1, 1992
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Role of Govt./Industry
Name of publication: Record (Bergen, NJ)
Title, headline, chapter name: Unfolding the Future
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=0bde019e8ea9639d7b39d13f16345017&_docnum=4&wchp=dGLbVlz-lSlzV&_md5=f7962a10e5315d9f949743fca38b0b05
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty