A Massive Brain Transplant

I first came across the comic below a couple of years ago, and I did not understand it. Three bodies in a 'Brain Bisecting and Transplanting Ward.' What does that even mean? I find the duality between body and mind fascinating; it is one of the oldest and most debated topics in human history. Is the mind always right, or can our bodies communicate with us in a more powerful way? Are human ideals transcendental, or do we live and die on Earth? Is there an absolute truth or is truth relative? Is it Plato or Heraclitus? So much to think about, and not enough time.

I decided to write this blog post after watching the Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma" to talk about who we are. I am absolutely fascinated by AI and machine learning. We should be proud of what we have developed in terms of technology in the past couple of years, growing our capabilities at an exponential rate. However, "The Social Dilemma" opened my eyes to the threats of the irresponsible use of technology (or is it just fake news?!), and it reminded me of the comic in this post.

If one thing I have learned about business is that it is based on future value. We trade on the future value of stocks. We start businesses that we hope will value over time. We hire people wanting to unleash their potential. If you cannot create future value, you're out of the game. However, the only thing we know about the future is that we cannot predict it. But what if we could? What if we could predict what people will do in the future? What if we could know for sure where people will put their money and who they will vote for? From a business perspective, this is an incredible opportunity to mine through human behavior and make a safe bet on future value.

We all know apps and browsers keep track of our moves. It is weird when you talk about going on a trip to Turkey and five minutes later a Turkish Airlines ad pops up on your Instagram. After your trip does not happen because of a global pandemic, your phone apps also know you're really sad and feed you content to mindlessly indulge in your emotions. Beyond this sad but true story, do we ever wonder why our phones know everything about our lives? Is this concerning, or do we just accept things the way they are?

Going back to the comic, think about the bisection and transplanting as a way in which social media programs our brains to be a certain way so we act a certain way. This can sound extreme, but social media can affect who we are from showing us unrealistic standards of beauty to predicting exactly what we are going to do with the use of data and algorithms - tech being always a step ahead of us. It is amazing to have the opportunity to automate things, but the story is different when you automate people. Who do we become then? Think about people as the bodies in the beds, and social media apps as an experimental ward.

I am not woke in this issue, and I do not dare to show you my screen time, but I am trying to understand what's going on beneath the surface. Something feels wrong when it's really late at night and all you want to do is sleep, but you keep on scrolling. Human beings are very adaptable, but what happens when we adapt to the technologies we let to be autonomous and unsupervised? In the spirit of humane living, let technology be our ally and not our enemy.

If you think these are lies upon lies, that's fine. In the spirit of my blog, please assume people are honest and decent until proven otherwise.