At the SEARCC conference in Sydney (28 to 30 September) Kevin McKean predicted implants to be one of the significant developments of computing in the near  future. Virtual realities would become far more powerful than in existing games. New illegal drugs may be developed to enhance modified perceptual spaces.

This provides a complementary scenario to fitting computers out with biomass-based memory as discussed here in the debate on “creativity”. Through implants, the innovation of the human can be blended into a distributed intelligence system which would determine the parameters of experience through human-to-electronic connections combined with chemical influences. The human spirit would be harnessed within the logic of the machine.

A small implant linked wirelessly to a network of computers could enormously expand the power of an intelligent machine. The traditional  limitations of “nature” in human perception would cease to exist. No longer would the computer seek to imitate human functioning, but could put to use for its purposes the innovative and rule-breaking potential of the human which a machine cannot have itself.