One of the things that interested me about our discussion this week was in the memory section, when the idea of neural implants was brought up. I found this particularly interesting, because the subject of the ethics of neural implants was something that was heavily discussed in one of my classes last semester. While some people may joke that their memories are so bad that if there was ever a neural implant available to improve memory they would be among the first to sign up, however such an implant, even such a simple one, has the potential to cause a great deal of conflict. First of all, the implants would likely be expensive, and only those who could afford them could have them, thus creating an even greater disparity between classes, or different models or upgrades could be purchased at an additional cost, again separating those who could afford it from those who could not. Additionally, many parents, wishing the best for their children, would inevitably wish to get one for their children, particularly those who have a particularly difficult time remembering things, to give them an edge in the classroom and on standardised tests, however this would create an unfair advantage for the students with implants, which would most likely lead to them being shunned and even eventually segregated from the implant-free students.
In addition to the divisions such an implant would create, there would be even more problems, such as the fact that there would likely be people performing illegal upgrades to people’s implants to give them a secret edge or some other ability/advantage. What’s more, this could likely lead to upgrades having bugs or even the ability to be hijacked to strip people of their free will. Another ethical concern with implants is that weaponised implants would most likely be developed. This is not only a dilemma by altering the brains of soldiers in battle, but also due to the fact that they would have a great deal of difficulty reassimilating to society. This is a particular issue given that currently many veterans end up being homeless or suffering from other extreme issues related to not being able to come back to society after what they had experienced, which would only be made worse if their brains had been drastically altered or weaponised due to an implant. One other problem with the idea of neural implants is that in order for them to properly assimilate to the brain, they would not be able to be removed, therefore if parents gave a child an implant without discussing it with them, the child would be required to live with that implant for the rest of their lives, and the same rings true for soldiers of anyone else. Thinking about implants as being like mind-altering tattoos, since many people get tattoos and later regret them, I can only imagine how people would react to such implants, regardless of whether or not they were supposed to just provide a little boost to their memory.