SubscribeIt is not important to ask ‘when’ the first heart device will be hacked. As is always with any innovation, universal acceptance happens sooner rather than later, however controversial it might be.A more interesting discussion is — what happens if the heart devices allowing open access. What is it that changes?
As with every change, the outcome is at the minimum a duality and everything in between. If the at least, the opposite poles can be identified (at any particular instant — this is important), then it allows us to break down the problem into simpler blocks.
As an example — if a hundred cellphones are distributed in a village in Ethiopia — the two possible outcomes could be:a) A hyper-connected village, and a range of services / economic changes that emerge as a consequence.b) the cellphones are never used for productivity at all — they are used a jewelries instead.
The actual outcome would be a combination of the above opposites, of course.In that sense, if I try and analyze the outcome of an innovation such as a heart device with open api —
- positive: a range of middle layer services that promote life — such as: heart beat based art creator, romance analyzer (does her heart beat faster when she’s around me?), stress analyzer (during war?), longer life expectancy, music which modifies according to the heart rate (different music during sleep and jogging), better monitoring of food quality…. there is literally no end.
- negative: a range of possibilities that destroy life — such as: freaky weapons of mass destruction, employee exhaustion monitoring, mass scale deaths due to machine failures…
By tomorrow morning, I will think of fifty more possibilities. Of course, I am just ranting… early morning coffee induced rant. There is no point to this rant, since both of the above will happen sooner or later. The fact is, we are living a cyberpunk novel… we just don’t see it yet. 
