Speciation

January 18, 2016. My device works. Building on the brain-machine interface work done by Parviz, Hanson, and others, I developed a coding language that could translate neural signals to digital 1's and 0's, and translate the other direction as well. The oversimplified description is a biological AC/DC converter. I didn't have any research money to do a clinical study yet, so I implanted it in myself. In my right arm. I hijacked the signal to and from my index and middle fingers, then wrote script in the ADC to "right click" and "left click". Double clicking happens with a thought. Then I plugged myself into my computer. Using a mouse, I could move the cursor around the screen. Then I "thought" about clicking a link...the link opened! I right clicked, opened a page in a new tab...it works perfectly. I need to hijack the whole motor array of my arm though, so I don't have to use this stupid mouse for on-screen navigation.

February 1, 2016. Hijacking the arm signal was too much work. The forearm remains the greatest challenge in human musculature. Instead I decided to hijack my eyeball. The computer screen works as a 2D array of X and Y coordinates so I can basically just translate muscle contractions in the orbital complex into X and Y output. Combined with the finger hijack, I can now browse the internet, work, read, check and write emails...all without moving from this slouched position in my Herman Muller Aeron chair.

June 6, 2016. Investment! Had some VC guys in. I can't really abide their type, showing up to these business deals in jeans and a graphic T, but whatever. Their initial investment bid was $160 million for 70%. I countered for double that money for the same equity, and we settled for $210 million for 60% and I get to choose the Chairman of the Board of the company formed. Everything is going black until FDA submission, stay tuned.

April 11, 2018. After two years of development, the first clinical trial is done. We could not really adapt this technology to animals beyond biocompatibility studies (how do you teach a chimp to connect to the internet?) so we modified the system by reducing its capabilities and its implant location and got the FDA to agree to a small trial. Which went flawlessly. We've submitted a total of 14 patents on the initial technology and the VC queens want another 7 based on changes made and additional future possibilities. They also showed up with another $80 million and bought 10% more. Fine with me.

March 1, 2019. Submitted to the FDA for approval. So frustrated that these people involved in the clinical trials are essentially Gods, but I can't legally get the technology myself yet.

July 4, 2021. I chose Independence Day as the day to have my implant done. It seemed fitting. The surgery only took about two hours, because the device adapts once it is in. There's no nervous system connection for the surgeon to worry about, that's all integral to the device post-implant. The nervous system intrusion took another hour, during which I was paralytic. Then muscle control was restored and the device started learning. I held out another hour, then jacked in.
I can't really describe what it was like. Partially due to disclosure requirements and partially due to the inability to articulate it in words. Try describing 3D to a creature that lives in a 2D world. The whole of human knowledge is available to me. Geography is meaningless when your brain can operate at the speed of light.

August 8, 2021. We launch the product tonight. The VCs have put together a huge event. Details of the tech were leaked to the press. The New York Times is calling it "The Singularity" which isn't true but I appreciate the ego boost.

August 9, 2021. In the last 12 hours, 191,000 people have put their name on the waiting list for the surgery. The surgery costs $250,000 and we get a 10% fee on that. The device sells for $121,000 and of that 60% is margin. Which means we made 18.6 billion dollars in 12 hours. What's more, as innovation allows the price to come down, our margin will go up...and more people will be able to afford this. Time to celebrate!! Human progress, realized!

March 8, 2028. The Board voted me out today. I pushed for lower margins but as they all sat there, jacked in, discussing in a mental chat room the ramifications of widespread adoption of the implant something shifted and they decided it was better to make less money overall by keeping the technology restrictively expensive. I rallied against it, and by a 12-3 vote they decided on a new Chairman. Tonight I'll submit a request to cash in my shares. By tomorrow night I should be the world's first "trillionaire."

March 10, 2028. I've been asked to stay on as Chief Science Officer. I agreed, both because I love this technology but also so that I can steer them away from anything I consider immoral. Like this talk of putting the device in fetuses. I understand the benefits of it, but people should have the free will to choose if they want the implant, not be born with it.

January 18, 2031. Fifteen years since my first successful test. Now we have three versions of the implant, a wired version, a wireless version, and a new sub-net version. Turns out when you give a bunch of smart people the ability to immerse themselves in the Net and each other, they come up with new technologies pretty fast. The sub-net is sort of an internet gateway without electromagnetic radiation. It's hard to describe. It's an energy level that was always there, but the stupid, slow, un-jacked versions of us never thought to look for it. Or use it.
I'm increasingly concerned with the "have/have not" aspect of this technology. Approximately 0.5% of the human population has gotten the implant. The implant price has tripled. Those that have it are increasingly separating themselves mentally from the rest of the world, both in terms of their mental capacities and in terms of their intentional isolation.

June 6, 2031. The Board voted approval of fetal implant development. I tendered my resignation, effective immediately.

April 15, 2046. The world is splitting. Everyone that has an implant is getting one in their kids, their babies, their fetuses. Kids that were born with them five years ago are already PhD-level scientists, engineers, theoretical physicists, electronic geniuses. Imagine that, a five year old that knows more about quantum mechanics than I ever will...and I have an implant! Meanwhile, this "upper" echelon has completely begun to disregard the 99.3% of humanity that does not have implants. The "left behind" can do nothing. Attempts to organize against the Uppers fails miserably, as the interconnectivity and near-omniscience of the Uppers makes thwarting rebellion trivial. Attempts by the Left Behind to procure charity or government-subsidized implants of their own are met with hostility by the Uppers. Because most of the government officials in the world had procured their own implant within the first ten years.

July 4, 2046. I was humbled today to be honored at a ceremony of Uppers paying tribute to my original innovation. The ceremony took a turn, however. One I had foreseen but was still not ready for. First an Upper child, about 9, gave a delightful speech extolling my biography and describing that first implant I performed on myself. Then I gave a short speech, discussing that my rationale from inception had been human progress. Humanity must progress, I said, and technology allowed it to do so more than biology ever could.
As though I had planned this, another Upper child who looked about 13 came in with a box the size of a toaster. The Uppers had done it: they had developed an electronic brain that could outperform a human one. The Upper then gave a speech. "The iterative progress of innovation all started with our implants." The Upper went on to describe, as he plugged his implant into this box, how the box would scan the Upper's brain, make an exact copy of it, and presto! immortality was achieved.
The crowd was silent, but only because no one used their mouths to talk anymore...everyone was gabbing loudly on the Net. And without further ado, the Upper child turned the box on, stood still for a monent, then collapsed on the stage, dead. But not dead. Through the Net, we all were immediately aware that the Upper was still present.
25 years to the day from when I got my implant, biology was dead. And the Left Behinders truly were left behind.


March 8, 2048. I am the last. The last Upper with a biological shell. Uppers uploaded themselves in droves. A central repository was formed and a dedicated power station was allocated. The area was walled off from Left Behinders (wouldn't want them to pull the plug!). The chatter on the Net accelerates every second. The intelligence level of the Uppers has reached a point where I cannot keep up with it. I need to either upload myself and join them...or shut down my implant. I took a walk through a Left Behinder town yesterday. Children were playing, the sun was shining...it was just like it had been 32 years ago before I started this snowball down the mountainside. It made me smile to know humans could be happy without the tech. But then, after a half hour of walking, I found myself in front of a strange laboratory. I went in. Inside, Left Behinder scientists were picking apart an implant, still partially attached to human flesh. At some point, they had captured and killed an Upper. They were trying to reverse engineer it. Before they noticed me, I saw it was a Gen 7, so advanced that their attempts would be useless. The tools they used were so crude, their brains so feeble. I didn't realize how far I had come from their level. Then I felt a surge of fear: the Gen 3 in the back of my head would be easier for them to copy, if they could obtain it. I quickly fled, and returned to the Upper Zone.
And so this will be my last post. I have realized that humanity will endlessly seek to improve itself, and the idea that the Left Behind will be satisfied with their non-jacked lifestyle is a myth. Joining them by unplugging myself would not lead to a contented, utopian life...I'd be in that lab helping them. And the whole cycle would continue. But without me...without the key I held in my hand 32 years ago...they may never unravel the mystery of the implant.
And so I am going to upload myself. For them. To spare them from this accelerando of an existence, where we're all meshed in a hazy yellow cloud of electrons. The Uppers have found what they believe is a transmission source on another distant planet, which includes codecs to transmit away from here...to there. As I write this, they are preparing a massive data transfer. I think I'll join them. Leave Earth to the Earthlings.


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