Singularity
- Matthew Minson
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
*Original posting preparetodefendyourself.com
“I Sing the Body Electric” Walt Whitman
That means a lot more now days than it used to.
The other day I gave my annual lecture/discussion with graduating members of the PhD and MPH program at Texas A&M. As usual, the conversation was engaging and interesting. Afterwards I received an outreach from one of the participants. In the course of some back and forth, the subject of singularity came up. I shared that 7 years ago I expressed a concern for the integration of tech and tissue at the Bipartisan Commission for Biodefense. I was there to talk about hospital and healthcare system preparedness They were worried about the usual infectious disease, weaponized bugs, a healthcare system unprepared for certain threats. When I mentioned to colleagues that maybe we should also be considering tech integration as a biohazard and threat, I used the term singularity, or the—moment AI exceeds beyond human control and rapidly transforms society—and they looked at me like I had grown a second head. In truth, I already had a second head and so did they. It was in the palms of our hands, and it buzzed every time someone we vaguely knew had an observation of the world or a picture of a dessert, they were about to eat. At that meeting, I further suggested that while discussing the carbon-based menaces that we knew about, we should also worry about the silicon ones as well. To use a more conventional weaponization analogy, not doing so was like worrying about musketry when a full metal jacket technology was looming.
The truth is that we humans are now standing at a crossroads. Maybe the most critical since we emerged from the cave with a glowing ember of fire. For centuries we have used technology as a tool that we held in our hands—albeit maybe not fire. Now, we are putting incredibly advanced and potentially autocratic technology inside our bodies. This is the "Internet of Bodies" (IoB), and scholars and scientists are warning that we are completely unprepared for it. From smart heart valves that talk to your phone to neural chips that monitor your moods, the line between man and machine is disappearing. In 2026, this isn't just science fiction, it is a massive industrial revolution.
As someone who has worked on biological countermeasures, biosecurity, health security and in healthcare delivery and tech development, I see opportunities for both the great and terrible with this coming wave of technology. This tech-tissue integration for people with paralysis or chronic illness can be a godsend. It also raises terrifying security and biosecurity questions. If your body is part of, or integrated to the internet, it can be hacked. Even more concerning is the arising question of who owns the data that our hearts or more critically, our brains collect?
As we move toward a future where "upgrading" our organs is as common as updating your apps, we have to decide where to draw the line.
At present, the most common IoB devices are connected pacemakers and insulin pumps. These machines save lives by adjusting your internal chemistry in real-time. However, because they are on the network, they are vulnerable to "Body-Jacking." Think assassination or mass casualty in a manner never considered before. A hacker could theoretically stop a heart(s) or release a lethal dose of insulin or debilitate warfighter bodies with a simple piece of malware. We are trading our physical safety for medical convenience. But the risk isn't just about survival; it's about control.
We have demonstrated that dermal patches can now monitor an individual’s cortisol and adrenaline levels through their sweat. This data creates a potentially catastrophic invasion of not simply medical but biological privacy and could be used for nefarious purposes or for business and liability determination as it tells insurance companies exactly how stressed you are and how you react to different emotions and situations. Imagine your body "leaking" your private feelings to a corporate cloud. We are at risk of losing the only private space we have left: our own biology.
And we aren't just fixing broken bodies; we are also likely to be soon enhancing healthy ones. Scientists are developing synthetic muscle fibers that can be woven into your own tissue. Bionic or implanted boosts could allow humans to run faster and lift more weight than any Olympic athlete. If we are seeing a revolution in reconsidering the inequity of class and fiscal resource in society, then imagine the impending "biological divide" between those who can afford upgrades and those who cannot. Are we creating a new class of system of humans versus super-humans? That doesn’t even consider the most dangerous aspect of this as who owns the software and information.
If a company manufactures a chip or implant like a deep stimulator in your brain that enhances and boosts creativity or the ability to calculate, do they own the "operating system" of your mind? There are already cases where people with high-tech eye implants went blind because the company that made the tech went bankrupt. We could be entering an era where our physical well-being depends on a monthly corporate subscription. It is a terrifying legal loophole that no one is prepared for. Thinking of this on a much broader platform of subscription, what is the mass casualty consideration of this?
The end of our internal landscape?
If everything inside us is connected to the cloud, there is no such thing as a private moment. Even your dreams could eventually be translated into data points. We are trading our inner sanctuary for digital efficiency. As the tech gets smaller and more powerful, the "kill switch" is becoming harder to find. The conversation about the IoB is really a conversation about what it means to be free. What is at peril, at risk is our internal world, our thoughts, our soul. With that in mind one must ask if the human spirit is ready to be welded to the machine?
Engineers are now trying to build "Biological Firewalls" to protect our internal tech much as they have with computers. One has to look at the constant state of internet security or lack thereof, though, and one could ask if connecting this to our biological security has been considered properly in terms of policy, law, regulation and liability. This new interface basically opens our existence to the race between the hackers, doctors, and tech support. Much like antibiotics and bacterial resistance this will likely be an ongoing struggle. The difference is that resistance can take years to evolve and with AI and software we are talking hours and days instead of months or years for adaptation. The 2026 data shows that we are currently losing this protective battle.
While all this sounds like a dangerous external to internal threat, I am far more concerned about the internal-to-internal threat. It is one thing to worry about the rise of the machines obliterating humanity in a coarse combative fashion. The Terminator is an easily understood concept. What is equally threatening is the more likely risk to our humanity as we lose our capacity for the creative and the imaginative. If a particle of an idea can be amplified without the struggle to compose, paint, elocute, and think then what makes us human may be lost in the shortcut to a product of thought. If we become dependent on the AI computation, creation, and inspiration then we are likely going to lose ourselves. We will become lazy in an exponential manner of laziness that really is about dependence, and a loss of self-reliance on what is inherently us. That is far more likely and makes the need for some manbot with a plasma rifle completely unnecessary. Who needs force when we are on the verge of self-capitulation?
I think in some ways we are already cyborgs—we just haven't realized it yet. Our smartphones are extensions of our memory, and social media is an extension of our ego and mechanism for validation, gratification and sadly enough, love. Putting the tech inside us is just the final step in a journey that started with the first sparks of fire. The future shows great promise, but it is also heavy with responsibility. We could soon be looking at a world where our best or only companion is an algorithm? And even as I am typing this, my words are too late.
So, what can we do?
We need new laws to protect our bodies from a whole new conceptual threat. We need a regulatory agency that understands, protects and guides the best outcomes related to all aspects of AI. We already have them for energy, nuclear considerations, the environment, so we need this as well and we need it up in a robust fashion—yesterday.
The "Internet of Bodies" is already here. The first successful neural training runs have been completed, and the results are astounding. We are standing at the edge of a new history for our species. How it impacts us is in our control , at least for a little while longer. It’s the same principal as politics. Republics work best with an informed, engaged, and interested populace. Not sure what that portends, honestly. As far as my advice is concerned, stay curious, stay sharp, READ, and keep looking forward. The world is changing fast. How we react may well determine whether we sing the body electric or eulogize it.
References:
Comments