Another expert is already imagining a world in which people still use their mouths to speak, but are assisted, or controlled, by technology.
evans is a former professor of linguistics at Bangor University and other institutions in the UK, an expert in the evolution of digital communication and a columnist for Psychology Today. In an upcoming science fiction novel, “The Babylonian Apocalypse.” Evans depicts a future in which most people no longer learn languages, but instead use neural implants to stream their vocabulary and grammar from the cloud — that is, until a massive cyberattack causes catastrophic global language disruption. .
“Think of it this way,” Evans says by email. “Today, we stream anything from movies, books, music, to our ‘smart’ devices, and consume that content. Smart devices use transmission signals (data encoded in IP data packets) encoded and distributed over Internet wi-fi Language transmission would work, in principle, in the same way With a ‘language chip’ implanted in our brains, we will be able to ‘broadcast’ language from the Internet in space on demand, 24/7, straight to our heads … depending on an individual’s level of subscription to a language streaming provider, they could stream any language they choose, with any level of lexical complexity.”
In Evans’ fictional future, being able to pass on language has rendered the study of different languages obsolete. “Instead of having to learn a new language, the individual would simply draw on the words and grammar they need to function in the language, synchronizing with a language database, stored on a server in space,” he explains. “And call him, over the Internet, in real time, while they think and talk.” As a result, “adding a new language to one’s subscription would allow a US or UK resident to instantly understand and produce, say, Japanese and work in Tokyo.” Similarly, the author envisions lawyers, rocket scientists, and neurosurgeons subscribing to cloud databases and downloading specialized terms needed in their professions.
In Evans’s novel, for all of this to work, people have a variety of devices implanted in their bodies, including an in-ear wi-fi receiver that would connect to a global network of satellites, and in turn also would communicate with another implanted chip. in their brains.
Such technology could also pick up and transmit non-verbal communication, such as images or sounds, or physical gestures.
How long will it be until we have all the chips implanted in our brains for learning and language, and what are the ethical implications of that?
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