The story about a $400 internet-connected juicer that turned out to be superfluous since a human could simply squeeze juice from its producer’s proprietary packs by hand was destined to go viral and did. … It’s evidence of a growing resistance to Silicon Valley-style innovation.
Disparaging something proposed by Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg isn’t as risk-free for a tech pundit, if only because they have armies of fans that rip into critics. And yet these innovation gurus, too, are increasingly proposing gadgets offering solutions to problems that are sometimes imaginary, often unimportant and, in some cases, are features, rather than bugs, of human existence.
Recent promises from Musk and Zuckerberg on brain-computer interfaces are the latest example. Facebook promises to turn thoughts into typed text at the speed of 100 words a minute by scanning the brain without surgical intervention. Musk’s new company, Neuralink, plans to use electrodes implanted in the brain to exchange information between human and computer.
Musk, a slicker marketer than Zuckerberg, talks about initially releasing a technology that would help people with brain damage – from strokes, for example. He’s aware that twice as many Americans are worried as enthusiastic about brain enhancement through implants. So, he’s pointing to a real problem that can be solved using this decidedly creepy technology.
Trust or desperation is required to give up control, and while the tech under development today requires that we allow devices and software to control more and more of our existence, there is a natural limit to how much people are willing to trust the sellers of these products. Breaking through it may do society a disservice if the makers aren’t, in fact, particularly trustworthy.
The more outlandish the promises, the less investors think of perfectly workable but mundane concepts and the more excited they get about mass applications. Had it not been for this effect, the promises would have been quieter and the innovation would have concentrated on the narrow uses for which it may be desperately needed, or at least reasonably applicable. And less investment would be wasted on useless gadgets such as a connected juice squeezer or a mind-reading Facebook feature.
Even if there’s little hard data about it, the pushback is beginning. … Thinking smaller and applying resources and energy to narrow, specific problems could be a good chance to build trust before it disappears entirely.
Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist.
