On the Terms of Service society

21 Jul 2023 · 1 min

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In this monologue, the speaker warns that as personal capabilities become extendable through implants, cloud‑linked services, or AI‑driven tools (e.g., BrainLink, downloadable languages, rented IQ), those abilities will be owned and controlled by platforms rather than the individual. Consequently, the traditional “agree to the terms of service” model will become far more consequential: users may lose access to essential cognitive functions if they violate or are removed from a service. The speaker argues that this scenario, while sounding like science fiction, is imminent, and calls for urgent discussion and policy‑making around ownership, control, and the ethical implications of such platform‑mediated extensions.

Chapters

We're gonna have those terms of service, and it is gonna be much more serious because if you've got an implant or if you've downloaded a language or you've got a BrainLink and you're extending out onto the cloud, or you've been given some extra bandwidth, or you've got more IQ because of that, because you can access that, you don't own that. How on earth are you gonna have that sort of capability? You're gonna have to rent it from someone. It's gonna be a service from a platform. And when you sign up to the terms of service or the T&Cs, you can't anymore get away with just going, "Duh duh duh duh duh, I'll just agree at the end of it and hope for the best." Because hoping for the best on being cancelled off a social media platform or whatever is not going to be the same as hoping for the best and then finding that, you know, you've had all your capabilities for speaking any languages taken away from you. Obviously, it sounds kind of science fiction, but it's not that far off. And I do think we need to start asking those sorts of questions.