The Conversation recently ran an article by Francesco Grillo on the ‘internet of beings’. A radical new approach to what could be the next revolution in medicine. The idea that ever-smaller and more sophisticated sensors are about to enter our bodies, connecting human beings to the internet.
The internet of beings
This internet of beings could be the third and ultimate phase of the internet’s evolution. The first phase would be the linking of computers, the second phase the linking of everyday objects; the third and final phase would be the direct inking of global information systems to our organs. According to natural scientists, who recently met in Dubai for a conference titled Prototypes for Humanity, this scenario is becoming technically feasible.
This will have a major impact on individuals, industries and societies. Would this internet of beings be a source of inspiration or a nightmare? Some Silicon Valley billionaires would think it’s a source of inspiration. They fantasise about living forever. Security experts on the other hand worry that there would be a new and very severe risk, that of hacking bodies. As Grillo discusses in his forthcoming book, Internet of Beings, this technology will have at least three radical beneficial consequences; but it could become both a dream and a nightmare.
Three consequences
Firstly the dream. Permanent monitoring of health conditions will make it far easier to detect diseases before they develop. Treatment costs much more than prevention. But then, sophisticated tracking could replace many drugs with less invasive measures. Imagine changes in diet or more personalised exercise routines. And millions of deaths could be prevented simply by sending alerts in time. In the US alone, 170,000 of the 805,000 heart attacks each year are ‘silent’ because people don’t recognise the symptoms.
Secondly, there will be sensors – better called biorobots, since they’ll probably be made of gel. These are becoming capable of not just monitoring the body but actively healing it. They could release doses of aspirin when detecting a blood clot, or activate vaccines when viruses attack. The mRNA vaccines developed for COVID may have opened this frontier. Advances in gene editing technologies may even lead to biorobots that can perform microsurgery with minuscule protein-made ‘scissors’ that repair damaged DNA.
Thirdly, and most importantly, medical research and drug discovery will be turned on its head. Today, scientists propose hypotheses about substances that might work against certain conditions; then they test them through expensive, time-consuming trials. In the internet of beings era, the process reverses: huge databases generate patterns showing what works for a problem, and scientists work backwards to understand why. Solutions will be developed much more quickly, cheaply and precisely.
Radical transformations
The era of one-size-fits-all medicine is already ending; but the internet of beings will go much further. Each person could receive daily advice on medication doses tailored to micro-changes such as body temperature or sleep quality. And the organisation of medical research itself will transform radically. Enormous amounts of data from bodies living natural lives might reveal that some headaches are caused by how we walk, or that brains and feet influence each other in unexpected ways.
Research currently focuses on specific diseases and organs. In future, this could shift to the use of increasingly sophisticated ‘digital twins’ – virtual models of a person’s biology that update in real time using their health data. These simulations can be used to test treatments, predict how the body will respond and explore disease before it appears. Such a shift would fundamentally change what we mean by life science.
Dream and nightmare
The dream of the internet of beings isn’t to defeat ageing, as some transhumanists claim. It’s more concrete: making healthcare accessible to all human beings, defeating cancers, reaching poorer countries and helping everyone live longer without disease.
The nightmare, however, is about losing our humanity while digitising our bodies. The internet of beings is one of the most fascinating possibilities that technology is opening up – but we need to explore it carefully. We’re resuming the voyage that humankind was travelling in those optimistic years of the 1960s, when we landed on an alien planet for the first time. Only now, the alien territory we’re exploring is ourselves.
This article was commissioned in conjunction with the Professors’ Programme, part of Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges.
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