Given the increased risks that face our children from kidnap, bullying, paedophiles, murderers etc etc would it be reasonable to introduce microchipping of children from birth to say 11 years of age.
If they are GPS trackable then by a click of a button you can know exactly where your child is, where they've been and would surely greatly reduce the rate of murders and kidnappings.
It could also aid the local police in enforcing ASBO's so when a child enters into an area they are not supposed to then the police are informed...similar to tagging but a lot less intrusive.
Or is this taking things too far?? I think if its done right it could be of great benefit to everyone.

What do you think??

A big NO!

http://www.anxietyculture.com/article.htm

Where are the stats that say there is increased risk? There is no more risk than there has ever been, just media hype that leads you to believe it.

Why scare your kids senseless by doing this. If you must, then microchip the offenders rather than the kids. Surely this must involve some kind of invasive procedure? I wouldn't do this to my kids.

Well the procedure for one would be as invasive as an injection. The child would have it placed under the skin at birth then removed with a simple procedure later in life.
The child wouldn't be scared senseless because they would have nothing to be scared about. It could be as commonplace as carrying a phone.
I'm all for tagging criminals but a lot of crime is carried out by people who aren't criminals in the first place.
I can't comment on statistical proof of added dangers but I would guess there are more cases of child kidnap, more cases of paedophilia than there was 20 years ago..I stand corrected if this isn't the case. There is also greater child presence on the streets at night than there ever was with kids having less to do and more trouble to get into.
Just because there are no stats doesn't mean the dangers don't exist. You can't always rely on stats produced by our government as we are regularly made aware of the fudging of the stats.

No sir, i dont like it.

I remember reading that children are at no more risk of abduction than they were in the 19th century. It's just that we now have a more educated population and a national press that likes publishing scare stories. More stories and more people able to read them, is what I'm getting at. Before thn if a child went missing in a Cornish village, for instance, it wouldn't be known about outside a small surrounding area.

I'll try and track down the relevant article.

Originally posted by bonny
Where are the stats that say there is increased risk? There is no more risk than there has ever been, just media hype that leads you to believe it.

The increased risk goes hand-in-hand with an increase in population.

Originally posted by wibbles
Well the procedure for one would be as invasive as an injection. The child would have it placed under the skin at birth then removed with a simple procedure later in life.
The child wouldn't be scared senseless because they would have nothing to be scared about. It could be as commonplace as carrying a phone.
I'm all for tagging criminals but a lot of crime is carried out by people who aren't criminals in the first place.
I can't comment on statistical proof of added dangers but I would guess there are more cases of child kidnap, more cases of paedophilia than there was 20 years ago..I stand corrected if this isn't the case. There is also greater child presence on the streets at night than there ever was with kids having less to do and more trouble to get into.
Just because there are no stats doesn't mean the dangers don't exist. You can't always rely on stats produced by our government as we are regularly made aware of the fudging of the stats.

i don't believe there is any evidence to suggest that the risks have increased.
Nor do i understand why you think there are less things for children to do these days?

and finally i don't see how your proposed response to these 'problems' would actually tackle it.
Surely a kidnapper would simply remove the chip? And having a chip in no way stops you being murdered...
Most cases of paedophilia are by someone known to both the child and the family, so their location most likely wouldn't be a cause for alarm...

nope, this is a solution looking for a problem, rather than anything else.

Originally posted by sccsux
The increased risk goes hand-in-hand with an increase in population.

it does, i think you just made that up...

I would imagine the risks to your children are probably lower now than they have been at probably any point in history. What we do have now though is 14 hour a day channels devoted entirely to news and numerous rag newspapers who trade entirely on fear and fornication. Raise your head above the parrapet and you willsee tyou are not actually being besieged by the evil underclass intent on stealing your goods, raping your wives and selling your children into white slavers no matter what the tabloids try and tell you...

Yeah I'm all for it.

How about tracking all our cars too - would be an end to speeding, dangerous driving, unneccessary journeys etc.

Maybe we could have trackers inside us too so that if, god forbid, we have an accident somewhere, we will be able to be found easier and quicker.

Also it would mean that fines could be put in place so that if - lets say - we leave a light on in the house when we are not in that particular room, we could be fined!
It would be great as an energy saving device.

If we want to throw a sicky from work, the employers would be able to track us down and see if we are in bed or down the pub. Could increase efficiency by a huge amount.

Also, it would be great for advertising - billboards could be like large screens that change to something you might be interested in as you pass them.

Governments could track the movements and habits of people to improve services to suit our needs.



Or we could just carry on as normal human beings and take the daily risks that are part of being an independant, living breathing human being.

Originally posted by jackthedog
Yeah I'm all for it.

How about tracking all our cars too - would be an end to speeding, dangerous driving, unneccessary journeys etc.

Maybe we could have trackers inside us too so that if, god forbid, we have an accident somewhere, we will be able to be found easier and quicker.

Also it would mean that fines could be put in place so that if - lets say - we leave a light on in the house when we are not in that particular room, we could be fined!
It would be great as an energy saving device.

If we want to throw a sicky from work, the employers would be able to track us down and see if we are in bed or down the pub. Could increase efficiency by a huge amount.

Also, it would be great for advertising - billboards could be like large screens that change to something you might be interested in as you pass them.

Governments could track the movements and habits of people to improve services to suit our needs.



Or we could just carry on as normal human beings and take the daily risks that are part of being an independant, living breathing human being.

Right..lets get this straight. I am sick to death of idiotic, sarcastic comments with no point or reasonable arguement. This is happening all to common in this forum and it is bloody irritating. If you don't have the ability to debate like an adult then I'd rather you keep your opinions to yourself. If you do have something sensible to say then please go ahead. :rant:

Not having read the entire thread forgive me if this has already been mentioned.

I don't in the slightest think it's a good idea to microchip kids.
It's just not something I think is required - it's way OTT for me at the moment.

However microchipped watches, mobile phones, underwear even would be a good start.

We could track them via GPRS using that technology easily enough without having the child itself chipped.

I think a happy medium is whats required as well as better policing.

Unfortunately though a lot of people believe the hype and react to it.
Our child goes missing for an hour and we ring the police and waste their time or whinge about the police because they haven't sent round the Flying Squad.
We complain about having mobile phone masts which would increase signal availablity thus making it easier to contact our kids should they have phones.
We complain about people not walking enough so do we encourage our kids to walk to and from school more??

So what are we do?? Microchipping is probably going too far but surely you can see the benefits of being able to know where the child is as a given point.

Originally posted by wibbles
Right..lets get this straight. I am sick to death of idiotic, sarcastic comments with no point or reasonable arguement. This is happening all to common in this forum and it is bloody irritating. If you don't have the ability to debate like an adult then I'd rather you keep your opinions to yourself. If you do have something sensible to say then please go ahead. :rant:

It is a reaction to your original post.
Im pointing out that your suggestion is the thin end of the wedge.
Chip kids, then what?
I dont want to live in a Big Brother state. I am against anything that suggests this is where we are heading.
You speak about reasoned arguments whilst also joining in with the hysteria forced on us by the trash papers.

What I am saying is that I think your suggestion is ridiculous.

Originally posted by Dirk Diggler
Not having read the entire thread forgive me if this has already been mentioned.

I don't in the slightest think it's a good idea to microchip kids.
It's just not something I think is required - it's way OTT for me at the moment.

However microchipped watches, mobile phones, underwear even would be a good start.

We could track them via GPRS using that technology easily enough without having the child itself chipped.

I think a happy medium is whats required as well as better policing.

Now thats a good idea Dirk. The chipping of a child is extreme and a wrist strap or other device would be better suited. Maybe it could be a school initiative...coloured bands that kids have to wear especially if they walk to and from school. It may also help reduce truancy. I can't help but see massive benefits to this.

Originally posted by jackthedog
It is a reaction to your original post.
Im pointing out that your suggestion is the thin end of the wedge.
Chip kids, then what?
I dont want to live in a Big Brother state. I am against anything that suggests this is where we are heading.
You speak about reasoned arguments whilst also joining in with the hysteria forced on us by the trash papers.

What I am saying is that I think your suggestion is ridiculous.

Thats just the point. I didn't say "Lets do it" and I wasn't walking up to kids threatening to stick a microchip in them.
It was simply an idea that was open to reasonable debate or additional suggestion..which you failed to do.
Whether you like it or not..and this isn't hype ; kids are exposed to dangers and don't have the ability adults do to judge these dangers and react accordingly. So surely we need to protect them and aid them as much as is reasonable. I for one don't want to live in a Big Brother state either , I am merely suggesting additional ways to make our kids safer and better protected.

Is it so ridiculous?? Microchipping is the extreme but surely you can see the added benefits of being able track someones whereabouts at any given time (should the need arise)?
If your child is late home from school it could save hours of Police time at the click of a button.

Originally posted by wibbles
Now thats a good idea Dirk. The chipping of a child is extreme and a wrist strap or other device would be better suited. Maybe it could be a school initiative...coloured bands that kids have to wear especially if they walk to and from school. It may also help reduce truancy. I can't help but see massive benefits to this.

Nice idea but full of flaws, for one, how many kids are gonna obey to wearing some "gay" as they'd call it, wristband?

and for another, to track truency? heh, if I was a kid and wanted to skip school I'd just drop my wristband in a class in the morning and pick it up the end of the day ;) or just leave it SOMEWHERE on the school property...

someone checking for this would just go "right, children 1 - 899 are on school property, next school?" they're not gonna check that they're in the right classroom :P

nice idea, but I'm pretty sure any sort of chipping is against your human rights, it's only feasibly for child rapists etc and even still its because they sign a contract agreeing to it, else they'd basically be saying they dont repent on their ways and would still commit their crimes...

I think you're thinking of older kids mate.
Youngsters (who this would be aimed at) wouldn't give a t*** about wearing a wrist band - they wear what they're told to wear.

Besides - pop it in a watch or as a fake coin in their bag or something.

It's hardly flawed - just need to manipulate the way they're made.

then laugh at all the false calls because the kid lost there watch and it's now travelling North on the M1 at 80 miles/hr.

Originally posted by bonny
A big NO!

http://www.anxietyculture.com/article.htm

Where are the stats that say there is increased risk? There is no more risk than there has ever been, just media hype that leads you to believe it.

Why scare your kids senseless by doing this. If you must, then microchip the offenders rather than the kids. Surely this must involve some kind of invasive procedure? I wouldn't do this to my kids. Yeah right, micro chip the offender after he's killed the child and sent to life in prison.
What use is the chip then.
Offenders need chipping before they strike not after but thats impossible because of knowing if someone is going to harm a child.
I think its an exlent idea and I would chip my child/s up to 18 years.
You can ensure there safety in younger years and keep an eye on them in there teens.

This is a really interesting topic.

Assuming it is a good idea (I don't believe it is), there are some basic barriers to producing an effective device simply in terms of technology. It would need to be a powered device that emitted a signal - invariably it will always lose power at the least convenient moment. Just like your mobile, only more often cause the battery is much smaller

Radio propagation from tiny devices is not good. Especially when they are enclosed in houses, cars etc or in electrically noisy areas. So in order to work it would need to pump out a fair amount of energy. Theoretically a device could pinpoint itself using GPS, although in reality GPS is only really effective at sea and in the open. Without a clear line of sight to at least 3 GP satellites it wont get a fix.

Using proximity to mobile phone masts would be a more obvious solution - but then you just need to think about putting a tiny but powerful microwave transmitter on (or even in) your child.

Chipping a child (with an RFID tag for example) would enable immediate identification of a corpse in situ, but unless the RFID receiver is within at most a few tens of feet, the child will be undetected. For this to work, a tight network of RFID receivers would be required (say one every 20 feet in all directions) over the whole country.

About the closest thing currently possible to what has been suggested is what the brilliant Kevin Warwick (http://www.kevinwarwick.org/) did a couple of years ago.

His intentions are a little less focussed on the safety of children, as he is investigating the advantages and the risks of this sort technology in a much wider sense.

So, in short, at the moment - you can't do it, but it would be foolish to deny that it may be possible in the near future - Possible to insert a small, self powered device into a living vertebrate and tracks its movements (and why stop there, why not also relay the characteristics of the body it is inhabiting, temperature, pulse, O2 levels, CO2 levels, hormones, BP etc.)

The next logical step is to insert one into the brain, to at least begin to image the electrical and chemical changes, and quite possible crudely read emotional states and thoughts.

(acknowledgements to heinlein, banks, harrison, gibson et al)

Now I would ask, is it time to institute some fundamental research friendly legislation into this field - from a human political and bioethics POV, or are we all going to walk blindly into compliance like we did with GM? Can people be forced to have them? Who decides? At what age can you take reponisbility for your own implants. What impants are banned? Must they all have a common "fail-safe"? Lots of stuff to sort out before we start filling our children with electronics.

Back to children. There really is no need to do it as the chances of being randomly abucted are so close to zero as to really not to be a cause of worry. I dont lie awake at nights (much) worrying when my son will be struck by a car as he crosses a road - which is far more likely.

The odds on having your child randomly abducted can be lengthened, and not just by tying them to apron strings either, but by instilling good habits in them. Microchipping them with futuristic tracking chips might just evoke a new type of rapid abduction and murder instead. And the chances, right now, of our child being abucted and murderd by a stranger are so low, that we are better off worrying about real risks, like reheated rice, slippery bathroom floors and crossing the road.

Originally posted by sccsux
The increased risk goes hand-in-hand with an increase in population.

Thats not necessarily true. Maybe the chances of it happening increase with population, but the chance of it happening to YOU goes down??

Just the way society works these days is not on ACTUAL risk, but on PERCEIVED risk, which is definitely not the same thing.

If children were tagged it might make them identifiable targets. It possibly opens up a pandoras box to crime against children, where offenders - abductors, molestors, paeodophiles to murderers could map out where the most vulnerable children might be, and their likely ages if only up to 11's are chipped, rather than lurking outisde schoolgates parks and fields where they run more of a risk of being sited and caught. They could track them and even (with technological advances) watch them via satellite instead.

They might learn to manipulate technology where they are able to track the kids as the police would and block the signals after that so the police can't find them anyway, and even harm a child to remove a chip if under the skin if nothing else.

So far, it's looking as though the negatives outway the positive in terms of the big brother society, which I think most people would be against, although not an authority on the subject. As possibly the only way for it to be effective (taking into consideration lots of comments from previous responses) would be for everyone to have it done, and those born in future, as a brain implant. So that offenders and children both could be located, and so it's not going to be easily removed. Still there would be blocking devices even if illegal, even if no crimes committed as people don't want to be detected and kept track of.

I wonder if the excitement over advances in technology hasn't gone to some people's heads. I know dogs are micro-chipped we don't want them stolen lost or mistreated. We value our children even more but before micro-chipping we didnt' think to tag them like our pets incase they got lost. We have a responsibility not to mistreat them by wrapping them up in cotton wool of which this could be seen as a severe form.

At first it seems a great idea, not failsafe or perfect, but as an early warning signal which could be a potential life saver in a multitude of situations, but would depend really on how it's policed. It could just as easily open the floodgates to a big brother society. If it's down to some mobile network to enable us to track our children - what happens if we forgot and failed to pay the bill or loss in service? It could cause immense panic on a scale like the hysteria meant to happen in yr 2000, the millennium bug we all dismissed so quickly after.

To digress, but isn't the big brother state where we're heading already? We just haven't opened our eyes to it yet - e.g. chip + pin - where will that end? might be passports, driving licences and mobiles soon. We can be tracked where we use our credit cards already. Credit reference agencies are the trackers now for financial purposes, so where next? HELLO!!! aren't computers one of the ways police are currently acting like big brother now - tracking activities via the internet? They could soon be cracking down on us like the KGB had the reputation for, that's how they look when people accused of stuff are later proven innocent.

I had thought of this matter a while ago before I knew of this forum. I think it safe to say there must be some small benefit, the same way it benefits us to have a mobile phone in emergencies. Though one time I needed my mobile it stopped working, no-one could hear me at the other end, I had to communicate by making 2 bleeps for yes and 1 for no and wasn't much help! I went without for a year, and grew to like not being asked where I was at any given moment, whilst shopping, driving, in bed etc ! It can be intrusive and so is the idea of micro-chipping our children - even invasive - could have adverse effects on health or social stability. Could just be better the devil we know.

i think you're going a bit paranoid there over chip+pin, it's a security system, nothing else.
And obviously a card company can find out where a transaction was made, it's the basis for giving credit like that.
You can always choose to use cash though.

Phan made a very good point, if you loose your dog, you can't track it down with it's chip. You have to hope that it's captured and the chip read... So unless we are planning to have child wardens who capture randomly wandering children the basic idea won't work.

Phan, I didn't follow the Warwick link, but I really hope you were being sarcastic. The man is a publicity seeking moron, aka Captain Cyborg.

If someone can be bothered to do a search, one of the 3g phone companies provides a similer service to parents through locating their childs phone. I think it's to within a street or two, so they can see if they've wandered of the path to school.
Nothing to stop them giving their phone to a friend though. Or turning it off.

Not paranoid about anything cyclo. I was just pointing out for want of a better example chip+pin could eventually be used for other motives. check out mondopolitico. altho i'm anti-fanatic.

ON A SIDE NOTE...

it's slightly relative to this discussion... have they not thought of micro-chipping for people with allergies to drugs like penacillin? or people with epilepsy or other cases in which it might be useful for an ambulance to get instant info on a patient?

anyways, that idea just popped in my head, i'm sure it'd actually be very helpful to the medical community if people had chips with vital information

Back to children. There really is no need to do it as the chances of being randomly abucted are so close to zero as to really not to be a cause of worry. I dont lie awake at nights (much) worrying when my son will be struck by a car as he crosses a road - which is far more likely.

The odds on having your child randomly abducted can be lengthened, and not just by tying them to apron strings either, but by instilling good habits in them. Microchipping them with futuristic tracking chips might just evoke a new type of rapid abduction and murder instead. And the chances, right now, of our child being abucted and murderd by a stranger are so low, that we are better off worrying about real risks, like reheated rice, slippery bathroom floors and crossing the road.


Well said Phan.

If you teach your children weel that should be enough. There are NO increased risks, the risks have not changed.

Don't let paranoia breed.

As far as there being less children on the streets years ago. that isn't true. There were more. My generation were sent to play outside and come back at supper time.

We played all day, happily and then came home for bed. We make children prisoners these days in thier own homes. If we all let our children play outside then the risks would not increase! It's a sad fact that because we are so paranoid and keep children in, the ones who are outside playing are the ones that it happens to.

Originally posted by Cyclone
Phan, I didn't follow the Warwick link, but I really hope you were being sarcastic. The man is a publicity seeking moron, aka Captain Cyborg.

He is a publicity seeker, because that is his Job, apart from being professor of Cybernetics at Readng university, post awarded to him aged 33.

He is emphatically not a moron.

I was accused on an earlier thread off jumping on the mm hysteria band waggon , yes by the man himself who started this post.
I do not agree with micro chipping children.
As i think that child abductions are still in the minority.
can you think of any in your actual area wibbles?
can any of you.
And as for accusing people of not being able to debate just because they disagree with you well thats arrogance at its best.


no doubt i'll be pulled up for my grammer. or grammar lol

sounds like wibbles started this whole thread to draw the rest of us into a debate. he words it like a question from an essay / dissertation he's doing and he's getting us to give him the answers. conniving so n so. correct me if I'm wrong but that's how it comes across on second glance. pretty good idea i suppose where brain cells are scarce.

Originally posted by Cycleracer
child.
I think its an exlent idea and I would chip my child/s up to 18 years.


I am sure many 16-18 year olds would consider it an insult to be labelled a child and I think the majority of them would tell you where to stick your microchip. How would this work in Scotland, for instance where you can get married at 16 WITHOUT your parent's consent?

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
He is a publicity seeker, because that is his Job, apart from being professor of Cybernetics at Readng university, post awarded to him aged 33.

He is emphatically not a moron.

he makes grandiose statements about what he's going to do and then never delivers.

He claimed to be the worlds "first true cyborg", when he implanted what was basically an rfid tag in his arm which allowed automatic doors to open for him...

He seemed to conveniently forget about 'cyborgs' with pacemakers who've been around for at least 20 years...



Captain Cyborg to chip 11 year old (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/09/02/cap_cyborg_to_chip/)

Kevin, for those of you fortunate enough not to know, is Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University. By dint of several chip-based experiments, completely dismissed by the academic community, he has extrapolated various science-fiction nightmare scenarios which, coincidentally, fit in with the main themes of whatever book he is promoting at the time.

The appalling extensions of failed experiments into paranoid fantasies about machines have driven academics working in the fields of Artifical Intelligence and Robotics nuts and also shown up the media as embarrassingly gullible.


More Captain Cyborg coverage (http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=site:www%2Etheregister%2Eco%2Euk+cyborg)

Originally posted by Cyclone
he makes grandiose statements about what he's going to do and then never delivers.

He claimed to be the worlds "first true cyborg", when he implanted what was basically an rfid tag in his arm which allowed automatic doors to open for him...[/URL]

that was 6 years ago - he has moved on somewhat

http://www.rdg.ac.uk/KevinWarwick/html/project_cyborg_2_0.html

rather than defend the man from superficial assumptions, he can speak for himself. Is this person a moron?

Professor of Cybernetics
University of Reading

Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and cyborgs. He is also Director of the University KTP Centre, which links the University with Small to Medium Enterprises and raises over £2Million each year in research income for the University.

Kevin was born in Coventry, UK and left school to join British Telecom, at the age of 16. At 22 he took his first degree at Aston University, followed by a PhD and a research post at Imperial College, London. He subsequently held positions at Oxford, Newcastle and Warwick universities before being offered the Chair at Reading, at the age of 33.

He has been awarded higher doctorates (DScs) both by Imperial College and the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. He was presented with The Future of Health technology Award from MIT (USA), was made an Honorary Member of the Academy of Sciences, St.Petersburg and received The IEE Achievement Medal in 2004. In 2000 Kevin presented the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled “The Rise of The Robots”.

Kevin has carried out a series of pioneering experiments involving the neuro-surgical implantation of a device into the median nerves of his left arm in order to link his nervous system directly to a computer in order to assess the latest technology for use with the disabled. He has been successful with the first extra-sensory (ultrasonic) input for a human and with the first purely electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans. His research has been discussed by the US White House Presidential Council on BioEthics, The European Commission FTP and has led to him being widely referenced and featured in academic circles as well as appearing as cover stories in several magazines – e.g.Wired (USA), The Week (India).

His work is now used as material in several advanced Level Physics courses in the UK and in many University courses including Harvard, Stanford, MIT & Tokyo. His implants are on display in the Science Museums in London and Naples. As a result, Kevin regularly gives invited Keynote presentations around the world at top international conferences.

Kevin’s research involves robotics and he is responsible (with Jim Wyatt) for Cybot, a robot exported around the world as part of a magazine “Real Robots” – this has resulted in royalties totalling over £1M for Reading University. Robots designed and constructed by Kevin’s group (Ian Kelly, Ben Hutt) are on permanent interactive display in the Science Museums in London, Birmingham and Linz.

Kevin regularly makes international presentations for the UK Foreign Office and the British Council, e.g.2003/4 India, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Spain, Czech Rep., USA and Hong Kong.

His presentations include The 1998 Robert Boyle Memorial Lecture at Oxford University, The 2000 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, The 2001 Higginson Lecture at Durham University, The 2003 Royal Academy of Engineering/Royal Society of Edinburgh Joint lecture in Edinburgh, The 2003 IEEE (UK) Annual Lecture in London and The 2004 Woolmer Lecture at York University.

Kevin was a member of the 2001 HEFCE (unit 29) panel on Electrical&Electronic Engineering and is a member of the EPSRC Peer College. He has produced over 400 publications on his research including more than 90 refereed journal articles and 25 books. Kevin received the EPSRC Millenium Award (2000) for his schools robot league project and is the youngest ever Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute. Kevin’s research has featured in many TV and film documentaries, e.g. in 2004 - Inventions that changed the world (BBC2), Terra 2050(Channel 4), Future Scope (RAI 1) and in The Making of I Robot(Twentieth Century Fox/Channel 5). He has appeared 3 times on Tomorrow’s World, 5 times in Time magazine, twice in Newsweek and was selected by Channel 4 as one of the Top 6 UK Scientists for their 2001 series “Living Science”. In 2002 he was chosen by the IEE as one of the top 10 UK Electrical Engineers. Kevin also appeared as one of 30 “great minds on the future” in the THES/Oxford University book – Predictions – with J.K.Galbraith, Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco and James Watson.

I'd be interested on his opinion of tagging children I would suspect his reply would include the prospect of it becoming inevitable, as we are all somehow electronically 'enhanced'.

But there's important work being done by his department, athough he does seem to be mostly engaged in speaking enagagements atm!

i personally think its a good idea but id prefer dna tests done for future refs so when sum1 commits a serious crime they would b caught or at least then the police would know that they r guilty of the crime
children get abused and taken all the time and the risk of the abuser knowing that they would be caught knowing that there dna is on record would hopefully reduce this
but we dont live in a perfect world do we

i suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on this on Phan. I think he's a self serving publicist who manipulates the media and public opinion for his own gain and gives genuine science a bad name. You disagree.
I'll retract the moron comment, he's obviously smart enough to fool some intelligent people and most of the tabloid newspapers.

Originally posted by Cyclone
i suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on this on Phan. I think he's a self serving publicist who manipulates the media and public opinion for his own gain and gives genuine science a bad name. You disagree.
I'll retract the moron comment, he's obviously smart enough to fool some intelligent people and most of the tabloid newspapers.

I genuinely believe that he is one of the few people trying to force a debate on this issue by courting the media. I wouldn't dispute the fact that he is probably obssessed by his subject, and I think he is intensely intelligent. He plays the media game as the agent provocateur, rather than the diligent greybeard scientist - and provokes controversy with outspoken pronouncements on the future and his own cyborg-hood.

But the truth is this technology is upon us, and very few people are thinking of the ramifications. If it takes scare stories from a gifted pop scientist to wake people up to that, then I am all for it.

Many of his claims are far from outrageous, and his exploration of the subject, including the surgery on himself, seems to be motivated by a philosophical interest in the subject as well as an academic one.

And he has the cojones to practice what he preaches. Much is being learned from his work with biomechanical nerve grafting, as well as his (I understand) superb work in the field of neural networks, knowledge based systems and other typical cybernetics disciplines.

A search for Kevin Warwick at The Register (http://forms.theregister.co.uk/search/?q=kevin+warwick&x=0&y=0) is a mildly entertaining way to catch up with his antics.