Learn From Shelley's Frankenstein...

...and just, well, don't.

"We're already looking at how you might structure a computer that could become conscious. Consciousness is just another sense, effectively, and that's what we're trying to design in computer."

This statement was made by Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom's futurology unit in an article posted on CNN.

It gets better! According to the futurologists, we may be able to download our brains into a computer by 2050 (that is, if you're rich). Um, not so sure how I feel about downloading my brain onto a computer. It's bad enough that I subject you to my musings here on this WiMAX blog (har har har) but, I don't know. Is it, well, right? Dare such a technology fall into the wrong hands.....you know, a cloned baddie might get his sticky hands on this thingie and infiltrate the world with his master mind!

 I may be a bit dramatic. I am a writer, afterall.

The article continues: "Pearson said that computer consciousness would make feasible a whole new sphere of emotional machines, such as airplanes that are afraid of crashing."

Now that I wouldn't mind so much. Please, please, please put me on that plane that is afraid of crashing! My luck, I'll not only end up on the plane that is afraid to crash, but the plane that is also afraid to take off. Give a computer a phobia and just you watch it take it to the next level.

I assure you, these things will happen. We should all learn from stories such as Frankenstein. Heck, look what happened in Jurassic Park!

I understand that said stories are dealing with carbon-based life forms. I don't expect a Tyrannasaurus Rex to come stampeding through the offices any time soon. I doubt that there is a mad scientist trying to revive a dead body (or is there?) but this technology - downloading one's brain onto a computer - seems like a Pandora's Box waiting to open.

It could very easily fall into the wrong hands and ::dun dun dun:: who knows what will happen next....

I leave for the SciFi writers to handle this one.