Next App Store Will Be Designed By Neural Engineers

In February 1985, soon after the release of $2500 Macintosh, PlayBoy Magazine interviewed Steve Jobs. Upon being asked why a mouse — the accessory that marked Macintosh as an unforgettable milestone, Jobs had this to say:

If I want to tell you there is a spot on your shirt, I’m not going to do it linguistically: “There’s a spot on your shirt 14 centimeters down from the collar and three centimeters to the left of your button.”

If you have a spot — “There!” — I’ll point to it.

Mouse was an invention by Douglas Engelbart, and was later being developed by Xerox. When Steve Jobs witnessed a $300 mouse by Xerox in 1979, he decided to redesign it for the mass market. Apple released $10000 Lisa computer with a mouse in 1983. While Lisa didn’t pick up being a commercial computer, Macintosh as a consumer product did.

In the same PlayBoy interview, Jobs had also said that at that time, he didn’t see much reason why people would buy computers at home, except to be able to bring office work, or learn to operate computers for the sake of it.

But soon after, he forecast the dawn of the innovation era some 20 years later:

The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it into a nationwide communications network. We’re just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people — as remarkable as the telephone.

In 2007, when he launched iPhone, he marketed it as a phone that could connect to the internet — despite the fact that first iPhone had no app store, and the slowest internet.

App Stores Are The New Market Streets:

With smartphones and wearables, we have come a full circle of human computer interaction innovation. App stores sell to almost every tangible part of our bodies.

While Android continues to remain the affordable contender to Apple’s App Store, Google’s inability in hardware domain and increasing hold of privacy laws might restrict its future market penetration, despite its stronghold on browsing + advertising duo.

Monopolies are inherently self-fulfilling prophecies

Apple is set to monopolize its hold by unifying the hardware with its ARM Macs. At the same time, it is also consolidating its position by diversifying into streaming and media off of its iPhone + App Store revenue.

App marketplaces like Epic Games (maker of Fortnite, backed by Tencent) have been challenging Apple’s $2 Trillion pie through legal routes. Apple’s battles with numerous iOS app makers (Pears and Hey) always spark discussions surrounding its vulnerability to Anti Trust actions.

Apple’s heavy handed approach on privacy has stirred enough waters to arouse giants like Facebook.

While legal fallouts may change the company dynamics, it has little impact on nature of innovation and the way it transforms experiences. Monopolies are inherently self-fulfilling prophecies, and the cycles they create — whether vicious or not — are bound to last.

Until disruptions happen.

Currently, we are flooded with apps, offers and novel business models, with no radical changes in underlying experiences. Such saturation indicates dire need for innovation to dismantle monopolies.

Steve Jobs was able envision the information era right at the dawn of desktop computers. In the same 1985 PlayBoy interview, he stated:

“the information revolution, is a revolution of free energy as well, but of another kind: free intellectual energy. It’s very crude today, yet our Macintosh computer takes less power than a 100-watt light bulb to run and it can save you hours a day. What will it be able to do ten or 20 years from now, or 50 years from now? This revolution will dwarf the petrochemical revolution. We’re on the forefront.”

Innovation monopolies can be created by visionaries, and maintained by technocrats.

The only thing that can surpass a monopoly backed by innovation is another innovation.

They Are Coming For Your Brain:

Science Fiction and Dystopias like 1984 have long predicted the existence and impact of thought police.

However, mere public recognition that surveillance can be used to sell, amuse and eventually control the masses has only come to light during the last decade.

In his Finlandia prize (Finland’s highest literary award) winning novel They Know Not What They Do, Jussi Valtonen (an expert on psychology) describes a futuristic device that senses people’s neurobiological activity.

The device, known as iAm, has no audio-visual user interface. It has electrodes that fit smugly to one’s audio and visual cortex inside the brain. Without any cables (mouse) or hand gestures (touch screen), it can read brain signals, and present content according to user’s desire at any given time.

You don’t see or hear any of it. Your brain does.

iAm can deliver videos + AR content all over from the Internet, without passing through naked eye or ear. Brain orders, consumes and perceives every experience that is available within iAm’s network.

The scariest part arrives when the protagonist secretly wears the iAm that belongs to his daughter. The device learns about his preferences without him picking anything actively, and begins to deliver content as per his neurobiological needs at that moment.

He didn’t know if there was a History page that he could go to, and erase what he watched before his daughter gets it again.

It showed him some porn he wasn’t consciously desiring to see, but watched it realizing he yearned for it, since long.

The Neuralink Link:

When I first read about Neuralink (by Elon Musk) for the first time in 2018, I categorized it as a device that neuro clinics could use. I gave no further thoughts.

What if Neuralink is commercialized for the mass market?

Neuralink depends on neuron sized sensors that can send signals to computers via bluetooth. The signals themselves contain orders issued by brain to trigger a mechanical action such as writing, saying something, or clicking somewhere on the computer.

Soon after I read about the fictitious consumer-targeted iAm, the first thought that crossed my mind was: What if Neuralink (or its successor products) was later commercialized for the mass market?

Human trials for Neuralink haven’t commenced yet. It’s usage for paralytic patients is yet to be approved by FDA.

It claims to be cryptographically secure. Elon Musk has long been vocal against letting AI taking over the humanity. So even when extended to consumer market, Neuralink may not pose an immediate threat to privacy.

(Maybe the better term is Intimacy, but books on law haven’t included it, at least yet)

But engineering is not like a tree that produces same fruit for lifetime. It is more like a farm that produces numerous crops every year, depending upon the farmer’s intentions.

Software Has Already Been Reading Our Minds:

Psychology has historically mapped and categorized human neurological responses to various stimuli. Gamers already knows how to cause Dopamine spikes.

Social networks like Facebook and content distributors like Youtube and Netflix, with their 1000-pound recommendation beasts, have exploited psychological aspect of human-centered design.

But limits of them (to limitlessly control us) lie at the single aspect — that single aspect which governments are thankfully protecting, at least legally: Consent.

Unless user presses “I agree”, no data legally leaves a machine. No questionable content can fill up your screen and legally get away with it. Until user presses “Buy”, no money changes hands.

With Neuralink, iAm and its techno-siblings, these limits might get redefined.

The buck stops with the brain cells, and neurons will have the final say.

A poorly designed neural software could pay heed to some neurons, and ignore others completely.

Imagine you are in a fashion store. As soon as skull-deep sensors witness a Dopamine spike seeing a $30000 purple velvet gown, the gown gets added to the cart, and your social network is notified that you are in the process of buying it. Your photo wearing it wouldn’t be out of place.

The experience circuitry is completely shunted out. No room to think about what your crush would say, or where the credit statements stand at the moment.

Your girlfriend + 23 others know whom you secretly adore.

A privacy nightmare on a brain device could be much more worse than that on a smartphone. Imagine you joined new office, and secretly like the attractive receptionist.

The next day, your (vaguely consented) social network beefs up your timeline: Your girlfriend + 23 others know whom you secretly adore.

Software has already been reading our minds. Brain is the next frontier.

Conclusion:

Brain computer interface isn’t a new frontier. But so far, its applications have been limited to clinical areas.

Currently, it provides what its consumer need — care, therapy and treatment.

If Neuralink thrives and changes the world for paralytics, neural device makers will be lured into opening up its software interfaces.

Just like Steve Jobs popularized Xerox mouse.

A simplistic API will expose how much happiness/enthusiasm/courage/grief is experienced by the user at any given moment. Huge, trained datasets will be triggered to find recommended products, services and actions.

In no time, it will begin to cater to what they want, without any ado about what they need.

It has happened with applications. It has happened with YT feeds. It has happened with location tracking.