a curated archive of lateral thinking & the science behind advertising

Mind over matter, does it really matter?

Left Company: DKNY | Photographer: ?? | Model: ??
Right Company: Cutler & Gross | Photographer: ?? | Model: ??

Professor Kevin Warwick of Reading University has been tinkering with Cybernetics for several decades. A brilliant mind, he has penned more than 500 research papers, and has written no less than 27 books on artificial intelligence, control, robotics and biomedical engineering. His amazing background takes him from leaving school at the age of 16, and working for British Telecom, to a degree then a PhD and a research post at Imperial College, London; followed by positions at Oxford, Newcastle and Warwick universities. Culminating in being offered Chair at Reading, at the grand old age of thirty-three.

By now your wondering what the hell all this has to do with advertising, right?

Well here’s where the clear waters of science get muddied by filthy lucre. Where we are today at the start of the 21st century in terms of the understanding of the workings or our grey and white matter is exceedingly basic. Due to the lack of technology and squeemishness of most humans on the subject of the squishy stuff on the inside of our heads, not a great deal is known about how it works in comparison with the rest of our parts.

But with a serious advance in recent computing and related technology people like Kevin Warwick and others in Stanford and Caltech Universities in the States are producing results that sound like they come from the pages of a PKD novel. Professor Warwick has been implanting silicon chips linked to his nervous system in his own body, and that of his brave wife, for many years. Figuring who better than himself to test his work on, he’s been linked to the computer system at Reading Uni, lots of other fun stuff besides.

Left Magazine: Dazed&Confused| Photographer: ??
Right Magazine: ?? | Photographer: ?? | Model: ??

Cogito ergo sum…I think therefore I am.

Just this week however it has been reported in the press that scientists in California are now able to decode brainwaves and mechanically reproduce speech from them. Our minds can be read, albeit in a simple and quite invasive (hard wired brain surgery) way at present, but you can bet your life that as fast as you can say ‘Waldo’ there will be nothing safe within the warm fetid confines of our innermost thoughts. We have crossed a threshold, and there’s no going back.

I commented recently on Creative Review’s blog that “Once it’s out of your head…it’s no longer your own.” But it would appear in the very very near future, that will no longer be the case.

Left Company: ?? | Photographer: ?? | Model: ??
Right Company: Channel 5 | Photographer: ?? | Model: ??

That takes us from advertising so targeted it really is just for an audience of one, to advertising directly into your mind; thought crime or PKD pre-crime will be hot on its heels. Sounds a bit too far fetched I hear you say? Not at all. Moore’s Law states basically that the ‘number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years’, but this is now down to eighteen months, and reducing by the second. At least people who suffer neurodegenerative diseases and strokes will now still be able to communicate and not suffer the terrifying locked-in syndrome.

So where does that leave us?
Will we all be wearing tin foil hats and be too frightened to think?

You can be sure that advertising and neuromarketing will take advantage of every available tool, to get further inside your head than they already are.

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