05/01/2018
A US company has microchipped its employees –
we should welcome this as progress and get
involved
Imagine you walk into the room and your
smartphone connects to all your colleagues’
microchips. On the screen you immediately see
who everyone is, what their roles are, their
behavioural traits, communication styles,
strengths and weaknesses. This would give you
incredible instant insight.
The microchip is the size of a grain of rice, and
functions as a swipe card: to open doors,
operate printers or buy smoothies EPA
A company in Wisconsin just made the news for
microchipping its employees. As per USA Today,
40 employees at the local firm Three Square
Market, which makes cafeteria kiosks intended
to replace traditional vending machines, “got
tiny rice-sized microchips embedded in their
hands … for convenience, a way for them to
bypass using company badges and corporate log-
ons to computers,” so that “now they can just
have their hands read by a reader”.
In the future, these employees will be able to
receive payments from contactless cards on their
hands. It’s handy. It’s efficient. Is it
terrifying?
The response was predictably hysterical, with
countless scare stories and people screaming:
“The end is nigh.”
Others restrained themselves but worried about
the power dynamic. “Is it really voluntary when
your employer is asking you if you would like to
be microchipped?” asked Noelle Chesley,
associate professor of sociology at the University
of Wisconsin.
But to me this seems like a lot of puff about
nothing. We need to remember that this is only a
microchip. Right now, if you carry a phone
around with you 24/7, you already have a
microchip – in fact, many more than one – in
your pocket permanently.
AFFLUENT1
Computer Company.
