Building Resilience in the American Cosmetics Industry

The presentation opens with a brief video; if you haven't watched it yet, please stop reading and watch it for two minutes. It's a cartoon scenario set in an office where you and your boss can both monitor your brain activity in real time to measure your productivity, flag times of stress, deter inappropriate thoughts about coworkers, and, well, the possibilities are only limited by your boss's rapacious amorality. The movie concludes with a worker being removed by security personnel because his brain patterns resemble those of a colleague who was discovered cheating the company. It makes Bentham's panopticon resemble the Unabomber's cabin.I have no hesitation in stating that what Professor Farahany is celebrating—and she is very explicit about this—is wicked. The joy with which she informs the viewer that everything in the film is already conceivable and that "after all, what you think, what you feel—it's all just data" is diabolical. No, professor; our brain activity is not "just data." What a sociopathically reductionist and dehumanizing perspective on the lives of an embodied soul. Her future-present office is comparable to a Tamagotchi in terms of pet ownership.

Professor Farahany envisions a distant future 

("within our lifetime") in which brain implants bridge the human-technological divide, allowing AI technology to "decode" our "complex thoughts" and promote "good" behaviour while discouraging "bad" thoughts and activities. For the time being, the video's brain surveillance relies on "consumer wearable devices," which she joyfully described as "like Fitbits for your brain." Later, she mentions data monitoring using a "simple wearable watch." If you have an Apple Watch, this is your cue to smash it with a hammer.After detailing the productivity gains and health warnings that brain monitoring will enable, Professor Farahany emphasizes, "I am giving you the positive use cases because what I don't want the reaction to be is 'let's ban this.'" It's the only time she expresses emotion: she genuinely wants this future to happen. She is willing to admit that this technology "has a dystopian possibility"—to which any rational person would respond: actually, it has no non-dystopian possibility—but she is pleading with you to disregard the warnings from every sci-fi fiction ever written and trust her and her corporate bosses this time. Think of the convenience! We sought convenience, and we now have it—or rather, technology has us.If the video doesn't send off your internal alarm, I'm not sure what to say. Perhaps you're one of those weirdos who enjoys being assessed by a deep-learning chatbot. But how much can any of us truly oppose to the possibility of real-time brain monitoring? Didn't we vote for this future with each purchase of a new technical advancement? Didn't we make it inevitable by never saying, "Maybe I won't get a smartphone, put the kids in front of an iPad to keep them quiet, or log on to the nursery app?"

We sought convenience, and we now have it—or rather

technology has us. We've become prisoners to convenience. In the name of efficiency, time-saving, and productivity, we have slept-walked into a horrific nightmare. Now that the dismal future has arrived, it may be too late to object, but I will nonetheless. Sorry, Professor Farahany: let us ban this.While watching the Davos film, two thoughts sprang to mind. First, why didn't the audience revolt, pelting the smiling harbinger of development with the mini-quiches and crustless sandwiches prepared by catering? (Speaking of which, when did we stop booing awful performances? Does anyone else at La Scala still do this? It is time to bring it back. Second, how did we get here?I believe the solution to the second question provides an answer to the first. I stated earlier that we are all responsible. Unless you are reading this piece on watermarked paper hand-copied by your scribe, you are partially responsible for what follows—you and your attachment to the concept of convenience. We've all contributed to the evolution of the cotton gin to the internal combustion engine, the cathode ray tube to the microprocessor, the mobile phone to the smart thermostat, and our bosses' use of the Fitbit to monitor our brains in real time. The audience had no right to protest to the video because it represented the future they had already invested into. Literally.

That is not to say that we cannot be shocked 

to discover where we were going all along. Like Mike in The Sun Also Rises, who went bankrupt "gradually, then suddenly," we went to bed one day ecstatic about being able to read email on our watches and awoke to our emotions being watched at work by computer programs that can replicate what we see in our minds. The story started innocently enough. Early domestic technology were touted as time-saving tools for busy women. Instead of rolling up their sleeves and slopping around in soapy tubs with washboards, the woman of the future would be able to lay on her couch, primly dressed and pertly coiffed, reading about the latest advancement in home convenience. In the United Kingdom, houses are still marketed as having all "mod cons"—"modern conveniences."Of course, the promised life of leisure never arrived. It turns out that our schedules dislike vacuum cleaners almost as much as 1950s housewives did. We've never lived more convenient or busier lives. This is one reason I am wary of promises of four-day work weeks and totally automated luxury communism—imagine how fatigued we'd be with all that more "free" time.