FUTURE HUMAN
Would You Let Your Boss Put a Chip in Your Body?
A small number of employees are agreeing to subcutaneous implants — and the idea is spreading
Dave Coplin is trying to explain to me why people across two continents are suddenly allowing their employers to put microchips under their skin.
“I do this to my dog — why wouldn’t I do it to myself?” Coplin says. I’m not convinced, so he launches into a anecdote about a club on the Mediterranean party island of Ibiza where people could chip themselves and then use the chip to buy drinks. Coplin suspects this was because they weren’t wearing many clothes.
But chipping yourself because you’re half-naked and don’t have a pocket for your wallet is very different from allowing your employer to chip you. So, how did we get here?
Coplin, who heads a consultancy called the Envisioners, says there are real benefits for both employer and employee — if we can only get over our squeamishness. “If it adds value, I’m all for it,” he says. “Today we look at people doing it and it feels a bit weird, but in reality there is something inevitable about it.”
Patrick McMullan is president of Three Square Market in Wisconsin. After following experiments at Swedish incubator…
