The iPlant

The iPlant is a hypothetical brain implant that would be similar to the deep brain stimulation devices currently being tested. It has been proposed by Christopher Harris in an article entitled "Program Yourself". The idea would be to place an implant device in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), substantia nigra and the raphe nuclei. Doing this would allow the regulation of mood altering neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. The discussion about this device and its potential uses is fairly interesting.

Christopher Harris brings up many good points on his website and his blog Brain Implant. He suggests several potential problems for this type of technology.

Involuntary mind control
Many people worry that the iPlant could allow complete control over someone's thoughts and behavior against their will (similar to The Manchurian Candidate). However, let's not overstate the level of control that brain stimulation reward could give you over another person. The function generates motivation by repeatedly reinforcing specific, simple behaviors. In animal models this training process takes time and works only for elementary behaviors (e.g. physical exercise), making total behavioral control over another person unlikely. It may be possible to reprogram an iPlant user to endlessly perform some repetitive action against their will, but since the implant would contain no radio receiver this would have to involve kidnapping the person, which seems like an excessively laborious way of causing harm. However, an authoritarian regime may create factories of workers addicted to manual labour. This problem remains unsolved and underscores the need for democratic oversight.

Inequality
iPlants could create a division in society between the haves and the have-nots. This could become a problem for people who can't afford an iPlant, can't have one for medical reasons, or who simply don't want one. This problem is currently being discussed.

Self-stimulation addiction
People might try to bypass the need to perform difficult tasks and self-stimulate ad infinitum (similar to Larry Niven's "wireheads"). This problem may be avoided by ensuring robust access control by the manufacturer. This problem is currently being discussed.

Over-use
People could become too dependent on their iPlants brain stimulation reward function for motivation. This may be detrimental to one's ability to exercise self-dicipline without the help of the iPlant, and to one's feeling of self-worth. It underscores the need to regulate the way the iPlant is used (access control). This problem is currently being discussed.

Access control
Several factors suggest that iPlants will have to be subject to robust access control by their manufacturer. This raises problems of trust on the one hand and of security and hacking on the other. This problem is currently being discussed.