4 ms·

‘Remote control’ contraceptive chip available ‘by 2018’

51 points by misiti3780 12y ago

thrownaway2424 12y ago
"Creates" is not normally used in the future tense.
jqm 12y ago
This is pretty awesome. But do I wonder if something like this will be implanted by default at some point in human history and only removed when certain specifications are met. I don't know if that would be bad or good. Looking around the world I'm not sure I feel it would be all bad. But yes.. abuse potential and _who decides... I know....
- tesq 12y ago
  We have a millenia of past attempts to draw from to help you decide whether that would be good or bad. What problems would this solve?
  - jqm 12y ago
    Efficiency. It's eventually selected for.
- XorNot 12y ago
  Implanting at birth, activating at a suitable marker point after puberty (a sensor which monitors normal progesterone levels would actually be fine for this) and de-activated when a women wants to conceive. It'd be the most important bit of social policy in human history, seeing as how reproductive control and economic outcomes for women are very closely linked. Something like this applied en masse in developing nations would also directly save a lot of lives.
  - gambiting 12y ago
    <puts the tinfoil hat on> And then you need to get a deactivation code from the government to disable the implant to conceive. So the government gets the power to decide who can have children. This concept sounds very enticing and I think it would actually be a good idea,if not for the fact that I don't think anyone should hold that power over other people, even if it's in best intentions.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      I see you've left out the implicit anti-tamper device that explodes and kills you. Obviously we'd just put that in.
jrockway 12y ago
This is apparently a month-old announcement, and is available from many sources that don't inject quite so much editorial bias.
- duncan_bayne 12y ago
  "What are your thoughts on this implantable chip? Does it raise concern? Do you think that this technology is a positive innovation? Do you think there could possibly be some ulterior intentions behind the production of this technology?" Indeed, much better off going elsewhere to read about this.
beefsack 12y ago
Blog spam, original article: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28193720 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28193720
- dang 12y ago
  Thanks. Changed to that from http://earthweareone.com/bill-gates-foundation-announces-implantable-remote-controlled-contraceptive-microchip-that-can-last-up-to-16-years/ http://earthweareone.com/bill-gates-foundation-announces-imp....
matb33 12y ago
I'm holding out for Vasalgel. It was featured a while back in Wired and I've been following it since: http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/vasalgel-home/ http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/vasalgel-home/ That being said, I'm glad more options are being explored.
- girvo 12y ago
  That's what I'm looking forward to. Being able to have more control over contraception without using condoms is great (I'm in a long term relationship with my very loving girlfriend, but we still worry at times) IMO. What I'm interested in is whether this implantable chip will take off, considering that IIRC oral contraceptives are still used far more than other types (like the injections or the implant) despite being less effective?
  - farmdve 12y ago
    You know, condoms aren't solely used as a contraceptive, there's thing called...HIV, you may have heard of it. Not to mention various other STDs.
    - girvo 12y ago
      Yes, I do know that which is why I qualified my own personal situation.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    Depends on your definition of "effective". Oral contraceptives can be forgotten, but implants have more side-effects and a fairly catastrophic failure mode (the implant is done improperly -> proceeds to do nothing).
contingencies 12y ago
Am I the only one that thinks this is evil and scary? I do hope governments rule against this kind of technology as extremely prone to the abuse of human rights. If you think arranged marriages are bad, what about 100% out-of-your-hands, in-your-parents 'arranged fertility'?
- jqm 12y ago
  I'm not sure the freedom to reproduce as much as one wants under all circumstances is an inalienable human right. Others might feel differently.
  - trhway 12y ago
    >an inalienable human right does such thing exists at all?
    - jqm 12y ago
      In biological reality... probably not. But in theory, yes. For instance, the UN declaration of human rights. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ It's interesting that this document states the ADULT individuals who are MARRIED have the right to found a family. So not even the UN believes people have a universal right to procreation at any age or under any circumstances. My personal feelings are mixed. I'm not a fan of traditional marriage. It appears broken in the west at least. But, I think the initial idea, the one upheld in this document and in traditional civilization is valid. When people are in a position to support and care for children, yes, I believe they have a right to have them. Otherwise they do the children and society in general no favors by having them. How many children should people be allowed to have? Should we have people like the Duggers taking fertility drugs to have 20 kids? What if a lot of people decided to do this? What if cloning became easy? What if someone decided to lab produce 10,000 children using sperm and eggs from a select group of doners? Do they have this right? The issue is complex and I don't know the answers. But I do see a lot of problems that result from wanton reproduction.
- aeturnum 12y ago
trhway 12y ago
there are a lot of things one would like to control from his/her Android. For example specific neurotransmitter level (right now it is done by drugs (legal and illegal)) by remotely commanding the chip to increase release or to stop releasing it. Reminds about Mr Data turning his emotions chip off.
- thret 12y ago
  We joke about intravenous coffee, but I'd actually kind of like a chip that gave me a little caffeine injection 20 minutes before my alarm went off in the morning.
- cLeEOGPw 12y ago
  I can see potential of this in the military. Soldiers could be trained Pavlov dog style to do anything with a push of a button. Also could make them feel calmer during operations. There would be real benefits I think. Wonder if DARPA is secretly funding this, because open funding would rise ethical people concern.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hliyan 12y ago
Rather than releasing hormones into the entire bloodstream, isn't it possible to implant this closer to the reproductive system so that it can affect ovulation more directly? With the right sensors, it might even be possible to detect the ovulation event and activate only during that time period?
leeoniya 12y ago
what happens if the implant sustains physical damage due to injury, etc? then a 16-year supply of contraceptive gets administered in a single dose? pretty scary. hopefully there's some form of neutralizer that can be triggered voluntarily and automatically if damage is sustained. one of those things that's gotta be failsafe. otherwise a trip to the ER for extraction?
joshfraser 12y ago
Given our track record with securing other implanted technology like pacemakers and insulin pumps, the thought of this is pretty terrifying. What happens when someone hacks your chip and tells it to release the entire dosage at once?
- Ygg2 12y ago
  Depends how much impact does that pill have. I'm not sure it is worse than hacked pacemakers - death by hacking is not something a person wearing a pacemaker will want to worry about.
- Blackthorn 12y ago
  Regardless of the security, pacemakers and insulin pumps have led to an enormous quality of life improvement for an enormous number of people so that is perhaps not the comparison you want to making for the affect you want to effect.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > pacemakers and insulin pumps have led to an enormous quality of life Are you comparing the quality-of-life boost that pacemakers and insulin pumps give you to something like contraception? Maybe I'm just misinformed, but contraceptives can even come in pill form nowadays. How does going from "taking a pill" => "implanted pump" even compare (especially since the other two are about life-threatening issues)?
ejr 12y ago
The remote control bit worries me. Anything that can be wirelessly controlled can have a weakness that can be exploited at worst or monitored at best. It's not infeasible to have detectors to monitor emanations yielding a whole new swath of privacy issues. No one else needs to know what type of medication you're on.
- cLeEOGPw 12y ago
  That's what got me too. No matter what kind of encryption used, if someone records a person turning it off once, it can use that signal to turn off anytime he wants possibly sabotaging the whole thing. But it's not a problem with this product, it's just a general cryptography problem. Even military drones have it.
  - jonathanyc 12y ago
    That's a drastic assumption to make. Replay attacks[1] are a well known problem, and countermeasures can be implemented relatively simply. To say that they would work "no matter what kind of encryption is used" is completely false FUD. I'd worry more about general incompetence. [1]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack
EGreg 12y ago
it's all nice until the protective seal bursts in someone, releasing "10 decades of a hormone" at once
Sukotto 12y ago
[edit] I've removed my comment as I'm not sure just how to express what I want to say.
- nmjohn 12y ago
  There is not a single good argument to not tell them. Altering someone's hormones so severely without their knowledge and consent is abuse plain and simple.
  - pyre 12y ago
    I'm not sure that the parent poster was being serious, but I imagine the view is that if you give such a thing to a teen, that they may feel it reduces the risks associated with sex enough that they will be willing to have loads of unprotected sex. I could argue that this is true to some extent[1], but probably no more so than with current contraceptives. [1] Apparently things like oral sex and anal sex are infinitely more popular nowadays because they are seen as ways to have sex without getting pregnant (even though it doesn't reduce the STD risk).
  - kosievdmerwe 12y ago
    I wish more countries had protection for reproductive rights like South African's Bill of Rights: http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/96cons2.htm#12 http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/96cons2.htm#12
- ObviousScience 12y ago
  You're going to have trouble getting someone to perform voluntary surgery on someone 13+ without their informed consent. It's possibly criminal for a doctor to fail to mention a relevant previous surgery in their chart when discussing health issues with a patient, so they're going to find out through a healthcare provider anyway. I'm mildly disturbed you think there are reasons to implant things in your kids and not tell them about it.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    Moreover its the same ridiculous thinking which leads to people not giving girl's the HPV vaccine.
lukeholder 12y ago
Might seem pedantic but its the 'Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation', not the Bill Gates
michaelsbradley 12y ago
There are wonderful alternatives to pharmaceutical contraception, barrier methods and surgical sterilization, not to mention chemical and surgical abortion. I would invite readers here to learn about modern NFP and to help spread the word: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/natural-family-planning/what-is-nfp/nfp-basic-information.cfm http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/n... EDIT: expanded my "alternatives to" list per the observation of another reader. Thanks, jjoonathan!
- jjoonathan 12y ago
  Alternative? Yes. Wonderful? Only if you stigmatize the sexual behaviors incompatible with NFP, conveniently making it impossible to complain about. EDIT: You also forgot to mention condoms which don't alter the natural functioning of your body, allow for a wider range of sexual expression, and serve as a stronger barrier against STD transmission than NFP. What was your complaint against condoms again? > Marriage is a gift from God Oh, right.
  - michaelsbradley 12y ago
    Well, there are other good websites from which to learn about modern NFP. For example: http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org/ http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org/ Just skip the USCCB's writeup if it's not your cup of tea.
omegaworks 12y ago
It's like DRM for your vagina!

51 points by misiti3780 12y ago

"Creates" is not normally used in the future tense.

jqm 12y ago

This is pretty awesome. But do I wonder if something like this will be implanted by default at some point in human history and only removed when certain specifications are met. I don't know if that would be bad or good. Looking around the world I'm not sure I feel it would be all bad. But yes.. abuse potential and _who decides... I know....

tesq 12y ago
We have a millenia of past attempts to draw from to help you decide whether that would be good or bad. What problems would this solve?
- jqm 12y ago
  Efficiency. It's eventually selected for.
XorNot 12y ago
Implanting at birth, activating at a suitable marker point after puberty (a sensor which monitors normal progesterone levels would actually be fine for this) and de-activated when a women wants to conceive. It'd be the most important bit of social policy in human history, seeing as how reproductive control and economic outcomes for women are very closely linked. Something like this applied en masse in developing nations would also directly save a lot of lives.
- gambiting 12y ago
  <puts the tinfoil hat on> And then you need to get a deactivation code from the government to disable the implant to conceive. So the government gets the power to decide who can have children. This concept sounds very enticing and I think it would actually be a good idea,if not for the fact that I don't think anyone should hold that power over other people, even if it's in best intentions.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    I see you've left out the implicit anti-tamper device that explodes and kills you. Obviously we'd just put that in.

jrockway 12y ago

This is apparently a month-old announcement, and is available from many sources that don't inject quite so much editorial bias.

duncan_bayne 12y ago
"What are your thoughts on this implantable chip? Does it raise concern? Do you think that this technology is a positive innovation? Do you think there could possibly be some ulterior intentions behind the production of this technology?" Indeed, much better off going elsewhere to read about this.

beefsack 12y ago

Blog spam, original article: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28193720 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28193720

dang 12y ago
Thanks. Changed to that from http://earthweareone.com/bill-gates-foundation-announces-implantable-remote-controlled-contraceptive-microchip-that-can-last-up-to-16-years/ http://earthweareone.com/bill-gates-foundation-announces-imp....

matb33 12y ago

I'm holding out for Vasalgel. It was featured a while back in Wired and I've been following it since: http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/vasalgel-home/ http://www.parsemusfoundation.org/vasalgel-home/ That being said, I'm glad more options are being explored.

girvo 12y ago
That's what I'm looking forward to. Being able to have more control over contraception without using condoms is great (I'm in a long term relationship with my very loving girlfriend, but we still worry at times) IMO. What I'm interested in is whether this implantable chip will take off, considering that IIRC oral contraceptives are still used far more than other types (like the injections or the implant) despite being less effective?
- farmdve 12y ago
  You know, condoms aren't solely used as a contraceptive, there's thing called...HIV, you may have heard of it. Not to mention various other STDs.
  - girvo 12y ago
    Yes, I do know that which is why I qualified my own personal situation.
- XorNot 12y ago
  Depends on your definition of "effective". Oral contraceptives can be forgotten, but implants have more side-effects and a fairly catastrophic failure mode (the implant is done improperly -> proceeds to do nothing).

contingencies 12y ago

Am I the only one that thinks this is evil and scary? I do hope governments rule against this kind of technology as extremely prone to the abuse of human rights. If you think arranged marriages are bad, what about 100% out-of-your-hands, in-your-parents 'arranged fertility'?

jqm 12y ago
I'm not sure the freedom to reproduce as much as one wants under all circumstances is an inalienable human right. Others might feel differently.
- trhway 12y ago
  >an inalienable human right does such thing exists at all?
  - jqm 12y ago
    In biological reality... probably not. But in theory, yes. For instance, the UN declaration of human rights. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ It's interesting that this document states the ADULT individuals who are MARRIED have the right to found a family. So not even the UN believes people have a universal right to procreation at any age or under any circumstances. My personal feelings are mixed. I'm not a fan of traditional marriage. It appears broken in the west at least. But, I think the initial idea, the one upheld in this document and in traditional civilization is valid. When people are in a position to support and care for children, yes, I believe they have a right to have them. Otherwise they do the children and society in general no favors by having them. How many children should people be allowed to have? Should we have people like the Duggers taking fertility drugs to have 20 kids? What if a lot of people decided to do this? What if cloning became easy? What if someone decided to lab produce 10,000 children using sperm and eggs from a select group of doners? Do they have this right? The issue is complex and I don't know the answers. But I do see a lot of problems that result from wanton reproduction.
aeturnum 12y ago

trhway 12y ago

there are a lot of things one would like to control from his/her Android. For example specific neurotransmitter level (right now it is done by drugs (legal and illegal)) by remotely commanding the chip to increase release or to stop releasing it. Reminds about Mr Data turning his emotions chip off.

thret 12y ago
We joke about intravenous coffee, but I'd actually kind of like a chip that gave me a little caffeine injection 20 minutes before my alarm went off in the morning.
cLeEOGPw 12y ago
I can see potential of this in the military. Soldiers could be trained Pavlov dog style to do anything with a push of a button. Also could make them feel calmer during operations. There would be real benefits I think. Wonder if DARPA is secretly funding this, because open funding would rise ethical people concern.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

hliyan 12y ago

Rather than releasing hormones into the entire bloodstream, isn't it possible to implant this closer to the reproductive system so that it can affect ovulation more directly? With the right sensors, it might even be possible to detect the ovulation event and activate only during that time period?

leeoniya 12y ago

what happens if the implant sustains physical damage due to injury, etc? then a 16-year supply of contraceptive gets administered in a single dose? pretty scary. hopefully there's some form of neutralizer that can be triggered voluntarily and automatically if damage is sustained. one of those things that's gotta be failsafe. otherwise a trip to the ER for extraction?

joshfraser 12y ago

Given our track record with securing other implanted technology like pacemakers and insulin pumps, the thought of this is pretty terrifying. What happens when someone hacks your chip and tells it to release the entire dosage at once?

Ygg2 12y ago
Depends how much impact does that pill have. I'm not sure it is worse than hacked pacemakers - death by hacking is not something a person wearing a pacemaker will want to worry about.
Blackthorn 12y ago
Regardless of the security, pacemakers and insulin pumps have led to an enormous quality of life improvement for an enormous number of people so that is perhaps not the comparison you want to making for the affect you want to effect.
- pyre 12y ago
  > pacemakers and insulin pumps have led to an enormous quality of life Are you comparing the quality-of-life boost that pacemakers and insulin pumps give you to something like contraception? Maybe I'm just misinformed, but contraceptives can even come in pill form nowadays. How does going from "taking a pill" => "implanted pump" even compare (especially since the other two are about life-threatening issues)?

ejr 12y ago

The remote control bit worries me. Anything that can be wirelessly controlled can have a weakness that can be exploited at worst or monitored at best. It's not infeasible to have detectors to monitor emanations yielding a whole new swath of privacy issues. No one else needs to know what type of medication you're on.

cLeEOGPw 12y ago
That's what got me too. No matter what kind of encryption used, if someone records a person turning it off once, it can use that signal to turn off anytime he wants possibly sabotaging the whole thing. But it's not a problem with this product, it's just a general cryptography problem. Even military drones have it.
- jonathanyc 12y ago
  That's a drastic assumption to make. Replay attacks[1] are a well known problem, and countermeasures can be implemented relatively simply. To say that they would work "no matter what kind of encryption is used" is completely false FUD. I'd worry more about general incompetence. [1]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_attack

EGreg 12y ago

it's all nice until the protective seal bursts in someone, releasing "10 decades of a hormone" at once

Sukotto 12y ago

[edit] I've removed my comment as I'm not sure just how to express what I want to say.

nmjohn 12y ago
There is not a single good argument to not tell them. Altering someone's hormones so severely without their knowledge and consent is abuse plain and simple.
- pyre 12y ago
  I'm not sure that the parent poster was being serious, but I imagine the view is that if you give such a thing to a teen, that they may feel it reduces the risks associated with sex enough that they will be willing to have loads of unprotected sex. I could argue that this is true to some extent[1], but probably no more so than with current contraceptives. [1] Apparently things like oral sex and anal sex are infinitely more popular nowadays because they are seen as ways to have sex without getting pregnant (even though it doesn't reduce the STD risk).
- kosievdmerwe 12y ago
  I wish more countries had protection for reproductive rights like South African's Bill of Rights: http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/96cons2.htm#12 http://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/96cons2.htm#12
ObviousScience 12y ago
You're going to have trouble getting someone to perform voluntary surgery on someone 13+ without their informed consent. It's possibly criminal for a doctor to fail to mention a relevant previous surgery in their chart when discussing health issues with a patient, so they're going to find out through a healthcare provider anyway. I'm mildly disturbed you think there are reasons to implant things in your kids and not tell them about it.
- XorNot 12y ago
  Moreover its the same ridiculous thinking which leads to people not giving girl's the HPV vaccine.

lukeholder 12y ago

Might seem pedantic but its the 'Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation', not the Bill Gates

michaelsbradley 12y ago

There are wonderful alternatives to pharmaceutical contraception, barrier methods and surgical sterilization, not to mention chemical and surgical abortion. I would invite readers here to learn about modern NFP and to help spread the word: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/natural-family-planning/what-is-nfp/nfp-basic-information.cfm http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/n... EDIT: expanded my "alternatives to" list per the observation of another reader. Thanks, jjoonathan!

jjoonathan 12y ago
Alternative? Yes. Wonderful? Only if you stigmatize the sexual behaviors incompatible with NFP, conveniently making it impossible to complain about. EDIT: You also forgot to mention condoms which don't alter the natural functioning of your body, allow for a wider range of sexual expression, and serve as a stronger barrier against STD transmission than NFP. What was your complaint against condoms again? > Marriage is a gift from God Oh, right.
- michaelsbradley 12y ago
  Well, there are other good websites from which to learn about modern NFP. For example: http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org/ http://www.thebillingsovulationmethod.org/ Just skip the USCCB's writeup if it's not your cup of tea.

omegaworks 12y ago

It's like DRM for your vagina!