What is the most valuable commodity in the world today? It’s not oil, artificial intelligence, or Bitcoin’s computing power. These are inert objects, meaningless without human attention to give them value. Attention is the most potent and sought-after resource, driving everything from demand for rare minerals to international trade policy. When you grab attention with something as simple as a well-placed iPhone ad, you can turn a few flips in your library into a series of physical labor, resource extraction, and influence on geopolitical affairs. . Once you can harness attention on a massive scale, mastering the physical world becomes trivial.
The line between our thoughts and attention economies is disappearing
Corporations, billionaires, and (soon) artificial intelligence agents are all competing to attract and direct human attention to serve their own ends. Until 30 years ago, attention was harnessed through inefficient, violent means: broad, non-specific broadcasts in print, radio and television. Despite their inefficiency, these tools succeeded in mobilizing entire populations, organizing society toward engineering marvels, and even achieving the dehumanization required for total war. The first big leap in attention came with the advent of the iPhone and its ecosystem. This is the first truly cognitive prosthetic hand available to the public. It turns almost everyone into a “tuned robot”, permanently connected to the global network.
Less than 17 years after the iPhone came out, the next leap is already here, and it will be more turbulent and transformative than we imagined. Imagine a society where corporations treat your mind as an extension of their data pipeline, mining your attention directly through your neural activity for profit while selling you the illusion of control. In this society, reality is “augmented” by infinite possibilities of artificially generated worlds, sensations and experiences.
“The sky above the harbor is the color of a television, tuned to a dead channel.”
Believe it or not, Neuromancer, written by William Gibson in 1984, provides an increasingly credible account of where our society is headed today. Privacy does not exist and data is hoarded as a commodity for sale by large corporations. Reality becomes a collective “consensual illusion experienced by billions of people every day,” neurally connected to corporate-controlled cyberspace and built on a patchwork of infrastructure that is regularly hacked and subverted. The release of seemingly mundane “just another toy for my brother with disposable income” technologies like Apple’s (AAPL) Vision Pro and Orion AR brings us closer to this reality. These devices feature innovative hardware that bridges the gap between our intentions, ideas, and their direct impact on the digital world they create for us.
Want to follow? to find eyes
Apple Vision Pro inherits the shortcomings of Google (GOOGL) Glass and creates a closed-loop motion system that responds to our attention by measuring the movement of our eyes. Its suite of internal sensors can intuitively sense arousal, cognitive load and general emotional state based on precise fluctuations in pupil diameter and subtle rapid eye movements. For example, pupil diameter can directly represent noradrenergic tonereflects activity of the sympathetic nervous system and is controlled by neurotransmitter output from the locus coeruleus, a brain structure associated with arousal and attention. While the technology’s applications currently appear to be limited, it’s undeniably impressive that Apple has eliminated the need for external input devices by leveraging something intuitive like the user’s gaze to navigate and manipulate digital environments.
You are being groomed and so is the beautician
Technological wonders aside, it’s clear that this is not free, nor is it without consequences. Devices like the Vision Pro are subtly preparing society for a future in which more invasive technologies—such as Neuralink or other brain-computer interfaces—may be used to revolutionize human agency. Current economic incentives do not value privacy, personal agency, or digital human rights. Why? Our economy generates greater rewards when human behavior is structured and segmented along the most stable and profitable markets (to name a few): sex, status pursuits, and security.
These markets thrive on memes and the direct attention of organized groups rather than self-sovereign, free-thinking individuals. If this bleak outlook holds true, then any technology that links personal decision-making to open information systems will inevitably serve those who stand to benefit most—business, government, and increasingly artificially intelligent agents. The primary beneficiaries will not be current readers, authors, or even the majority of people using these technologies today. Instead, the most likely winners will be artificial intelligence—working behind the scenes to optimize goals that may alienate the humans who create them. Unless we take decisive action, this is the trajectory we are on.
We need a biometric privacy framework
Most of us agree that we need privacy. But despite frameworks like GDPR, CCPA, and landmark efforts like Chile’s Neurorights Act, the same problems persist, and the risks are intensifying. Regulations and policies focus on these issues, but lack concrete implementation and are not enough.
What’s missing is basic embedding digital natural rights Preset access to the infrastructure that powers the internet and connected devices. First, individuals can very easily establish and maintain self-custody of their own encryption keys. These keys secure our communications, authenticate our identities, and protect our personal data without relying on companies, governments, or third parties.
Holonym’s Human Keys offer one such solution. By enabling individuals to create encryption keys securely and privately, we can protect sensitive data while ensuring privacy and autonomy. The beauty of Human Keys is that there is no need to trust any single company, individual, agency or government to create and use these keys. When combined with tools like homomorphic encryption, devices like the Apple Vision Pro or Neuralink can enhance cognitive practices without having to view sensitive user data.
But software alone is not enough. We need secure hardware built on publicly verifiable open standards. The government must enforce hygienic security practices on manufacturers of devices that interact with and store these keys. Like to be clean
A vision for ethical neurotechnology
Gibson warned of a world where technology will overwrite privacy, autonomy and humanity. Today, we stand on the edge of reality, but we still have the ability to choose a different path. Only when guided by ethical principles can brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) expand human potential. By embedding biometric privacy into the foundation of our digital systems, using tools like self-hosted keys and homomorphic encryption, and rigorous open hardware standards, we can ensure that these technologies work and are not exploited. The future doesn’t have to reflect Gibson’s dystopia. Rather, it can be a way for innovation to enhance humanity and safeguard our rights while unlocking new possibilities. This vision is not only hopeful, it is vital.
