Yeah... or this technology could be used to empower individuals to transcend the limitations of their physiology at a personal level the way external machines allow us to do so at the extrapersonal level. A computer/communication device implant untethers you from the desk, gets the laptop off your lap, allows you to do your work in the park or while hiking in the mountains. A robotic prosthetic lets a paraplegic ditch the wheelchair for good. More exotic implants and genetic tweaks may let people do anything from flying to personally controlling vast arrays of machinery. This, like all technology, is fundamentally self-empowering.

Yes, if you do not adopt it, you will be left behind, just as the Amish are left behind, just as voluntary primitives are left behind, just as hunter-gatherers were left behind by agrarians twenty thousand years ago. This is your problem, not my problem. The mere suggestion that this should somehow be "prevented" is vile. It means that you, in your fear, intend to use force - i.e. violence - to stop it, as there is no other way to halt technological progress besides destruction of technology and the people producing it.

As for some kind of totalitarian Brave New World scenario, socialism is a dead idea. It doesn't work, it never has worked, and it never will work. The concept of a top-down controlled society is a lead zeppelin. The laws of nature prevent it from working - specifically, the laws of economics. No techno-magical thinking will free people from that basic problem, whatever Venus project types and brain-dead mustache twirling elites may want to believe. Artificial intelligence does not change the operation of networks any more than rockets change the operation of gravity. There is nothing to worry about, as long as you keep worrying about yourself. The mere fact of you looking out for your own interests and minding your own business defeats totalitarianism in stride. Crying out for powerful associations to "protect" you from things - and people - you fear is counter-revolutionary, it's just life support for the corpse of 19th-century socialism.

 Justen;  You are certainly free to accept those micro-chips and gene modifying therapies. Undoubtedly there will be some real benefits. But Transhumanism is about destroying humanity, not merely augmenting it. This research toward an "enhanced" genetically modified micro-chipped chimera under wireless digital control is quite real. DARPA leads the way in seeking to develop "super soldiers".

 Too not recognize danger is foolish. Science and technology are not exercised by corporatist governance for our benefit. They are used to exploit and control us. 

Socialism is the predominant form of governance in the world today, even in America. No, it is not pleasant and appears unworkable...from our viewpoint. Our destruction is the unstated goal of the elitists behind it who only respect the law of the jungle. The elite believe in rule by stealth, and might makes right.

You ridicule the Amish culture shunning modern technology, but government studies show Amish farmers net greater profits per acre than other farmers using the latest marketed means, and have far fewer debts having avoided expensive machinery and chemicals, etc. Plus, their soil is not depleted and they have a prosperous, if old-fashioned, healthy lifestyle. The modern means bring debt and depletion.

I am sorry, Justen, that you have such great faith in big corporations and government forces that you see no need to beware the prospects for humanity being reduced to mutants and corpses in a totalitarian scheme. To be warned is to be aware and ready to resist. It is sad that you can only clap like a trained seal hooting for his masters instead of slipping away to freedom as God intended.

We live in a vast matrix of delusion and control, and technology is becoming ever more invasive. Think about it. Dare to read "Forbidden Gates" and be advised.