Daniel Ridgway Knight paintings

Daniel Ridgway Knight paintings
Eric Wallis paintings
Such qualms over privacy, whether real or overblown, are likely to keep any mass "chipping" from happening in the near future. And that may be the ultimate problem for the technology overall."It's a chicken and egg problem," says Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future, a research firm in Menlo Park, Calif. "Hospitals and ambulances aren't going to invest in new detectors [for these chips] until people start using the chip, but people aren't going to use these chips until there's a wide availability of readers," he says.Still, Saffo and others don't doubt that one day we may become a race of cyborgs — part man and part machine."We put all sorts of implants in [our bodies] today," says Saffo. "If we have metal hips, it only makes sense to have chips in, too."