Companies are showing increasing interest in using brain-monitoring technology (‘neurotech’) to keep track of what their workers are up to.
Trials at a French-owned TotalPrix discount store have already proved the value of the technology, by electrocuting and grassing up staff,
Retail assistants on minimum wage wore a special beanie hat that monitored their brain waves. While the staff were stacking shelves, talking to customers or working at the checkout, there was no discernible brain activity. However, brain activity ‘lit up’ when staff nipped outside for a vape or a quick shag, when they played on-line gambling games, and when they were nicking stuff.
The store manager was impressed. He said that the store didn’t hire people to think and that the neurotech gizmos clearly showed that when staff are thinking, they are up to no good.
The staff, however, proved resourceful in undermining management’s attempts to watch their every move. One staff member sold his £60,000 neuro-beanie to a customer for a pound (everything’s a pound) and another dodged the surveillance by putting the hat on his dog. This staff member was subsequently fired, as the dog had, apparently, been thinking bad things.
Future iterations of the technology may be able to deliver larger, more painful electric shocks if independent thought is detected and fatal ones if staff members appear to be unionising.
First published 9 Jun 2023
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