Science fiction books have been playing with it for a long time.

I can't help but think of John Wyndam's The Chrysalids. Have you read it? In a post apocalyptic world (post nuclear) they kill children born with deformities to keep the bloodlines pure, as well as mutated crops. Some people with genetic mutations end up or escape to The Badlands, a kind of borderland on the edge of this fanatic community.

The one thing they can't detect is telepathy, however, and the children who have it keep it a secret from the others. When they are discovered, they go on the run.

The idea of this new type of human is quite positive - greater empathy, ability to work together etc.

So you're in love with her?' she went on. A word again ... When the minds have learnt to mingle, when no thought is wholly one's own, and each has taken too much of the other ever to be entirely himself alone; when one has reached the beginning of seeing with a single eye, loving with a single heart, enjoying with a single joy; when there can be moments of identity and nothing is separate save bodies that long for one another ... When there is that, where is the word? There is only the inadequacy of the word that exists. 'We love one another,' I said.

The microchip, however, is nightmarish indeed. We are already losing our ability to think, our uniqueness. If this eventuated, I'd be hiding out in the hills somewhere - in the badlands with other technologically deformed folk.