AFP
Can commercial companies simply place chips in people’s heads? Neuroscientists are calling for a social debate on that question after the news that Elon Musk’s company has successfully tested a brain implant in a human.
Placing chips in people’s heads has been done for medical reasons for some time. For example, scientists managed to get paralyzed people to communicate via implants. But commercial companies are increasingly making use of the technology. This also applies to Musk’s company Neuralink.
So neuroscientist Pim Haselager from Radboud University advocates regulation. Because there is a chance that “cowboys like Elon Musk” will do wrong things with it. “It’s about the brain.”
We can increasingly explain what you want, think, hope and desire.
Pim Haseleger
It is not entirely clear what Neuralink plans to do with the technology. It remains just innocent experiments, such as one aap who controls a ping-pong bat with his brain? Or does he really want to do something good like making paralyzed people walk again, curing depression or giving the blind their sight back?
Brain reading
Perhaps the most negative scenario is that the wealthy entrepreneur is after brain reading. In other words: reading minds with the aim of predicting our behavior. And if we go one step further: direct our behavior.
“Thought guessing can be very helpful,” says Haselager. “For example, if you want to communicate with someone who is paralyzed.” But if ‘healthy’ people get chips in their heads, mental privacy will be at stake, he fears.
The British writer George Orwell once wrote that the only thing you can really keep a secret is inside your skull. But even that is now questionable, according to Haselager. “We are increasingly able to explain what you want, think, hope and desire.”
If brain chips become common in the distant future, companies will benefit greatly from that information. “They can then look at brain processes to predict behavior.”
Controlling the brain
It may even go further: there are already experiments in which the technicians behind the chips can control the brain. This does not yet happen in humans, but it does happen in rats.
Neuroscientist Lennart Verhagen from Radboud University explains what exactly Musk’s company has done:
Walking and talking again thanks to brain implants, but will that be it?
Should the government ban entrepreneurs like Musk from making brain implants? No, says Pim Haselager, not completely. “Companies must be able to develop and conduct research. But on the other hand, we must protect people. We are lagging behind in the social debate about this.”
It’s all a bit mysterious.
Nick Ramsey
American media are lyrical about Musk’s milestone. But at the UMC Utrecht they are a lot less impressed.
In 2015, neuroscientist Nick Ramsey was the first in the world to install a chip in a human brain. In the following years he repeated this several times. Yet the chip that Musk is now using is a lot more advanced.
Ramsey is skeptical of Musk. “I don’t think he’s interested in helping paralyzed people.” What does he want with it? “It’s all a bit mysterious. A very big and daring leap into the dark.”
Installing one chip is nice, but Neuralink needs a lot of money to expand and further develop the technology. Even for the richest man on earth it costs a lot of money, says Ramsey. Moreover, he wonders how many healthy people voluntarily have a chip placed in their brain. “I think people are reluctant.”
Typing without a thumb
One of the goals of Musk’s experiments appears to be to allow people to control computers and smartphones with their thoughts. If he manages to successfully develop that technique, he will have gold on his hands.
“I always tease my students about it,” Haselager says. “You are always so quick with those thumbs on those smartphones. But your children will laugh at you. They will see you on videos going back and forth with your thumbs. That is very old-fashioned, because they think directly about the device.”
2024-01-30 20:47:44
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