With the latest and coming wave of neurotech devices, the truth is that your brain may need a lawyer
We observe (at a fastidious distance) the travails of Elon Musk’s Neuralink technology, his bid to connect wires to brains. This promises to remedy speech disabilities at one end, and enable technotelepathy at the other (a connected human moving a computer mouse by Neuralink was announced by Musk - though not independently verified yet - at the end of Jan).
Vox’s Future Perfect column informs us that neurotech needn’t be as surgically invasive as Musk’s devices:
Already, there are AI-powered brain decoders that can translate into text the unspoken thoughts swirling through our minds, without the need for surgery — although this tech is not yet on the market.
In the meantime, you can buy lots of devices off Amazon right now that would record your brain data (like the Muse headband, which uses EEG sensors to read patterns of activity in your brain, then cues you on how to improve your meditation). Since these aren’t marketed as medical devices, they’re not subject to federal regulations; companies can collect — and sell — your data.
With Meta developing a wristband that would read your brainwaves and Apple patenting a future version of AirPods that would scan your brain activity through your ears, we could soon live in a world where companies harvest our neural data just as 23andMe harvests our DNA data.
These companies could conceivably build databases with tens of millions of brain scans, which can be used to find out if someone has a disease like epilepsy even when they don’t want that information disclosed — and could one day be used to identify individuals against their will.
Eeek. Vox goes on to report that, at the US state level at least, laws are being prepared and pushed for that will protect individuals’ brain-activities from being misused and exploited. They cite Rafael Yuste, a Columbia University neuroscientist chastened by his own research into the controllability of rat brains, who has set up a group of experts known as the Morningside Group (who have become The Neurorights Foundation):
The Morningside group published a Nature paper making four policy recommendations, which Yuste later expanded to five. Think of them as new human rights for the age of neurotechnology:
1. Mental privacy: You should have the right to seclude your brain data so that it’s not stored or sold without your consent.
2. Personal identity: You should have the right to be protected from alterations to your sense of self that you did not authorize.
3. Free will: You should retain ultimate control over your decision-making, without unknown manipulation from neurotechnologies.
4. Fair access to mental augmentation: When it comes to mental enhancement, everyone should enjoy equality of access, so that neurotechnology doesn’t only benefit the rich.
5. Protection from bias: Neurotechnology algorithms should be designed in ways that do not perpetuate bias against particular groups.
There is a positive take on neurotech - not that it will enable telepathy, the sharing of each others exact thoughts, but that it may open up new kind of connection between us. This is the view of Andy Clark in Aeon last year:
We argue that the prospects for good old-fashioned telepathy [GOFT] are poor. GOFT requires our thoughts to have a common format, such that the thought of one person is understandable to another. The chances that such a format exists are remote. And trying to establish it by using natural language largely defeats the purpose of telepathy, turning it into little more than fancy texting.
But despite our pessimism regarding the direct transmission of thoughts or experiences, the prospect of adding new direct brain-to-brain channels is an exciting one. By providing multiple new channels of this kind, our plastic brains may be ‘let loose’ to discover new and potent ways to coordinate practical actions.
Our current accomplishments in art, science and culture required the efficient coordination made possible by natural language. New brain-to-brain channels have the potential to augment those existing capabilities, turning us into super-cooperators, and transforming life and society in ways we cannot yet imagine.