I really don't want Neuralink putting electrodes in people's brains

Opinion warning. Opinions are expressed below, you can ignore, agree or disagree. At the end of the day they are just opinions and debate is the key to solutions.

I read about this today: https://neuralink.com/blog/

Animal experimentation aside (yeah I don’t agree with that either) I really don’t want a Neuralink or Brain Machine Interface (BMI) from a private company. It actually horrifies me.

It’s not technophobia, derision of its potential, a rejection of progress or in anyway related to the idea of surgery.

I also know I am not even the initial target market. (I am not paralysed) I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that is like.

But the interests driving the direction of this technology really make it difficult to consider.

This is completely unrelated to any personal disdain of Elon Musk, he has done some impressive stuff and yes, some not so impressive stuff. It isn’t related to Neuralink specifically, either, they were just the catalyst for this train of thought.

I just don’t think responsible, equitable and consistent implementation of technology such as this should be trusted to a private company.

We will at some stage potentially be trusting the interpretation and translation of neural activity for large swathes of the population to a private company. A company with shareholders, incentive structures, boards and CEO’s. A company with a grounding in profit and continued growth in profit. The interests of Neuralink and its like doesn’t lie in serving those they implant this product in. It lies in dividends, return on investment and profit.

How can we trust them to act responsibly? How can we ensure they act ethically?

We simply can’t.

This device represents a unique paradigm. Even devices like cochlear implants don’t represent the kind of interface that BMI implies. These devices will in some cases represent the only gateway groups of individuals have to the world. Should we trust industry with that? How can we verify that what these devices are communicating represents the true intentions of those individuals?

It’s also not difficult to envision greater abdication of control to these systems as they become more ubiquitous. Can we trust industry with this? This doesn’t even begin to consider the potential harm that inevitable BMI device compatibility and DRM issues could cause.

This doesn’t even begin to tackle the potential for bias, exclusion or any of the other issues we are facing today with technology. There are honestly too many potential circumstances to cover in a single post or a series of posts for that matter. But we are already living in a world subject to unrestrained corporate influence and lack of responsibility when it comes to technology, I can hardly imagine BMI being better.

Is there an answer?

I honestly can’t say. I know industry isn’t the answer but I hesitate to say government is the answer, because by and large this has been shown to be false. I also can’t say if a combination of the two is the answer, because this has been even more disastrous in the past. Unfortunately, given the difficulty doing this right poses I have to wonder if there is truly an answer. Potentially responsible industry, not driven by profit might be a good middle ground. I guess time will tell, but I certainly won’t be lining up to get a BMI any time in the future.