This post is a part of our Bioethics in the News series
By Laura Cabrera, PhD
The search for a brain device capable of capturing recordings from thousands of neurons has been a primary goal of the government-sponsored BRAIN initiative. To succeed would require developing flexible materials for the electrodes, miniaturization of the electronics and fully wireless interaction. Yet this past summer, it was corporately funded Facebook and Elon Musk’s Neuralink that stepped forward with announcements regarding their respective technological investment to access and read our human brains.
Elon Musk, the eccentric technology entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla and Space X, made a big announcement while at the California Academy of Sciences. This time it was not about commercial space travel or plans to revolutionize city driving. Instead Musk presented advances on a product under development at his company Neuralink. The product features a sophisticated neural implant which aims to record the activities of thousands of neurons in the brain, and write signals back into the brain to provide sensory feedback. Musk mentioned that this technology would be available to humans as early as next year.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook is also funding brain research to develop a non-invasive wearable device that would allow people to type by simply imagining that they are talking. The company plans to demonstrate a prototype system by the end of the year.
These two corporate announcements raise important questions. Should we be concerned about the introduction of brain devices that have the capacity to read thousands of neurons and then send signals to our brains? The initial goal for both products is medical, to help paralyzed individuals use their thoughts to control a computer or smartphone, or in the case of Facebook to help those with disabling speech impairments. However, these products also are considered to be of interest to healthy individuals who might wish to “interact with today’s VR systems and tomorrow’s AR glasses.” Musk shared his vision to enable humans to “merge” with Artificial Intelligence (AI), enhancing them to reach superhuman intelligence levels.
Time will tell whether or not these grand visions, that currently veer into science fiction, will be matched by scientific progress. However, if they ultimately deliver on their promise, the products could change the lives of those affected by paralysis and other physical disabilities. Yet, if embraced by healthy individuals such technologies could radically transform what it means to be human. There are of course sound reasons to remain skeptical that they will be used. First off there are safety issues to be considered when implanting electrodes in the brain, including damage to the vasculature surrounding the implant as well as tissue response surrounding the device. And that is what is currently known about inserting brain-computer interfaces with only a couple of electrode channels. Consider what might happen with thousands of electrodes. There remain simply too many unknowns to endorse this intervention for human use in the next year or so. There also are salient issues regarding brain data collection, storage, and use, including concerns connected to privacy and ownership.
Beyond these concerns, we have to think about what happens when such developments are spearheaded by private companies. Privately funded development is at odds with the slow, careful approach to innovation that most medical developments rely upon, where human research subject regulations and safety measures are clear. It is the “move fast and break things” pace that energizes start-up companies and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. The big swings at the heart of these entrepreneurial tech companies also bring considerable risks. When addressing sophisticated brain interfaces, the stakes are quite high. These products bring to mind scenarios from Black Mirror, a program that prompts a host of modern anxieties about technology. On one hand, the possibility of having a brain implant that allows hands-free device interaction seems exciting, but consider the level of information we then would be giving to these companies. It is one thing to track how individuals react to a social media post by clicking whether they “like” it or not, or by how many times it has been shared. It is another thing altogether to capture which parts of the brain are being activated without us having clicked anything. Can those companies be trusted with a direct window to our thoughts, especially when they have a questionable track record when it comes to transparency and accountability? Consider how long it took for Facebook to start addressing the use of customer’s personal information. It remains unclear just how much financial support Facebook is providing to its academic partners, or whether or not volunteers are aware of Facebook’s involvement in the funding-related research.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration as well as academic partners to these enterprises may act as a moderating force on the tech industry, yet recent examples suggest that those kinds of checks and balances oftentimes fail. Thus, when we hear about developments by companies such as Facebook and Neuralink trying to access the thoughts in our brains, we need to hold on to a healthy skepticism and continue to pose important challenging questions.
Laura Cabrera, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences and the Department of Translational Neuroscience at Michigan State University.
Join the discussion! Your comments and responses to this commentary are welcomed. The author will respond to all comments made by Thursday, September 26, 2019. With your participation, we hope to create discussions rich with insights from diverse perspectives.
You must provide your name and email address to leave a comment. Your email address will not be made public.
More Bioethics in the News from Dr. Cabrera: Should we improve our memory with direct brain stimulation?; Can brain scans spot criminal intent?; Forgetting about fear: A neuroethics perspective
References
- AFP Relax News. 2018. Elon Musk bores tunnel to revolutionize city driving. Yahoo News. https://news.yahoo.com/elon-musk-bores-tunnel-revolutionize-city-driving-060713761.html.
- BRAIN Priority Areas. The BRAIN Initiative. https://braininitiative.nih.gov/strategic-planning/brain-priority-areas.
- Cabrera, LC., Sadle, C. and Purcell, E. 2019. Ethical considerations of high-density electrode arrays. Nature Biomedical Engineering 3(8): 586-589. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-019-0407-2.
- Clausen, J., Fetz, E., Donoghue, J., Ushiba, J., Spörhase, U., Chandler, J., et al. 2017. Help, hope, and hype: Ethical dimensions of neuroprosthetics. Science 356(6345), 1338–1339. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1338.
- Goering, S. and Yuste, R. 2016. On the Necessity of Ethical Guidelines for Novel Neurotechnologies. Cell 167(4):882-885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2016.10.029.
- Imagining a new interface: Hands-free communication without saying a word. 2019. Tech@facebook. https://tech.fb.com/imagining-a-new-interface-hands-free-communication-without-saying-a-word/.
- Markoff, J. 2019, Elon Musk’s Neuralink Wants ‘Sewing Machine-Like’ Robots to Wire Brains to the Internet. The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/32txxYR.
- 2019. Neuralink Launch Event . YouTube. https://youtu.be/r-vbh3t7WVI.
- Regalado, A. 2019, Facebook is funding brain experiments to create a device that reads your mind. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614034/facebook-is-funding-brain-experiments-to-create-a-device-that-reads-your-mind/.
- Salatino, JW., Ludwig, KA., Kozai, TDY, and Purcell, EK. 2017. Glial responses to implanted electrodes in the brain. Nature Biomedical Engineering 1(11): 862-877. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-017-0154-1.
- Yuste, R., Goering, S., Arcas, B. A. Y., Bi, G., Carmena, J. M., Carter, A., et al. 2017. Four ethical priorities for neurotechnologies and AI. Nature 551(7679), 159–163. https://www.nature.com/news/four-ethical-priorities-for-neurotechnologies-and-ai-1.22960.
MSU Bioethics 
Hi Dr. Cabrera, your post about whether we should we trust giant tech companies and entrepreneurs with reading our brains was captivating. It also stirred a lot of mixed thoughts of mine as a future clinical social worker. I am a current student in the MSW program at MSU. I had a couple questions for you in regards to your bioethics post.
The first thing that came to mind for me was the ethical dilemmas for a person’s privacy. When a patient receives the sophisticated neural implant they will understand the purpose when they agree to the surgery. However, will they fully consent and understand the implications and consequences of allowing a company to read and record their thoughts daily in years to come? Please let me know your thoughts.
Another question I have is the economics aspect. Are you aware of the cost of the implant? Also, would the company pay for any complications or long term negative effects of the implant if needs be?
When you found out about the neural implants were you aware of any previous history of a different company trying to do the same thing? Was this study a replica of a previous study?
From a politics standpoint are there any organizations against the neural implants, if so why? Is there any other political support other than Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook? Is there any other endorsements? And lastly, what are the organizations that are for the neural implant reasons and why?
Thank you for your response and time.
Sincerely Tiffany Latreille
Dear Tiffany, Thank you so much for your questions.
Let me start with your first question about privacy, as with many of the apps we currently use very few of us “fully consent and understand the implications and consequences” of all our data, so unfortunately it is unlikely that that would change with these types of implants. The new European directive on this issue has motivated some companies in North America and elsewhere to follow similar ways to inform users and use data.
The economic aspect is a very important consideration. For now, these specific implants are still under development so the costs are unknown. It is important to consider that a big cost is not only the device itself but also the procedure as it is likely to involve anesthesia and medical expertise (at least for the Neuralink one). While the cost of the technology does not need to be really high, we have plenty of examples where device costs are really high just because marketers know that people will buy them.
Your question about whether the company pays for any complications or long term negative effects of the implant is a tricky one. This will all be part of how the informed consent is set up, and also as in the case of medical devices that have malfunctioned in the past, sometimes it can take several years in court before a company will pay… so this is an important area but one where I think there are still many unknowns.
This is not a replica of previous studies, it just happens to be that there have been other companies and federal agencies with similar goals, each one developing their own prototypes/models for similar types of implants.
Finally, regarding your last block of questions, there are certainly other groups supporting, and groups against these type of developments. But that is an area that I haven’t really looked into it.
Thank you for reading the post and for your really important questions!