Human will Fight with Machine In Future, Rise of Brain Implant Test

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With every major technological leap comes a familiar question: should we do something simply because we can? That question feels especially urgent now that connecting human brains directly to computers is moving from theory to reality.

A robot designed to insert ultra-thin electrode-connected cables is shown in a still from a video released by Neuralink during a live-streamed event at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco on July 16, 2019.

From science fiction to engineering reality

It may sound far-fetched: a computer chip implanted in the brain could give people instant internet access, let them write articles simply by thinking, and enable wordless communication—what Elon Musk has called “consensual telepathy.”

Of course, it would not be true telepathy. Information would travel via radio waves between processors. The technology remains futuristic, yet it already raises serious ethical questions as researchers and companies explore the possibility of merging human thought with artificial intelligence through everyday brain implants.

This week, Mr. Musk’s company Neuralink unveiled technical details that bring that future closer.

“This is a significant leap,” says György Buzsáki, a neuroscientist at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. While other scientists developed many of the underlying methods, “what’s impressive is creating an industrialized version of the process,” he notes—one that could eventually speed up the technology’s wider adoption.

The entry of well-funded companies into the field raises important ethical issues. Beyond broad philosophical debates about the blurring line between humans and machines, researchers are focused on immediate concerns: patient safety and the priorities of commercial developers.

For very different reasons, physicians, academic scientists, and industry teams are all working to place sophisticated technology inside the human brain.

A flurry of new research

For doctors and many academic researchers, the goal is to ease the effects of disease. For more than four decades they have used brain implants that stimulate targeted areas to relieve symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and treatment-resistant depression. Today, more than 100,000 patients worldwide have received such devices. The current systems are relatively simple: they deliver small electrical pulses to the brain.

Medical researchers are now developing more advanced systems that can both record and interpret the firing patterns of brain cells. Early experiments in monkeys and rats suggest that paralyzed individuals may one day move a limb or control a computer simply by thinking.

A growing number of companies are entering this medical market with implants containing roughly 100 electrodes. Neuralink has developed a 3,000-electrode device that it aims to scale to 10,000 electrodes, greatly increasing the amount of neural activity it can capture. The company also demonstrated a surgical robot capable of inserting electrodes with greater precision than a human surgeon. Mr. Musk stated that he hopes to receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the first human implant by the end of 2026.

The involvement of private companies in this research is controversial. On one hand, corporate resources can improve quality control, safety, and the speed of development. On the other, profit-driven priorities may sometimes overshadow patient safety. That concern led François Berger, a neuro-oncologist at a teaching hospital in Grenoble, France, to leave his role leading a public-private partnership called Clinatec. “We have a responsibility to a science that is slow,” he said in a 2018 interview.

“What worries me is that if someone makes a serious mistake, it could shut down progress for the entire field—even when that reaction isn’t justified,” says John Donoghue, a leading neuroscientist at Brown University who founded an early brain-computer interface startup.

Humans in a race with A.I.?

The medical market is already large enough to support profitable businesses, Dr. Donoghue notes. Yet visionaries such as Mr. Musk envision a much larger future market in which healthy individuals might choose brain enhancements to boost cognitive performance—much as some people today opt for laser eye surgery. Musk argues that such technology will be essential if humanity is to keep pace with artificial intelligence.

“In a benign A.I. scenario, we will be left behind,” he said at Neuralink’s 2019 presentation in San Francisco. “With a high-bandwidth brain-machine interface, I think we can go along for the ride and effectively have the option of merging with A.I.”

“It’s different worlds,” says Helen Mayberg, a neurologist at Mount Sinai in New York who pioneered deep-brain stimulation for depression. She receives daily emails from patients seeking the technology and believes the immediate priority should be improving access to care rather than pursuing enhancement for healthy people.

Even if the technical hurdles of connecting brains to A.I. are overcome, major challenges remain—such as developing materials that can safely function inside the body for decades, Dr. Donoghue points out. There is also the practical question of whether the benefits will be compelling enough for people to accept implanted hardware.

“I already use my phone for short-term memory; I don’t need it plugged into my brain,” he says. “Your mouth works at roughly the speed of thought. You would have to beat that with an implant. Even if you could interact with a computer 20 percent faster, would you really want this hardware in your head? I think we are still a very long way from a port that offers a meaningful advantage.”

Other technologies, such as plastic surgery, began as treatments for injury and later expanded into elective enhancement. “It is fair to ask whether it is equitable that some people can afford to look better,” Dr. Donoghue observes. The same questions about fairness and access will need to be discussed by a much wider group than scientists alone.

The activities of companies like Neuralink are already bringing these issues into public view—while also highlighting the risk that commercial interests could shape the conversation.

“I firmly believe in keeping academic research separate from money,” says Dr. Buzsáki, who has worked in both sectors. “Once money is involved, it exerts a lot of control. History shows that most of the time it does.”

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