In rise of brain implants, blurring lines between man, machine?
It sounds far-fetched: With a computer chip implanted in their brains, humans could boost their intelligence with instant access to the internet, write articles like this one by thinking it rather than聽typing, and communicate with each other without saying a thing 鈥嬧�撀爓hat entrepreneur Elon Musk calls 鈥渃onsensual telepathy.鈥�
Of course, it鈥檚 not really telepathy. It鈥檚 radio waves transmitting data from one chip to another. And it鈥檚 still futuristic. But it raises important ethical questions, as academic researchers and industry scientists pursue a path that could lead to the merging of human thought with artificial intelligence through the routine use of brain implants.
This week, Mr. Musk鈥檚 company Neuralink revealed details of how its technology has pushed forward that future.聽
Why We Wrote This
With every major technological breakthrough comes the inevitable question: Should we, just because we can? That鈥檚 top of mind as the idea of linking brains to computers approaches reality.
鈥淚t is a big jump,鈥� says Gy枚rgy Buzs谩ki, a neuroscientist at New York University鈥檚 Langone Medical Center. Other scientists have pioneered many of the techniques that Neuralink has used. 鈥淲hat is impressive is making an industrialized version of this procedure,鈥� eventually perhaps creating a product that could speed the spread of the technology.
The entry of companies 鈥撀燼nd especially the flow of venture capital into the field 鈥撀爎aises some important ethical issues.聽While some wrestle with big philosophical questions like the further blurring of boundaries between man and machine,聽scientists are focused on the more immediate questions of patient safety and corporate priorities.
For radically different reasons, doctors, academic researchers, and industry scientists are moving to plant increasingly sophisticated technology into the brain.
A flurry of new research
For doctors and many academics, the goal is to mitigate the effects of disease. For some four decades, they have worked on implants that stimulate portions of the brain to treat the symptoms of Parkinson鈥檚, for example, and depression. More than 100,000 patients worldwide now have these implants. The systems are relatively straightforward. They zap the brain with small amounts of electricity.
Medical researchers are now working on more sophisticated systems that can detect and record when the brain鈥檚 neurons fire and, hopefully, interpret what it means. Early work with rats and monkeys suggests paralyzed people could move a limb or control a computer to be able to communicate.
A host of companies are moving in to supply this medical market with implants carrying 100 or so electrodes. Neuralink has created a 3,000-electrode implant that it says it can scale up to 10,000 electrodes. That jump in electrodes should allow its system to capture far more neuron activity.聽
The company also showed off a robot that can connect the electrodes to the brain more accurately than a human can. Mr. Musk wants permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to have one of his chips implanted in a human patient by the end of next year.
The role of private companies in this kind of research and development is controversial.聽On the one hand, the companies can routinize products and services that improve quality control and, thus, safety. And the influx of funds can speed up the research and deployment of devices, researchers and neuroscientists say. On the other hand, by focusing on products and profits, the companies risk giving a lower priority to patient safety.
That鈥檚 one reason Fran莽ois Berger, a neuro-oncologist now at a teaching hospital in Grenoble, France, left his job as director of a public-private partnership known as Clinatec. The safeguards for patients in the entrepreneurial environment weren鈥檛 high enough, he said in a 2018 interview. 鈥淲e have an obligation to a slow science.鈥�
鈥淭he thing that worries me is if they make a bad mistake,鈥� says John Donoghue, a widely recognized neuroscientist, now at Brown University, who founded an early startup to work on computer-brain interfaces. 鈥淲hen somebody does something wrong, it can shut down the enthusiasm for the entire field, even when it鈥檚 not warranted.鈥�
Humans in a race with A.I.?
The medical market is now large enough for companies to make a profit, Dr. Donoghue says. But some visionaries, like Mr. Musk, dream of a much larger market sometime in the future where ordinary people might opt for a brain implant to boost their intelligence in the way some now have their eyes lasered to improve their eyesight. For him, such technology is imperative if humanity is going to keep up with artificial intelligence.
鈥淓ven in a benign A.I. scenario, we will be left behind,鈥� he said at Neuralink鈥檚 coming-out presentation Tuesday in San Francisco. But 鈥渨ith a high-bandwith brain-machine interface, I think we can actually go along for the ride and we can effectively have the option of merging with A.I.鈥�
聽鈥淚t鈥檚 different worlds,鈥� says Helen Mayberg, a neurologist at Mount Sinai in New York who pioneered the use of deep-brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression. To her, the imperative to move forward is clear: She says she gets multiple emails a day from people diagnosed with the disease wanting to receive the technology.
鈥淲hy are we talking about enhancement [of people who are well] when we鈥檙e not doing such a great job of even having delivery of care and parity of mental-health services?鈥� she asks. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a disconnect for me.鈥�
And it may be a longer way off than many of the optimists believe. Even with the advances in A.I., linking it with a human will require solving multiple problems, including such mundane things as finding materials capable of functioning in a body for a decade or more, says Dr. Donoghue. Then there鈥檚 the market challenge: Will the technology add enough value that people will really want it?聽 聽聽
鈥淚 use my phone for my short-term memory; I don鈥檛 need it plugged into my brain to do that,鈥� he says. 鈥淵our mouth works at about the speed of thought. So you鈥檙e going to have to beat that [with an implant]. And you could be a little faster, but are you going to go around with all this hardware in your head just to be able to interact with your computer 20 percent faster? 鈥� I think we are really a long way off before you get a good enough interface that it鈥檚 going to give you a significant advantage.鈥�
Other technologies, such as plastic surgery, have moved from strictly helping accident victims to enhancing body features for anyone. 鈥淚s it fair to society that some people look nicer because they can afford it? I don鈥檛 know,鈥� says Dr. Buzs谩ki, the New York University neuroscientist. In the same vein, he says the spread of brain implants 鈥渉as to be discussed by a wider group of people鈥� than just scientists.
If nothing else, the presentations by companies like Neuralink will help bring that discussion to the fore.聽But the corporate activity also shows the risk that profit motives could dominate the discourse.
鈥淚 honestly believe in the separation between money and academic research,鈥� says Dr. Buzs谩ki, who has worked in both worlds. 鈥淎nd the reason for that is that the moment money is involved, then that controls a lot. I鈥檓 not saying it鈥檚 overriding morals, but history says [that] most of the time it does.鈥�
