Brain-computer interfaces are all kinds of horrifying for numerous reasons.
The normalization of brain surveillance would create a new category of data for corporations to collect and use unscrupulously. It would eliminate any pretense of privacy.
Any device capable of translating your inner monologue into text would also be capable of reading your mind, including your intrusive thoughts. Have you ever stood on a high ledge and heard a little voice in the back of your head saying jump? What about when you've ridden in a car with the window rolled down and wondered what would happen if you tossed your smartphone out onto the highway at sixty miles an hour? How about when you walk past a black woman and that little devil on your shoulder goes "Filthy, fat, hairy nigger!" but your face cocks a disingenuous, faux-courteous smile. Now, all of that can be shared with everyone, with no filter at all. And, of course, since
everyone experiences intrusive thoughts at one point or another in their lives, any system that gathers people's internal experiences to try and predict future criminality will categorize all humans who are implanted with these devices as "latently criminal".
Furthermore, any BCI capable of treating depression or other personality disorders is also capable of manipulating mood in a context-sensitive way, to make you feel good or bad about specific things at specific times. I must stress, this is already something that can be done with primitive DBS electrodes.
The ability to give anyone, anywhere, euphoria or anxiety about anything, at any time, is a tyrant's wet dream come true. You could make someone experience utter bliss at living in a favela and eating crickets, or make them boo outsider political candidates without even realizing why.
Ethical issues concerning brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) have already received a considerable amount of attention. However, one particular form of BCI has not received the attention that it deserves: Affective BCIs that allow for the detection and stimulation of affective states. This paper...
link.springer.com
This is really, really dangerous stuff. There aren't any regulations in place to prevent BCIs from being used unethically for mass social control, because the technology is so hypothetical to begin with.
Neuralink is an impossible fantasy. It will never happen.
Neuralink is already in the process of being completely outdone by DARPA. They want to do something
like Neuralink, but without surgery, and with much higher resolution, using nanoparticles that cross the blood-brain barrier and are energized wirelessly using near-field resonant coupling, far-field RF, light, and/or ultrasound.
Some of the most exotic research involving magnetism is sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA. One of their programs, literally, boggles the mind as it delves into areas once [...]
magneticsmag.com
There are six teams working on this at Battelle, Rice, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, PARC, and Teledyne. The military want a device you wear like a helmet that interfaces with these things, supposedly allowing troops to have video feeds piped from drones and directly into their heads, among other things.
If you actually could do that, then you would also necessarily have enough fine control over neurons to affect mood. It would be trivial, at that point, to have soldiers slaughter civilians, even those of their own nation, without being inclined to defect or desert at all. BCIs implanted in the heads of soldiers would make it trivially easy for the ruling class to dehumanize any target population of choice, in fact.
The title of the Black Mirror episode Men Against Fire is actually based on the book by Brigadier General Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, which stated that no more than one in four soldiers actually fired their weapons while in contact with the enemy during WWII. Many soldiers, when faced with the decision to shoot directly at another human being, will instead aim high, not wanting the guilt of another person's death on their conscience.
Imagine if you had the ability to tweak soldiers' minds so that 100% of them fired their weapons
directly at the target, not feeling anything at all except absolute, unrestrained hostility.
These cunts researching BCIs are casually opening Pandora's Box right in front of us. Instead of being rightly horrified, people who don't understand the full implications of the tech are cheering it on, believing that Elon Musk will make their waifus real and will allow all of us to Sword Art Online FullDive and fuck them with our virtual dicks.
Our jobs will be the least of our concerns if this technology becomes commonplace.
