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Dear State Lawmaker,
I’m writing regarding Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain-computer interface, but I would like you to be equally concerned with non-invasive technologies, which are also capable of reading brain activity and matching brain scans to thoughts and behaviors.
It is absolutely essential that this technology be kept out of schools and workplaces.
Please act before it’s too late, because the tech is already creeping in. An enormous amount of data on mood and mindset is already available from the biometric devices many people wear on their wrists and fingers. This biometric data is being paired with the constant stream of information corporations have on our location, our purchases and online activities.
Considering the mountains of data collected on us, there ought to be a line drawn at invading our private thoughts.
We saw in the Cambridge Analytica scandal how vulnerable we are to social media manipulation—-and that’s without electrodes on our neural networks!
What if employers decided their staff might be more effective if they zapped their brains with weak electrical currents? The Pentagon thinks transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) boosts performance, but it could damage the brain and even cause seizures.
Non-invasive mind-reading tech is more advanced than most of us imagine. When you listen to a story, it can be decoded via noninvasive functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reconstruct what you heard.
Way back in 2011, scientists led by Jack Gallant at the University of California in Berkeley used fMRI to reconstruct clips of films people had just watched! Who knows what’s possible now!
The use of deep brain stimulation, in which people have electrodes implanted deep into their brains to control Parkinson’s symptoms and other conditions, has already raised concerns about its impact on patients’ personal identity, with some stating that they no longer feel like themselves after the surgery.
It’s only a matter of time before non-invasive brain-computer interfaces can accomplish the same thing.
This must be restricted to essential medical uses and otherwise banned.
Companies like Motif and PigPug are blurring the lines between what is medical and what is mind control by developing biofeedback brain-computer interfaces targeted at people with mental health, concentration and behavioral problems.
Please take action to address the urgent need for regulation.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
Your Name