By Emily K. Dalton / @Sigh__Borg
June 3rd, 2020, will remain a polarizing date worthy of celebration and contemplation. Around the world, social media streams were dominated by the successful launch of Falcon 9 by SpaceX, as well as international protests against police brutality.
Naturally, these two major political events in tandem catalyzed further curiosity into the other business ventures The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, is involved in including the Neurotechnology company he founded in 2016, Neuralink, whose premier product will be the brain computer interface aka BCI.
A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO THE BCI:
THE NEURALINK TIMELINE:
Musk as an individual, has been open about his belief that humans must merge with technology over the past years although he was rather vague about how this would be accomplished.
Finally, in 2019 Neuralink live streamed their public announcement, in addition to releasing a white paper in July 2019, documenting their work with the BCIs.
In February 2020, Musk announced that Neuralink had implemented an "awesome" update. Additionally, less than a month before the launch of SpaceX, Musk joined podcaster Joe Rogan and mused that he believed “they'll be putting these implants in humans within the year”. The process of having the invasive BCI designed by Neuralink installed into your brain is described as a rather casual procedure:
So are BCIs really that "awesome"?
Currently, there are 21 commercially available BCI products across 17 different brands available. The notion of controlling your environment via your thoughts is no longer science fiction.
BCIs have shown to have immense potential in improving the quality of life. For example, they help restore function to the severely disabled as well as those who have suffered strokes, head trauma, and additional disorders.
Ultimately, it is hard to deny how impressive this type of technology is after watching a video of a man who's paralyzed, drive a race car with his mind.
LET’S FACE IT.
IBM recently announced it would no longer conduct or deploy facial recognition technology due to the various human rights violations associated with it.
As one of the first companies to announce this during a state of international unrest due to the protests over the murder of George Floyd, IBM illuminates the lack of trust embedded into the industry to the point where a company has to cease development due to its inability to resist exploiting human beings.
HENCE, IT’S FAIR TO SAY GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, OR NEURALINK CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH YOUR FACE - LET ALONE MAINTAIN INTEGRITY WITHIN THE BRAIN COMPUTER INTERFACE SPACE.
Ultimately, I Suggest: Mind Your Mind.
The promise of BCIs goes beyond restoring standard quality of life to enhancing the human user experience. Consequently, the application of BCIs in the gaming, virtual reality, and entertainment industry is on the rise.
Neurogaming appears to be the next wave in the BCI industry as gamers are typically younger and born into the digital age. This demographic being a highly viable future target audience has shifted research in regards to BCI application from outside the medical context into the mainstream. This emerging technology could fundamentally change the way that you experience life.
Although you could always obtain a DIY BCI, to maintain some degree of autonomy in the digital age an idea that has attracted a large degree of attention on Kickstarter.
However, if we take a moment to step out of the silicon valley hype cycle around BCIs to reflect, it’s apparent that we need to design an internet around us, not augment ourselves to adapt to it.
