Last Tuesday, the South African billionaire Elon Musk He announced what would be the beginning of a new era: his company Neuralink implanted the first chip in a human.
It's certainly not the first chip to allow you to read a person's thoughts and interact with external devices. But still The financial muscle behind Kasturi goes far beyond universities Spin-offs Those who are already conducting clinical trials in this direction.
Furthermore, NeuraLing's mission is not only to put brain-computer technology at the service of people with disabling pathologies, but also to promote the enhancement of human capabilities as a step toward dehumanization.
[Los neurólogos desmontan el chip cerebral de Elon Musk: “Crea expectación con su amarillismo”]
The rise of brain-machine interfaces, known as BCI, has popularized the concept of neurorights, an extension of human rights applied to 21st-century scientific-technological advances and the resulting risks.
Neologism is older than it seems. Implicitly or overtly, neuroscience has been talked about for decades, but in recent years, as large scientific bodies have been created to map the human brain – brains and human brain projects – the discussion of neuroscience has increased. Emergency.
In 2017, the Spanish neurobiologist Rafael YusteThe ideologist of the American BRAIN project (initiated during Barack Obama's administration) explained Nature The Engage in the ethical debate generated by neurotechnologies With a view to its expansion from the scientific and medical field to consumer electronics.
[Rafael Yuste, el Nuevo ‘Ramón y Cajal’: “En 20 Años Se Podrá Manipular el Cerebro y Cambiar Tu ‘Yo'”]
As advances in the field accelerate, countless statements, positions, and consensus opinions have emerged, summarizing these neurological rights into five: Protection of personal identity, non-interference with freedom of decision-making, privacy of neural data, access to improve brain performance and protection against algorithmic bias.
“Not Elon Musk's chips, but language, vision, etc. can be reconstructed in a more limited way, at a higher quality, and there may be a leap from medical technology to commercial use,” explains Elon Musk. David EzpeletaQuirónsalud is a neurologist at Madrid Hospital and vice president of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN).
“More and more commercial devices are used to maintain attention, improve learning, control video games or even use your relationship in virtual reality, which can be purchased at large stores like Amazon and have very long user terms that people use. Say yes without looking. You give your neurodata to the company, and if you want it, you have to pay for it“.
Chile, a pioneer in neurological rights
This is not some assumption. Former Chilean senator Guido Girardi purchased a wireless helmet from Emotive in 2022 that connected him to a BCI so he could measure his performance to improve productivity.
The free version of the software does not allow you to import or export your neural activity: a Girardi license is required Premium. The former senator later requested that it be deleted, but the data no longer belonged to him.. The court agreed: the user must know what their data is to be used for and give express consent.
It is no coincidence that Girardi, along with Rafael Yuste, were the promoters of introducing a reform to the Chilean constitution to protect neurological rights. The Andean nation will be the first to make a move, but few will follow in its footsteps.
[“Alerta: armas psicotrónicas secretas atacan nuestras mentes y las controlan”]
“Its protection is already a reality in some countries, basically in Latin American countries,” it explains Again payan allakuria, Associate Professor of Administrative Law at the University of the Basque Country, “Current legal texts have been approved or are soon to be implemented.” These include Mexico, Brazil and the US state of Colorado.
In Europe, Spain has supported the Chilean initiative, “but it has not done so through the reform of its constitutional text, rather through the Charter of Digital Rights, therefore, not declaration or indication and binding.”
The use of technologies to read or control minds goes back even further, David Espeletta recalls. At the end of the 60s, a Spanish doctor living in the United States, Jose Manuel RodrÃguez, published it. Body control of the mind: Toward a psychocivilized societyA book in which he reported on his experiments to remotely influence the behavior of animals.
The most popular of them is the device EstimoSiver, a device connected to the bull's brainSpecifically the amygdala and hippocampus and, using the remote control, tried to attack him in anger and promptly derailed him.
Rodriguez was reportedly linked to the CIA, which was already developing remote mind control programs. The most famous of them is called MK Ultra and is one of the favorite stories of conspiracy theorists.
[La tecnologÃa china que preocupa a EEUU: asà han logrado hacer realidad la telepatÃa y la telequinesis]
During the 1950s and early 1970s, CIA operatives secretly experimented with drugs, hypnosis, or electroconvulsive therapy with the aim of conditioning, inducing amnesia, and breaking the will of participants who did not give their consent. They wouldn't have had it any other way: most of the program's operations involved torture.
“Neurological rights have been under attack throughout our lives,” says Espeleta. “Dictatorship, Stalinism, Nazism and Many parliamentary states use and use information and disinformation techniques that affect people's ability to make decisions“.
Now researchers, mainly neuroscientists and neurologists but also psychologists, philosophers, jurists, etc. They see important advances in studying and interpreting brain data.
The arrival of NeuraLink and its chip represents a step forward in the scope and risks of neurotechnology. “The ultimate goal is to have a complete integration of the human brain with neural activity by a computer that can be accessed, read, monitored and manipulated without much difficulty by the company providing the service,” says Again Bayan.
“It is not illusory that this data is being tradedThe judge cautions that “as in other forms of physical or digital media stored for strictly economic purposes, described as 'neurocapitalism',” the judge warns.
Technoposer
This need has become more urgent with the emergence of general or formative artificial intelligences such as ChatGPT, which learn at dizzying speeds to decode the brain's signal and translate it with astonishing naturalness.
“These advances don't yet have a direct clinical application, but the problem is that we know it can be done given the speed at which everything is taking place, and it's going to be widespread very quickly,” he says. Neurologist.
However, he does not believe in the “technology” displayed by entrepreneurs and experts (among them Elon Musk) who signed an open letter demanding a six-month deadline for the development of artificial intelligence. For the destruction of mankind which led to the development of the atomic bomb.
“No one conforms to the letter, and it's a disruptive technology. Language models continue to advance at a very rapid rate.” Ezpeleta et al propose the Hippocratic Physicians' Oath for companies: “A technical commitment by companies agreeing to fully respect intellectual property rights, respect clinical guidelines and handle brain data with sufficient security so that it can only be accessed for its intended purpose. Mind you, it's a lot more complicated than just saying the technology is coming!”
[Elon Musk va a por PayPal: X (Twitter) incorporará un nuevo servicio de pago entre usuarios este año]
Santiago MedianoSantiago Mediano Abogados, head of the Robotics, AI and Virtual and Augmented Reality section of the Madrid Bar Association, said the ban's purpose “is not clearly explained, and I don't know that the ban on BCI will decrease. The risks we face.”
The lawyer points out that these technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robotics or genetic editing, “are leading humanity to cross a threshold that allows us to take the evolution of the species into its own hands.”
The challenges posed by its use are “so much and They affect all of humanity so profoundly that, both now and in the future, a global and cross-cutting debate is necessary.Not only do politicians intervene, it is an anthropological, philosophical, ethical, medical, biological, economic, social, cultural and legal debate.
“Only in this way can we prevent decisions that affect us all, including future generations, from being left in the hands of a few whose interests and motives are hidden,” he continues.
