Bleak cyborg future from brain-computer interfaces if we're not careful
Jul 2021, phys.org
"For some of these patients, these devices become such an integrated part of themselves that they refuse to have them removed at the end of the clinical trial," said Rylie Green, one of the authors. "It has become increasingly evident that neurotechnologies have the potential to profoundly shape our own human experience and sense of self."Aside from these potentially bleak mental and physiological side effects, intellectual property concerns are also an issue and may allow private companies that develop eBCI technologies to own users' neural data.
In case you're having hard time imagining how this works, here's an example:
They monitor you for a few years, like while in art school, but offering you their device for free, and you use it to augment your technical skills, but meanwhile the fine print says that the neural network you develop in the meantime while using their device must be "given" to them, and so they erase the network -- your network -- from your own brain, and they proceed to make money off your creative brain patterns, and you now have to either start over from scratch, or pay them for your own brain creativity.
via American Institute of Physics: "Mind the gap: State-of-the-art technologies and applications for EEG-based brain-computer interfaces", APL Bioengineering, DOI: 10.1063/5.0047237
"It's bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free."
Image source: Brainless Chicken Matrix, Andre Ford, 2022 [soft paywall at wired.co.uk] - Dude removed their brains and put them in a body harness to allow us to farm them like soul-less meatbags without the suffering.
