miracle cure or threat to humanity

Implantation of unregulated artificial intelligence chips (by type Neuralink from Elon Musk) into the human brain can threaten the privacy of its wearer. In particular, there is a risk that the neuroimplant will want to read the wearer’s thoughts or even influence them.

“It’s neurotech on steroids [имеется в виду применение ИИ]”, — stated Mariagrazia Squizziarini, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Specialist, in an interview with French journalists.

Due to artificial intelligence significantly enhances the field of neurotechnology, some experts call for increased caution in its application. The technology has “far-reaching and potentially harmful” possibilities, said Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO Associate Director-General for Social and Human Sciences.

“We are on our way to a world where computer algorithms will allow us to decode people’s mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms that underlie intentions, emotions and decisions,” Ramos explained. Meanwhile, António Guterres, UN Secretary General, noted that technology is “advancing at supersonic speeds.”

While technology can change the lives of sick people for the better, it can come at a price. UNESCO representatives contacted with Hannah Galvin, a woman with epilepsy who had a neurotechnical device installed in her brain to detect seizures and give advance warning of them so that the woman had time to lie down before they began.

According to Galvin, the device only worsened her life. She had up to 100 seizures a day, which did nothing but activate the neuroimplant. “I felt that there was someone in my head besides me. I became more and more depressed. I didn’t like it at all,” said Galvin, who eventually disposed of the device.

However, the potential of the technology is enormous. It can help the blind to see and the paralyzed to walk, so it definitely needs to be mastered, but with great care.

“Neurotechnologies can help people solve many health problems, but they can also access and manipulate the brain and generate information about our personality and our emotions,” said Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO.

They can threaten our rights to human dignity, freedom of thought and privacy, ”Azule continued her thought, proposing to limit the use of such technologies at the global level.

It is not clear how many more cases with similar neuroimplants have been recorded by researchers around the world, because it sounds creepy, but not very believable. Nevertheless, there is a precedent, so now scientists will certainly take into account and monitor this aspect in the work of neuroimplants too.