Hackers are excited. Surveillance advertising corporations are elated. Political thought-police are enraptured.
China has just approved the world’s first brain-computer chip.
And they’ve beaten billionaire tech-bro and MAGA evangelist Elon Musk to market.
The coin-sized device, called NEO, is the first surgical implant to pass clinical trials for commercial sale.
Version one is optimised to enhance the nervous system of patients suffering spinal cord injuries and paralysis. It’s about to enter mass production for the Chinese state-run health system.
But the Chinese Communist Party and Musk see this as just the first step on a path towards super-productive (and compliant) human-cyborgs.
Musk has not been backward in coming forward about the technology’s benefits.
“Restoring control of people who are tetraplegics and restoring sight, I think, are pretty big deals,” he told an event in Israel last month.
“They’re sort of what I might call Jesus-level technologies.”
His brain-implant start-up Neuralink promises users the ability to perform routine tasks using thought control, such as typing and moving a mouse.
Reversing paralysis, restoring sight and raising the dead remain in the realm of theology.
But that’s not incorporeal as it once was.
Brain-chip advocates, however, go even further. They envisage a future in which everyday citizens are endowed with digital telepathy and telekinesis.
Musk, a staunch pro-Trump Make America Great Again activist, has also floated the idea of brain chips ending the “Woke Mind Virus”. That’s all related to the technology’s potential to store (and rewrite) memories and treat psychological conditions.
“Brain implants may sound dystopian, but they are a promising part of neuroscience research,” argues Griffith University cybersecurity expert Dr David Tuffley.
But the technology will “theoretically allow hackers to access sensitive neural data, such as patients’ thoughts and memories,” he adds.
Rise of the cyborgs
“We’re on the cusp of the next major transition, the merger of humans and AI,” venture capitalist Scott Phoenix told a Vancouver TED talk in April.
“Someone you work with will get it first. And you’ll hold out for a while, the way you did with the smartphone. But eventually, you won’t.
“The advantages of integration will be hard to compete with.”
It’s a vision of the future shared by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and AI tech bro Peter Thiel.
Investment analytics firm Future Market Insights recently predicted the current $490 million industry will expand to some $1.7 billion by 2035.
A lot of money is at stake.
As is the future of humanity.
So, who actually owns the data extracted from a brain will be a critical issue.
But that’s likely the price that dependent customers will have to pay.
Brain chips could improve the lives of more than 3 billion people with neurological conditions, especially those related to movement and speech. But they also have potential for those with depression, epilepsy, stroke, and Parkinson’s disease.
But it is a process that captures the most intimate of personal thoughts.
Even more so than the AI-connected microphone in your bedroom, and the telemetry-tracking internet-enabled sensors in your hip pocket.
Such data is already of immense value to multinational marketing and advertising interests. Like Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google,c and X.
And organised cybercrime.
“Hacking may also enable them to impair a patient’s cognitive functions such as the ability to concentrate, or even manipulate motor signals to affect how well they move,” Dr Tuffley adds.
“That’s a scary prospect, especially if these devices become more common.”
Brain fade
Brain-computer chips are not a done deal. Yet.
The challenge of inserting a mechanical device permanently into the body is immense.
The human immune system generates scars around foreign objects. Or it could reject them in a similar way to how it does with splinters.
Implants can also damage the tissues they touch.
Researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Shanghai-based Neuracle Technology have attempted to minimise these risks.
Their NEO device sits between the skull and the brain. It presses eight sensors against the patient’s dura mater (the protective outer layer of the brain) and connects these to nearby computers. A central processing hub does the work converting brainwaves into digital commands.
Some 36 patients have been trialling the implants. Reportedly with success.
That’s bad news for Musk’s brain-implant start-up Neuralink.
Its device is yet to receive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for general use, despite beginning human trials in 2024.
University of Technology Sydney brain-chip researcher Avinash Singh told the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Review that this was likely because the Chinese design is less invasive.
Neuralink’s N1 prototype must pierce the cerebral cortex to access brainwaves.
“Any kind of brain implant can cause physical damage that may affect how neighbouring brain regions work,” explains Dr Tuffley.
“For example, if there’s bleeding in a part of the brain that controls speech or movement, even a small blood clot could impair those functions. And while infections in the brain are rare, they can cause swelling and further complications if not immediately treated.”
The N1 is currently being trialled in nine patients.
“I tried writing my name for the first time in 20 years. I’m working on it,” trial participant Audrey Crews said in a post on X.
“It’s humbling to know my journey is helping Neuralink refine this technology, which could one day let millions control devices with their minds.”
