Neuroscience or Virtual Insanity? 'Musk's ultimate goal is a brain computer interface for everyone'
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 It's the claim of a medical breakthrough that's sparking huge hope and for some deep worries.
00:05 The same Elon Musk who owns Tesla, SpaceX and X, formerly Twitter, announcing over his
00:11 social media platform that his Neuralink company had successfully implanted its first computer
00:18 chip in the brain of a human.
00:21 Details are scant.
00:22 All we have to go on are a pair of tweets.
00:25 One which says that the patient is recovering well.
00:31 Initial results showing a promising neuron spike detection.
00:36 Musk calling the innovation telepathy.
00:38 That's the brand name.
00:40 It's aimed at paraplegics at first.
00:43 The company last fall got the green light for human experimentation.
00:48 In his series of tweets, Elon Musk stating how it will enable control of your phone or
00:59 computer and through them almost any device just by thinking.
01:04 Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer.
01:11 That is the goal.
01:12 For more, let's cross to New York City.
01:15 Dr. Sid Johnson is associate professor at the Center for Bioethics and Humanity at the
01:21 State University of New York's Upstate Medical University.
01:24 Thank you for speaking with us here on France 24.
01:27 Thank you for inviting me.
01:29 Are you excited or nervous when you see these tweets?
01:36 I'm not excited about the prospect of Neuralink being implanted in a human.
01:41 We have seen some fairly disturbing information come out about their experiments with monkeys
01:49 about failures of the implants causing infection, causing swelling, a tremendous amount of suffering
01:57 for those monkeys.
01:59 Neuralink has really not so far demonstrated, certainly not to my satisfaction, that they
02:05 know how to run a human trial or that this device can be safely implanted in a human.
02:12 What is the objective?
02:13 Is the objective to help paraplegics walk or is the objective, well, to replace our
02:19 wallets with, like you already have, you know, those chips in your wrist for some people?
02:26 Well, I guess it depends on whether you believe Musk when he talks about what he's hoping
02:33 he'll be able to do with these devices.
02:36 The initial goal of first in human trials is to demonstrate safety.
02:42 So in this initial individual who allegedly has the implant, right now we have no details
02:50 about the location of the implant, about who this person is, about their age, about whether
02:56 they have a medical condition.
02:58 So one initial goal, and it's a large goal, is to demonstrate that they can safely implant
03:07 this device in a human being.
03:11 The company has said that their aim is to provide a therapeutic device that will enable
03:18 persons who are paralyzed, for example, to be able to communicate, to use a device connected
03:26 with Bluetooth to a phone or a computer.
03:29 So that's called a brain-computer interface, to use that device to allow this person to
03:35 control that.
03:37 Research on these kinds of brain-computer interfaces has been going on now for decades,
03:43 and you know, we have seen some developments there, the ability to control a robotic arm,
03:50 for example, or to use a cursor on a computer.
03:55 What kind of troubles me is the sentence in that last tweet we showed, "Initial users
04:02 will be those who've lost the use of their limbs."
04:04 Initial users, so the implication is it won't just be for those suffering from medical conditions?
04:11 Well, I think Musk's ultimate goal is a brain-computer interface for everyone.
04:18 He's talked about this being something that any person could get, and that it would be
04:24 able to enhance ordinary human abilities.
04:28 So one goal would be, for example, we might be able to play our computer games more quickly
04:33 and more efficiently.
04:35 We may be able to use our phones without actually having to use our hands.
04:41 There are a number of claims that he's made.
04:43 We can also wonder, because of Musk's interest in transhumanism and in human enhancement,
04:53 what their ultimate goals are for using these devices.
04:57 But we are, of course, far from a world in which everyone in the world might have a device
05:03 like this, and far from a world where everyone wants to have an implant attached to their
05:10 brain.
05:11 We have many people in the world who still don't have access to the most basic healthcare.
05:16 So I don't think the goal of having a brain-computer interface in every human is going to be so
05:23 far.
05:24 It's certainly not in our near future.
05:27 I'm not even sure it's in our far future.
05:29 Dr. Johnson, you mentioned at the outset the questions over whether or not physiologically
05:34 the patient is reacting well.
05:36 But then there's also the question of whether or not this kind of technology would enable
05:42 nefarious forces from, well, hacking our brains.
05:47 Right.
05:48 So there is already evidence that there are devices that humans have have been hacked.
05:56 So we have seen this happen with pacemakers that are implanted in people.
06:01 There have been attacks where those devices have been manipulated or taken over by hackers.
06:08 What their purpose was is hard to know.
06:11 But one of the concerns with having a brain implant here is that the device could be hacked.
06:18 The Neuralink has said that they're working on using Bluetooth to enable the implant to
06:25 communicate with a device, with a phone or with a computer.
06:29 Can that be hacked?
06:31 What are the risks if that does get hacked?
06:34 It's less a worry, I think, about will someone hack your implant and gain control over your
06:40 mind and more a concern that someone could hack that implant and gain control of whatever
06:47 devices that implant is connected to.
06:50 So control over your computer, for example.
06:53 If you are using this implant to control a motorized wheelchair, could they get control
07:00 of that wheelchair or any other device that you are connected to?
07:04 And of course, another privacy concern for people with these implants is that Neuralink
07:11 will have access to an enormous amount of a subject's brain data.
07:17 And we don't know what they plan to do with that.
07:19 Will they keep it?
07:20 Will they record it?
07:21 How are they going to protect user privacy?
07:26 People who have had experimental brain implants have had concerns about what that brain data
07:32 might reveal about themselves, about their lives and about their activities.
07:37 Sid Johnson, when it comes to bioethics, when it comes to exactly what you've just been
07:42 describing, how strong is oversight these days in the United States?
07:47 How strong is regulation?
07:51 So Neuralink has received FDA approval to conduct trials in humans for this device.
08:01 The actual oversight of the device is an entirely different question.
08:05 We don't really have very good safety or oversight for these kinds of things once they leave
08:13 the research phase.
08:15 Within research, there are requirements that a company or a scientist is required to satisfy.
08:22 But once they leave, we have seen, of course, how vulnerable so many of our devices are
08:28 to manipulation, to hacking, and so on.
08:32 And these are real concerns about what might happen with these devices ultimately.
08:39 Another concern for the people who are receiving an implant in a clinical trial or an experimental
08:47 implant is who's responsible for that implant once the research is over.
08:54 It's not a small thing to have your skull opened up and to have an implant inserted
09:00 into your brain.
09:01 And so removing it would require an additional surgery, for example.
09:06 But leaving a device in someone's brain could also cause problems for them long term.
09:14 The electrodes could degrade.
09:16 The implant itself could degrade.
09:18 They might be vulnerable to infection.
09:21 You don't want infections in your brain.
09:22 That's really not a good thing.
09:24 So what's going to happen to someone, this initial person who receives this implant,
09:31 once the experiment is over?
09:33 Will Neuralink remove it?
09:34 Will this person want it to be removed long term?
09:37 Will it remain in their head but inactivated?
09:40 These are all questions that are not really addressed in the research protocol.
09:47 We're out of time, but just very briefly, what do your students think?
09:52 You know, my students aren't really thinking about things like brain implants at this point.
09:59 I think there's a lot of hype about these and what we might be able to do with them.
10:04 But as an on-the-ground reality for ordinary people, I don't think at this point there's
10:10 a lot to be excited about.
10:12 There's been research on brain-computer interfaces going on for many, many years at this point,
10:18 for decades, in many, many different clinical trials.
10:22 Neuralink just happens to be making lots of really big and bold claims and getting lots
10:26 of attention for it.
10:28 But I don't think that they are very far along in what they're doing at this point.
10:32 All right.
10:33 That said, Dr. Sid Johnson, thank you so much for joining us from New York City.
10:38 You're very welcome.
10:39 Stay with us.
10:40 There's more to come here on France 24.
10:42 More news.
10:43 We have breaking news out of Spain, with Parliament rejecting an amnesty bill for Catalan separatists.
10:48 Our correspondent Sarah Morris will update us in a moment.
10:52 [music]
10:54 (upbeat music)
10:56 (upbeat music)