Brain Chips: A Marvel of a Technological Utopia or Dystopia?

“Brain chip.” What comes to mind when people hear those two words? I asked a few people in the Leo opinion section what the words “brain chip” meant to them, and many cited becoming increasingly dependent on technology and therefore more vulnerable to hackers, or perhaps even to the brain chip itself, or AI. But perhaps there’s an upside to these seemingly scary prospects. In particular, there’s one company that might be offering benefits through brain chips… Neuralink.

What is Neuralink? Well, for starters, it’s Elon Musk’s company. Yes, I know, yet another company to add to his already massive repertoire: PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla…

According to Neuralink, its goal is to “help people with paralysis regain independence through the control of computers and mobile devices.” However, its method is not a special sort of device. In fact, the way Neuralink plans to achieve this is through brain chips. Absolutely mind blowing! (Pun intended.) Their current goal is to create a “Link” that will monitor thousands of neurons. This Link, connected to a device such as a computer or smartphone, can then take the neural activity and send a message to the device to do whatever the owner has mentally commanded it to do -- no movement necessary.  

Now, some may view this technology with fear in their eyes; a chip in our brains, monitoring our thoughts? Our thoughts have always been silent, our minds impenetrable. We choose to share our thoughts. A brain chip would change all that, for the chip would be able to “read” our thoughts from the firing patterns of neurons. 

Some may also cite the horrific animal testing Neuralink has been conducting since 2018. All in all, the company killed 1,500 animals testing their brain chip. These animals included pigs and, famously, monkeys that played Pong, according to Reuters. 

But the idea, despite some terrifying prospects, has merit. Again, Neuralink’s goal is to create a technology that would allow people with limited mobility to use devices such as computers or smartphones. The great majority of our community at Lakeside can control all the devices they want to; we submit assignments on our computers, text on our smartphones, and game on our tablets, but not everybody can do the same things. For example, someone who couldn’t move their hands or didn’t have hands at all would not normally be able to text, but with a Neuralink chip, they could text at the speed of their mind, much faster than manually typing. (And seriously, who doesn’t want to type at the speed of thought, able-bodied people included?)

It’s worth noting in this texting scenario that only what the person wants to type is passed to the smartphone, which makes the Link less invasive than a generic, scary-sounding “brain chip.” 

We must also address the animal testing. Over a thousand animals died -- that’s nothing to gloss over. Neuralink needs to be better about its testing processes. These animals died needlessly because the testing got rushed trying to meet Musk’s tight deadlines. Of course this is not ethical, but I do believe Neuralink must learn from its mistakes and forge ahead.

Take NASA, for example. Throughout NASA’s history, tests have failed and astronauts have died. But if NASA turned back after these deaths, then our space program would not be what it is today. Mars would not be fathomable. The James Webb Telescope might never have happened. 

Neuralink could change the lives of the 58 million people worldwide who have limited hand mobility. Although animals have died, their deaths don’t have to have been for nothing. We look at the words “brain chip” with fear, but perhaps it is actually America’s next NASA.