Michael Hendricks, a professor of neurobiology at McGill, said: “Rich people who are fascinated with these dumb transhumanist ideas” are muddying public understanding of the potential of neurotechnology. “Neuralink is doing legitimate technology development for neuroscience, and then Elon Musk comes along and starts talking about telepathy and stuff.”
Musk has said brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink’s may one day allow people to “upload [their] memories” and “download them into a new body or a robot body”. [Sam] Altman, though quieter on the subject, has blogged about the impending “merge” between humans and machines – which he suggested would either through genetic engineering or plugging “an electrode into the brain”.
Some worry, however, that far-fetched narratives could stymie actual health advances – for example, by pushing regulators to adopt broad, fear-driven laws.
Kristen Mathews, a lawyer who works on mental privacy issues at the US law firm Cooley, said all this “sci-fi hype could trigger regulation that would hinder advances in technology that would otherwise have the potential to really help people who need help”.
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