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Neurotechnology is advancing so rapidly that it threatens human rights and requires global regulation, according to the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organization.
UNESCO will begin developing a “global ethical framework” for neurotechnology, which connects computers to the brain and increasingly uses artificial intelligence to analyze neural activity, at a conference of scientific and political leaders in Paris on Thursday.
“When you add AI, you put neurotechnology on steroids,” said Mariagrazia Squichiarini, lead author of the UNESCO report on the rapid pace of innovation in neurotechnology.
Neurotechnology, including implants to diagnose and treat brain-related disorders, has begun to improve the lives of people with disabilities, but increased investment in AI-based software that can read people’s minds and store neurological data has raised concerns about their use.
Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, said: “The promise . . . may come at a high cost in terms of human rights and fundamental freedoms, if abused. Neurotechnology can affect our identity, autonomy, privacy, feelings, behaviors and our overall well-being.”
“Developments that many thought were science fiction only a few years ago are already here with us and poised to change the very essence of what it means to be human.”
UNESCO researchers estimate that private investment in neurotechnology companies such as Onward Medical and Elon Musk’s Neuralink increased more than 20-fold in the decade from 2010, to $7.3 billion in 2020. The market for neurotechnology devices is expected to exceed $24 billion. By 2027.
The report analyzed scientific publications and patents to examine the rapidly expanding field. The number of neuroscience papers increased from 57,899 in 2011 to 94,456 in 2021, while worldwide patents related to neurotechnology increased from 418 to 1,531 between 2010 and 2020.
One of the speakers at the UNESCO conference is Raphael Yost, director of the Center for Neurotechnology at Columbia University in New York, a leading neuroscientist and advocate for international regulation to “protect mental privacy.”
He noted that in four studies published over the past year, not all of which were peer-reviewed, “the researchers decoded speech and images from the brains of human volunteers, using noninvasive devices that did not require neurosurgery to insert them.”
“All four models included advanced AI models to decode brain data,” Yosti said. “New algorithms will enable you to decrypt highly sensitive information – making protecting mental privacy even more urgent.”
Regulation is needed because “Neurotechnology companies in the US and Canada almost without exception obtain complete ownership of a customer’s neural data in consumer user agreements,” he added. “We need to protect mental property — otherwise corporations will start harvesting brain banking data. They may not decrypt it today, but AI will enable them to decrypt it tomorrow.”
Yuste’s own lab has decoded and manipulated neural processing into the visual cortex of mice so that researchers can “implant hallucinations” — and make them see things they don’t really see. Manipulating human brain activity in the future is something we should start discussing now. It opens up the possibility of a new species of human where Part of our mental processing happens outside the body.”
UNESCO’s Scocciarini said: “We are neither opposed to neurotechnology nor calling for research to be halted, as it has huge potential to reduce deaths and disabilities from neurological disorders.
“But we need a globally coordinated approach to regulating neurotechnology not only in medicine but in the consumer market.”