The interesting discussion of the thread Online Safety Updates and a very unsettling comment that you can agree with though, made me want to discuss about neurotechnology and the emergence of neurorights and mental privacy. It's a thread that I am still reading and keeping an eye since I like reading all opinions shared there, they are all interesting and I agree with the majority of them concerning privacy rights and how governments don't give a damn about kids or the safety of their citizens (see the many data breaches that occurred over the years), they just care about their own power and the next election for the most part. Not to mention many of them are run by old people who know jack shit about internet, new technology and younger generations, and it's also funny how they want to teach internet safety when they are the first to use and overuse shit like FB, Meta etc. where they post their personal info.... I warn you this will be another of mine looooong blogs, so take your time to read it all if you truly wish to read a bit about it.
Neurotechnologies
Anyway let's dive into this fascinating but extremely unsettling world of neurotechnologies and neurorights. What is a neurotechnology? Well, it's any method or electronic device which interfaces with the nervous system to monitor or modulate neural activity. Common design goals for neurotechnologies include using neural activity readings to control external devices such as neuroprosthetics, altering neural activity via neuromodulation to repair or normalize function affected by neurological disorders, or augmenting cognitive abilities(1).
I leave here this interesting video about them, you can watch other videos of this channel to discover more about them from a scientific point of view:
Examples of neurotechnologies:
Deep brain stimulation, photostimulation based on optogenetics and photopharmacology, transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial electric stimulation and brain–computer interfaces, such as cochlear implants and retinal implants.
This field has been around for nearly half a century but has only reached maturity in the last twenty years. Decoding basic procedures and interactions within the brain's neuronal activity is essential to integrate machines with the nervous system.
I admit this is a fascinating world that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres and integrating an electronic device with the nervous system enables monitoring and modulating neural activity as well as managing implemented machines by mental activity. Advances in these efforts are associated with developing models based on knowledge about natural processes in bio-systems that monitor and/or modulate neural activity. One promising direction evolves through studying the mother-fetus neurocognitive model(2):
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-75329-9_24
According to this model, the innate natural mechanism ensures the embryonic nervous system's correct (balanced) development(3). Because the mother-fetus interaction enables the child's nervous system to evolve with adequate biological sentience, similar environmental conditions can treat the injured nervous system. This means that the physiological processes of this natural neurostimulation during gestation underlie any noninvasive artificial neuromodulation technique and this knowledge paves the way for designing and precise tuning noninvasive brain stimulation devices in treating different nervous system diseases within the scope of modulating neural activity(4).
There are also more specialized sectors of neurotechnology that introduced concepts such as neuron-like electrodes, hybrid biotic–abiotic electrodes, planar complementary metal-oxide semiconductor systems, injectable bioconjugate nanomaterials, implantable optoelectronic microchips (I admit these sounds like names coming out straight a sci-fi series XD).
The very positive aspects of these technologies are that they can help control depression, over-activation, sleep deprivation, and many other conditions. Therapeutically they can also help improve stroke patients' motor coordination, improve brain function, reduce epileptic episodes, improve patients with degenerative motor diseases (Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, ALS), and can even help alleviate phantom pain perception. These are things I highly support for neurotechnologies or NT because when technologies is used to help others and improve the lives of those who had difficult conditions I am for it all the way, I can also understand and don't oppose its use as mere entertainment such as to control video games via brain activation.
BUT
But since those technologies are manufactured and distributed as consumer-grade devices that can be bought and used by laypersons on an everyday basis with barely or even no supervision, numerous threats arise. The use and processing of personal data of such devices raises several concerns and entails a multitude of open questions on possible moral and psychological implications, safety hazards, and data security. However not all NT work superficially some need to be surgically implanted on or within the brain and this raises deep concerns about mental privacy, neurorights, invasiveness, risks, complications, side-effects, and degree of commitment to the product required by invasive and non-invasive NT. These are all things which are still not very clear to the public. Types of NT include:
- Deep brain stimulation
- Transcrancial ultrasound stimulation (TUS)
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
- Transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS)
- Electroencephalography (EEG)
- Electrocorticography (ECoG), it relies on similar principles of EEG but it's more invasive since it's implanted on the brain's surface unlike EEG which placed around the head and scalp
- Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
- Neurotechnological implants
- Neuropsychopharmacology (i.e. sertraline, methylphenidate, and zolpidem)
The real and main concern about and around them is the object they work on: the brain. Interventions and manipulations on the brain harbour immense disruptive potential insofar as they influence the autonomous actions and self-perception of the individual. And this brings us to the concept of neurorights.
Neurorights
They are neurological rights that is to say a set of rights to freedom from abuses of neurotechnology, both for humans and for any transhumans as may eventually exist. Examples of neurorights: right not to have one's thoughts detected by others' mindreading against one's will, the right not to have one's personality altered against one's will, and others, the right not to have to work against one's will due to mental hacking by a potential employer, the right not to have to do something against one's will.
I leave here the website of the nonprofit organization that works to protect the human rights of people from the potential misuse or abuse of neurotechnology: The Neurorights Foundation.
I totally agree with Rafael Yuste, a Spanish–American neurobiologist and one of the initiators of the BRAIN Initiative announced in 2013, who wants a new international treaty on neurorights and a new international agency to make sure countries comply with it similar to what is now the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the use of nuclear energy. With the speed at which these technologies go and the goal some companies held by billionaires such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg who are working on brain-computer interfaces that could pick up thoughts directly from your neurons and translate them into words in real time, new strong and highly strict laws and regulations must be made and enacted in order to protect what I consider one of the most important and vital rights of all: privacy and more specifically mental privacy.
What Musk and Zuckerberg are doing could one day allow you to control your phone, computer or any other futuristic tool with just your thoughts, here the announcement by Meta: https://tech.facebook.com/reality-labs/2020/3/imagining-a-new-interface-hands-free-communication-without-saying-a-word/
We are working on a system that will let people type with their brains. Specifically, we have a goal of creating a silent speech system capable of typing 100 words per minute straight from your brain – that’s five times faster than you can type on a smartphone today. This isn’t about decoding your random thoughts. Think of it like this: You take many photos and choose to share only some of them. Similarly, you have many thoughts and choose to share only some of them. This is about decoding those words you’ve already decided to share by sending them to the speech center of your brain. It’s a way to communicate with the speed and flexibility of your voice and the privacy of text. We want to do this with non-invasive, wearable sensors that can be manufactured at scale.
We also have a project directed at allowing people to hear with their skin. We are building the hardware and software necessary to deliver language through the skin.
I admit reading this passage (the piece I quoted was made in 2017) made me have goosebumps both positively (science and technology always intrigue me) and negatively (my love for privacy and myself as person makes me be quite aggressive and misoneist towards these stuff)
The short-term goal is to help patients with paralysis, by decoding their brain signals and allowing them to “speak” their thoughts without ever having to move a muscle. That could be a real public good, significantly improving quality of life for millions of people. And I agree with this and support it, BUT once again we know things will become available to the general public eventually and this raises concerns because Facebook’s long-term goal is to reach a much, much wider audience: The aim, it says, is to give all of us the ability to control digital devices from keyboards to augmented reality glasses using the power of thought alone. To do that, the company will need access to our brain data. Which, of course, raises some ethical concerns. The human participants in their study, three volunteers with epilepsy, already had electrodes surgically implanted on the surface of their brains as part of preparation for neurosurgery to treat their seizures. They listened to straightforward questions (like “How is your room currently?”) and spoke their answers out loud. The algorithm, just by reading their brain activity, decoded the answers with accuracy rates as high as 61 percent.
That’s pretty impressive, but so far the algorithm can only recognize words from a small vocabulary (like “cold,” “hot,” and “fine”). The scientists are aiming to grow its lexicon over time.
Elon Musk’s company Neuralink is developing flexible “threads” that can be implanted into a brain and could one day allow you to control your smartphone or computer with just your thoughts. Musk said he hopes to start testing in humans soon. Considering that even in China something like this has already been happening since 2019 since its government is mining data directly from workers’ brains on an industrial scale to detect changes in emotional states in employees on the production line.
For example the production lines at Hangzhou Zhongheng Electric where the workers wear caps to monitor their brainwaves, data that management then uses to adjust the pace of production and redesign workflows, according to the company. The company said it could increase the overall efficiency of the workers by manipulating the frequency and length of break times to reduce mental stress.
Police worldwide have been exploring “brain-fingerprinting” technology, which analyzes automatic responses that occur in our brains when we encounter stimuli we recognize. The claim is that this could enable police to interrogate a suspect’s brain; his brain responses would be more negative for faces or phrases he doesn’t recognize than for faces or phrases he does recognize. The tech is scientifically questionable, yet India’s police have used it since 2003, Singapore’s police bought it in 2013, and the Florida State Police signed a contract to use it in 2014 (5).
Already, there are AI-powered brain decoders that can translate into text the unspoken thoughts swirling through our minds, without the need for surgery although this tech is not yet on the market. In the meantime, you can buy lots of devices off Amazon right now that would record your brain data (like the Muse headband, which uses EEG sensors to read patterns of activity in your brain, then cues you on how to improve your meditation). Since these aren’t marketed as medical devices, they’re not subject to federal regulations; companies can collect and sell your data :)
I want also leave this study about brain-fingerprinting: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344526903_Brain_Fingerprinting_A_Warning_Against_Early_Implementation
Neurotechnologies and AI-supported devices can touch many aspects of lives such as sexual orientation. We know that there are multiple areas of the brain which have been found to display differences based on sexual orientation. Several of these can be found in the hypothalamus, including the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area (SDN-POA) present in several mammalian species. Researchers have shown that the SDN-POA aides in sex-dimorphic mating behavior in some mammals, which is representative of human sexual orientation(6). The human equivalent to the SDN-POA is the interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus, which is also sexually dimorphic and has demonstrated dissimilar sizes between sexualities(7). There are also other POA-like brain structures in the human brain which differ between sexual orientations, such as the suprachiasmatic nucleus and the anterior hypothalamus. Using meta-analysis of neuroimaging, researchers have concluded that these areas are linked to sexual preferences in humans, which would explain why they may differ based on sexual orientation(8).
Another area of the brain which demonstrates sexual orientation differentiation is the thalamus, which is a structure involved in sexual arousal and reward. The thalamus of heterosexual individuals was found to be bigger than that of homosexual individuals: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7930173/
The placement of connections in the amygdala have been demonstrated to differ between heterosexual and homosexual individuals. The posterior cingulate cortex, a part of the occipital lobe, the region of the brain that processes visual information, has also been demonstrated to have differences based on sexual orientation. Research has shown that a couple of the areas of connection between the hemispheres of the brain have differences in their size depending on sexual orientation. The front commission was found to be wider in homosexual men than heterosexual men, and the corpus callosum was found to be larger in homosexual men than heterosexual men. Some areas of the brain which researchers looked at but did not find differences in structure between sexualities are the temporal cortex, hippocampus and putamen(10).
With neurotechnologies it might become a reality to detect a homosexual person from a heterosexual one, now image this applied to those lovely gay-friendly countries and places where they are sent to camps (coughs Chechnya coughs). But we also know AIs can be quite flawed and poisoned by biases like it happened in this study. I do appreciate that the researchers claim has in fact been peer-reviewed and is due to be published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the authors acknowledge the limitations with regard to their sample, but maintain that they "did not build a privacy-invading tool" (here the same study in PDF: https://ai.ethicsworkshop.org/Library/case-face-orientation/wang_kosinski.pdf). This article also points out some of its limitations and potential damages studies like this might harm the LGBTQ+ community due to extreme lack of scientific knowledge from both governments and general public: https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-s-really-going-on-with-that-study-saying-ai-can-detect-your-sexual-orientation
Luckily, the brain is lawyering up. Neuroscientists, lawyers, and lawmakers have been teaming up to pass legislation that would protect our mental privacy. In a first for the US, Colorado passed new legislation this week that amends the state’s privacy law to include the privacy of neural data. Now, just as fingerprints and facial images are protected under the Colorado Privacy Act, the whisperings of the brain are, too. Signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis, the bill had impressive bipartisan support, passing by a 34-to-0 vote in the state Senate and 61-to-1 in the House. I commend you, Colorado, bravo!
Here the bill if you are curious: https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024A/bills/2024a_1058_ren.pdf
California is taking a similar approach. The state’s Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill that brings brain data into the category of “sensitive personal information.” Next, the bill heads to the Appropriations Committee for consideration. Here the link: https://sd13.senate.ca.gov/news/press-release/april-16-2024/senate-committee-overwhelmingly-approves-landmark-neurorights-act
Europe is discussing the topic of neurotechnologies too, here the PDF, enjoy: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2024/757807/EPRS_STU(2024)757807_EN.pdf
But laws must be quick because with companies like Meta and Snapchat exploring neurotechnology, and Apple patenting a future version of AirPods that would scan your brain activity through your ears, we could soon live in a world where companies harvest our neural data just as 23andMe harvests our DNA data. These companies could conceivably build databases with tens of millions of brain scans, which can be used to find out if someone has a disease like epilepsy even when they don’t want that information disclosed and could one day be used to identify individuals against their will.
Thanks to Neurorights Foundation I've also discovered that several consumer neurotech companies are gathering brain data — and perhaps selling it, according to a major report I link here: https://www.perseus-strategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FINAL-Consumer-Neurotechnology-Report-Neurorights-Foundation-March-2024-3.pdf
Analyzing the privacy policies and user agreements of 30 companies, the report found that a majority could share neural data with third parties.
So if you’re worried about what might happen with your neural data and mental privacy, you need to be worried right now about that, Jared Genser, general counsel at the Neurorights Foundation, said. Because people are buying these devices all around the world.
And now we enter in the creepy, unsettling territory of neurotechnologies that touches one of the most important rights that is emerging in these decades: mental privacy or neural privacy.
Mental privacy and new rights
Remember Rafael Yuste? I mentioned him above in this article. He at his lab, employed a method called optogenetics, he found that he could manipulate the visual perception of mice by using a laser to activate specific neurons in the visual cortex of the brain. When he made certain images artificially appear in their brains, the mice behaved as though the images were real. Yuste discovered he could run them like puppets. I will leave you the article:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747687/pdf/nihms-1049885.pdf
In 2017, Yuste gathered around 30 experts to meet at Columbia’s Morningside campus, where they spent days discussing the ethics of neurotech. As Yuste’s mouse experiments showed, it’s not just mental privacy that’s at stake; there’s also the risk of someone using neurotechnology to manipulate our minds. While some brain-computer interfaces only aim to “read” what’s happening in your brain, others also aim to “write” to the brain that is, to directly change what your neurons are up to.
In this article published at Nature, Yuste and his group introduced new human rights that emerged with the development of neurotechnology, here the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/551159a.pdf
But for the sake of brevity I will list them here too:
- Mental privacy (the right to seclude one's brain data so that it's not stored or sold without your consent)
- Personal identity (the right to be protected from alterations to one's sense of self and its perception that is not authorized by the person him/her/themselves)
- Free will (the right to retain the ultimate control over one's decision making, without unknown manipulation from neurotechnologies)
- Fair access to mental augmentation (the right to enjoy equality of access, so that neurotechnology doesn’t only benefit the rich)
- Protection from bias (neurotechnology algorithms should be designed in ways that do not perpetuate bias against particular groups)
It's extremely vital to act not only to talk about it and Yuste did what it needs to do. He connected with Jared Genser, an international human rights lawyer who has represented clients like the Nobel Peace Prize laureates Desmond Tutu and Aung San Suu Kyi. Together, Yuste and Genser created the Neurorights Foundation to advocate for the cause.
This led to an immediate victory because in 2021, after Yuste helped craft a constitutional amendment with a close friend who happened to be a Chilean senator, Chile became the first nation to enshrine the right to mental privacy and the right to free will in its national constitution. Mexico, Brazil, and Uruguay are already considering something similar.
Even the United Nations has started talking about neurotech: Secretary-General António Guterres gave it a shoutout in his 2021 report, “Our Common Agenda,” after meeting with Yuste. Let's see how it will evolve, I wish him all the best!
Now times are still too green especially now with all these shitty governments all around the world, but in future maybe, and I say maybe, a new global treaty might be established. If US federal law were to follow Colorado in recognizing neural data as sensitive health data (I doubt now with the current president and that other guy), that data would fall under the protection of HIPAA, which Yuste said would alleviate much of his concern. Another possibility would be to get all neurotech devices recognized as medical devices so they would have to be approved by the FDA.
I agree when Genser says "It’s about having options", if you give me options and freedom to chose what I want and what not (spoiler: I don't want these technologies in me, on me and around me where by around me I mean my house and my family) then I am more mentally inclined to tolerate them as long as there are strict law that act quickly and limit the misuse power of these technologies. Technology is not bad per se, it's how you use it that makes the difference.
Little gift
And now I want to leave you this useful tool to enhance your privacy online:
See you next time!
References and footnotes:
(1) Cook MJ, O'Brien TJ, Berkovic SF, Murphy M, Morokoff A, Fabinyi G, et al. (June 2013). "Prediction of seizure likelihood with a long-term, implanted seizure advisory system in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy: a first-in-man study". The Lancet. Neurology. 12 (6): 563–71. doi:10.1016/s1474-4422(13)70075-9. PMID 23642342. S2CID 33908839
(2) Val Danilov I (2024). “Child Cognitive Development with the Maternal Heartbeat: A Mother-Fetus Neurocognitive Model and Architecture for Bioengineering Systems.” In International Conference on Digital Age & Technological Advances for Sustainable Development (pp. 216-223). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75329-9_24
(3) Val Danilov I. (2024). “The Origin of Natural Neurostimulation: A Narrative Review of Noninvasive Brain Stimulation Techniques”. OBM Neurobiology 2024; 8(4): 260; doi:10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2404260
(4) Ibidem
(6) Bogaert, Anthony F.; Skorska, Malvina N. (March 2020). "A short review of biological research on the development of sexual orientation". Hormones and Behavior. 119: 104659. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2019.104659. PMID 31911036. S2CID 21005529
(7) Lau, Holning (2018-08-01), "Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination", BRILL, pp. 1–52, doi:10.1163/9789004345492_002, ISBN 9789004345492, S2CID 240352057
(8) Ibidem
(9) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7930173/
(10) Frigerio, Alberto; Ballerini, Lucia; Valdés Hernández, Maria (2021-05-06). "Structural, Functional, and Metabolic Brain Differences as a Function of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation: A Systematic Review of the Human Neuroimaging Literature". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 50 (8): 3329–3352. doi:10.1007/s10508-021-02005-9. ISSN 0004-0002. PMC 8604863. PMID 33956296