Possibilities That May Be

 

An innovation idea that is not possible today, but most likely in 15-20 years will be possible is brain-to-brain interfaces.  Today, rudimentary pieces that ultimately will make up brain-to-brain interfacing are being developed.  Essentially, brain-to-brain interfacing will be composed of neural lacing, brain-machine interfaces (BMI), and artificial intelligence (AI).  Currently, BrainNet (B2B) is a novel system that allows three human brains to communicate, one sender and two receivers (WAHAL, 2019).

Neural lacing has been advanced by Elon Musk and Neuralink.  Neuralink creates a link between neurons in the brain and a machine, such as smartphones and computers, helping people with clinical disorders like dis-functional sensory and motor function issues (Kulshreshth, Anand, & Lakanpal, 2019).  The neural lace is an ultrathin rolled up mesh that is implanted in the skull at which time it spreads out and forms a body of electrodes that is able to monitor function of the brain.  The neural lace of the future will eventually be able to be injected into the bloodstream and will find its way to the brain and set itself up (WAHAL, 2019).  The neural lace has the potential for people with missing limbs to connect the artificial limbs using only their brain, it also has the potential in treatment of neurodegenerative disorders and Parkinson’s disease (Kunwar, 2019). 

Legal and ethical forces may define B2B in that they may reduce its likelihood of success.  Ethical forces such that technology that permits retrieving of neural data can be used for malicious activities is a major prohibition for B2B success.  The autobiographical information can be hacked from a target’s mind, as presently these type of systems are purposely designed with weak encryption, so that computations on the data can occur faster (WAHAL, 2019).  When brains are interconnected together, how does oneself define themselves as a person?  The legal force that may reduce the likelihood of B2B success is intellectual property ambiguity.  There is the aspect of neural property, ideas and thoughts while an individual is using B2B presents the case of who is the owner of the thoughts and ideas – intellectual property, since it is not purely the individual that has created them. 

 

References

 

Kulshreshth, A., Anand, A., & Lakanpal, A. (2019, 18-19 Oct. 2019). Neuralink- An Elon Musk Start-up Achieve symbiosis with Artificial Intelligence. Paper presented at the 2019 International Conference on Computing, Communication, and Intelligent Systems (ICCCIS).

Kunwar, S. (2019). When Will An ‘Intelligent Species’ Arrive?

WAHAL, M. (2019). Neural Privacy, Personhood and Agency with Brain-To-Brain Interfacing. Retrieved from mrinalwahal. com/papers/Neuroethics. pdf.