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Neuralink’s Technology Is Impressive. Is It Ethical?
Elon Musk’s audacious vision of a smartphone-controlled brain-machine interface comes with potential risks
Imagine being able to walk into a strip-mall and have thousands of microscopically-fine electrodes inserted into your brain, all implanted as quickly and as efficiently as if you were having LASIK eye surgery, and designed to boost your brain from a simple smartphone app.
Until this week, this was the stuff of science fiction. Yet at a launch event this past Tuesday, the company Neuralink — founded by Elon Musk — claimed they were on track to achieve this and more over the next few years.
Neuralink’s brain-machine interface technology is deeply impressive. Using Musk’s now familiar model of bringing together new talent from different fields to accelerate the rate of technological innovation, the company has made massive strides in what is achievable. But despite the technical promise of wireless read-write brain-machine interfaces, companies like Neuralink are in…
