People play a mind-controlled toy car racing game while wearing a Brainco Focus 1 wearable that detects brain activity during concentration challenge games are displayed at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Jan. 10, 2020. David Mcnew/AFP via Getty Images
In July 2016, the new CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, launched Neuralink, a neurotechnology company specializing in manufacturing implantable brain-machine interfaces. Musk describes the technology, designed to help people with disabilities, as a “Fitbit” for the skull.
Others have said that the entirely hackable technology could pose an “existential threat” to society. Giving artificial intelligence the “keys” to the human brain fills some with an understandable sense of dread.
In October, Musk was scheduled to release new details on the Neuralink project. However, due to his recent purchase of Twitter, Neuralink’s “show and tell” won’t occur until the end of November. But in the quest to control the human brain, Musk is not alone. As I write this, the U.S. government is exploring ways of using implanted chips to explore the human mind in ways we can hardly imagine.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, more commonly referred to as DARPA, is a research and development agency affiliated with the Pentagon. Its main responsibility involves creating new technologies for the U.S. military.
In 2013, the White House unveiled the BRAIN initiative, designed to help researchers find novel ways of treating, curing, and even preventing debilitating brain disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy. At the time, the bold initiative was supported by a number of technology firms, research institutions, and federal agencies. One of those agencies happened to be DARPA, continuing its now 50-year legacy of investments in neurotechnology.
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks on the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative in the East Room of the White House in Washington on April 2, 2013. The BRAIN initiative ultimately aims to help researchers find new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Fast forward to 2022, and the agency aggressively pursues ways of rewiring brain circuits. As the writer Tim Hinchcliffe recently reported, STRENGTHEN, DARPA’s new program, “seeks to identify, modulate, and ultimately optimize brain circuits responsible for cognitive flexibility (CF) and emotional regulation (ER),” all in the hope of decreasing symptoms traditionally associated with mental illnesses and suicidal ideation. A very noble endeavor, some will say. Considering the United States is amid an unprecedented mental health crisis, with suicides a frighteningly regular occurrence, ways of alleviating people’s psychic pain should be relentlessly explored.
However, red flags begin to emerge when one delves a little deeper into DARPA’s work. Another program being run by the agency is called NEAT, an acronym for the Neural Evidence Aggregation Tool.
According to DARPA’s website, this “program aims to overcome current limitations by developing a new cognitive science tool that identifies people at risk of suicide by using preconscious brain signals rather than asking questions and waiting for consciously filtered responses.” In other words, this tool will allow government officials to engage in mind reading.
As Hinchcliffe noted, this tool is designed to aggregate preconscious brain signals to determine what someone believes to be true or false. One needn’t be a tinfoil hat-wearing oddball to be concerned about how this technology could be weaponized. DARPA works closely with private contractors and has enjoyed a close working relationship with the National Security Agency. DARPA also shares a history with Google, a company with a reputation for violating users’ rights.
To think that technology capable of reading minds will be confined solely to the realms of military warfare requires a complete suspension of disbelief. As the aforementioned Hinchcliffe, a man who has been highlighting elements of government overreach for years warned, the NEAT program has “the very real potential” to give the U.S. government and various corporations with questionable agendas to hack everyday civilians at the preconscious level.
This probably sounds rather whacky to some readers, I’m sure. It should. It is wacky. Nevertheless, this wackiness is steeped in reality. In 2020, speaking at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual gathering, the historian Yuval Noah Harari asked the crowd to imagine North Korea, 20 years from now, where every citizen is required to wear a biometric bracelet. Such a device would allow government officials to track people’s blood pressure, heart rates, and brain activity. The academic continued, “You listen to a speech on the radio by the ‘Great Leader,’ and they know what you actually feel.” A person could clap their hands and force a smile, “but if you’re angry, they know you’ll be in the gulag tomorrow morning.”
The fact that these words were uttered in Davos, home of the Great Reset initiative, should fill us all with a sense of unease. Moreover, Harari is a transhumanist who firmly believes that humans should become one with digital technology—all in the hope of bettering humanity. One of the WEF’s most prominent contributors, the Israeli has spoken at length about the many ways emerging technologies can help deal with the millions of “useless” meatsuits worldwide.
This brings us back to DARPA’s desire to hack the human mind and essentially read our most intimate thoughts, deepest fears, and desires. Could this technology be used to prevent someone with suicidal thoughts from taking their life? Yes, of course. On the other hand, this technology could just as easily be used to manipulate and monitor innocent Americans with no underlying mental health issues. When technology this powerful is being developed, we must ask if the pros outweigh the cons. The answer, I fear, is no.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
John Mac Ghlionn
Author
John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. He covers psychology and social relations, and has a keen interest in social dysfunction and media manipulation. His work has been published by the New York Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, Newsweek, National Review, and The Spectator US, among others.
