Transcriber: Iara Bernini Marasca Reviewer: Hani Eldalees
Two million years ago, we looked just a bit different.
We weren't Homo sapiens, we were Homo erectus.
Fast-forward 1.7 million years or about 300,000 years ago, and we evolve.
We called ourselves Homo neanderthals.
And here we are now, Homo sapiens, appearing quite recently.
Despite the diversity of our Homo sapiens species,
have you ever wondered why we don’t have those other human species?
Why are all the previous guys gone?
And how is it that we, lethargic and fool, survived?
If you listen to most scientists,
Homo sapiens first appeared on Earth around 140,000 years ago.
We weren’t the smartest, strongest,
or naturally more advantageous species for the conditions at the time.
At first glance, we seem to be at a major disadvantage,
but we had three few things going for us that separated us from everyone else.
Our natural sense of curiosity,
our collaborative nature, and language.
Language enabled us to communicate ten thousand times faster
than any other species on Earth.
Improving our collaboration, combined with our curiosity,
we were able to exponentially accelerate our development.
We discovered how to make fire,
and then the wheel came along, and then machinery, and then electricity,
and I think you get the idea that the trend continues.
With each discovery, we are able to speed up our progression more and more.
All of these are significant.
But the one invention that truly skyrocketed our progression was
the computer.
Almost everything we do today is driven by these devices.
The craziest thing about this is that the computer
has just been the beginning of extreme innovation,
taking us from point zero to where we are now.
We are at wall and soon a product is going to come out,
that will be the next computer,
breaking the barrier and sending us towards the direction
of the technological singularity,
and towards becoming super-powered human beings.
But, what is this innovation?
Before I reveal the name,
I want to tell you a story of a man that we’ll call Tom.
In 2019, Tom survived a tragic accident
that left him paralyzed from the waist down.
The boy that was on his way to becoming a potential strike star,
now lives his life once again in pain.
Paralyzation and amputation is an unfortunate reality
for so many people every year.
Both Tom and many others like him will never get to use
their full physical capabilities unless something radical’s done to fix it.
Our help is the backbone of what makes ‘us’ us.
But we aren't perfect creatures and as demonstrated with Tom,
not everyone gets to live their perfect, healthy, best life.
But what if there was a way to give back sight to the blind,
hear to the deaf, and movement to the paralyzed?
Let’s take a look at our brains.
As an example, for most people, moving doesn’t really require any effort.
When you go to pick something up, your brain takes care of all the details.
All the work is headed off to the neurons, which transmit nerve impulses.
Your brain knows where these signals need to be sent.
However, when someone loses a limb through a paralysis or amputation,
the pathways these signals move through become lost.
The electrical impulses are blocked from reaching their final destination.
What if there was a way to fix this? Let’s take a look at another issue.
What about sleep? There are millions out there who suffer from sleep problems.
What if there was a way to tamper with our brainwaves
so that we could fall asleep quicker and with more quality?
What about another issue like epilepsy?
What if there was a way to stimulate certain brainwaves
so that we could help mitigate seizures?
This is where our next computer comes in.
Brain Computer Interfaces, or BCIs,
can be used to create new pathways for these impulses.
So let’s take a step back, just what is a BCI?
In a nutshell, we’re trying to connect mind to machine.
The intention is to combine technologies,
like electrodes with external computing devices,
to obtain some sort of desired output, like an action.
Electrodes can be placed in proximity or onto the gray matter of the brain,
creating a new neural network for the chemical and electrical signals
our neurons communicate with, to follow.
These signals could be measured, modified with the help of the computer,
which would read the data and perform the task we desired.
Of course, this technology is still extremely new,
and there are likely to be other methods
that could potentially achieve the same goal,
such as implants or something like neural lace,
which is a mess made up of a collection of electrodes rolled up
and inserted into the skull using a needle,
later unraveling and scanning the brain.
But why do I tell you the whole story about Tom Budd?
Well, if we could connect a prosthetic to a brain computer interface,
it could be possible to remove a prosthetic limb
by just thinking about it. Crazy.
This isn’t 5,000 years away, either.
In fact, this technology is already being used.
Johnny Matney lost his arm to cancer in 2008.
And by using a Darkwa funded, Bluetooth based prosthetic,
he's able to move his arm just by thinking about it.
He’s literally freaking able to hold his wife’s head. That’s crazy.
And if this tech can do this, then what else can it do?
There are so many possibilities.
What if we were able to place micro-electrodes along optic nerves,
and used bionic eyes and cameras
to replicate vision for the blind or impaired,
or use EET headsets and eventually implants
that help control brainwaves,
dealing with issues like muscular dystrophy.
Those are just some of the medical innovations
that this technology has the potential to unlock.
But going even further
and looking at the more casual side-by-side of things,
it could be possible that once this tech advances enough,
we could turn on the lights in our homes just by thinking about them,
kind of like a Brand X smart code interface.
The thing that we must recognize is that BCIs are a very new innovation,
and need a lot of work.
If done correctly, they’re likely to disrupt the future as we know it.
However, there are a lot of ethical issues
that come along to their production.
Is it ethical to play God
and try to turn ourselves into these super-powered human beings?
By investing into these technologies
we are fundamentally modifying who we are as human beings.
We’re truly merging our minds with machines
and merging with biotechnology.
When you look at the benefits, it makes sense to pursue BCIs.
For example, other things like disease and disabilities are natural.
They do not impact everyone in the same way. It’s not fair.
People's lives, as of Tom's earlier,
are made fundamentally more difficult because of a factor
that they cannot often control.
Why wouldn't we want to fix and improve the lives of these people,
or even just improve the quality of our own lives?
The thing is, once we enable brain computer interface [...],
then eventually we’ll start implementing it for other less essential things.
It might become the expected norm for everyone to have one of these devices,
creating exclusion for people who actively choose not to use them,
or for those who cannot afford them,
raising concerns about equitability.
What about the privacy issues that come along
of the developments of brain-computer interfaces?
If our minds are able to connect to cloud based systems,
then what happens if that information becomes leaked or public?
What if it’s sold?
Why do we feel comfortable having this information out there?
What about our autonomy?
These devices could progress to the point where they can make decisions for us.
Although it would likely be for something harmless,
such as monitoring glucose levels
and automatically inserting insulin to individuals with diabetes.
We must ask, ‘would those people remain self-governing’?
What if we eventually get to a point where none or very few
of the decisions we make are actually actively chosen by us?
It also has the potential to go seriously wrong.
People with mood disorders could implement a BCI in order to help monitor
and regulate their emotions.
But with the system, it could lead to them not being able
to experience any negative emotion at all,
even at times when something like sadness
might be considered necessary, such as a funeral
Is this right for us to pursue?
But it can get worse than just losing your emotion.
What if these implants are broken into or accessed by hackers
or people with malicious intent?
What happens to you as a conscious being?
Yes, there are benefits of attack,
like giving people back abilities like movement.
But we could also take that away.
As the tech advances, the wrong people could eliminate your ability to move,
your ability to be happy, your ability to sleep,
and your ability to virtually do anything,
tampering with your mind that could be detrimental to you as a human being.
You could be a slave to these people.
By that point, it would be out of your control,
you wouldn’t be able to do anything to help yourself.
Of course, right now this is all just speculation, and it's a bit extreme.
The technology is new and there’s a chance
that these issues won’t even ever come up.
However, these arguments, even if they seem far-fetched,
are things we have to consider and look into
in order to ensure that these devices are handled with the proper regulations.
As it seemed of technology in the past,
if we do not adapt to Musk’s progression
and integrate it into our lives under our own terms,
it outruns us and leaves us behind anyway.
Brain-computer interfaces have the potential to be more cyber-powered
than the computer.
This may be the advice we need
to set us towards the technological singularity
and completely change who we are as human beings.
This is the tool that might send us to the next revolution.
The only question being, ‘should we let it’?