For those suffering from Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, or ALS, the technology behind brain-computer interface (BCI) can be nothing less than life-changing. People who have lost the ability to communicate with loved ones can now, via thought-to-text, tell someone “I love you,” “I’m experiencing pain,” “I would like to go outside today.” And when it comes to other types of disorders—depression, anxiety, PTSD—the technology can also offer relief.
Clearly, BCI has the potential to reduce suffering. Fast forward twenty or thirty years and perhaps some of the debilitating disorders that burden tens of millions of lives might become a thing of the past.
But like any technology, BCI also comes with profound risks and downsides—some of them the stuff of dystopian fiction. Technologies that can peer into your brain and essentially decipher your thoughts can be used in highly nefarious ways. If authoritarian governments like China’s already use every technology under the sun to persecute minority populations like the Uyghurs, the capabilities of BCI could serve as an incredibly malevolent tool.
To take a less existential but hardly trivial scenario, what if your workplace started to utilize aspects of BCI? In the process of earning your paycheck to put food on the table, what if you had to consent to having your brain monitored? Are you feeling lethargic and a bit unmotivated on a Monday morning? Those mental states could be monitored and recorded—and if they’re not within a certain range, perhaps you’ll even be ordered to go home. Or simply let go.
Given the profound risks and benefits of BCI, Mind Forward is a documentary worth watching by anyone who takes an interest in what neurotechnology has on tap for us right now as well as what it may offer in years to come. While the film gives too little attention to the potential negative aspects of BCI, it gives viewers a helpful introduction to a technology that carries with it far-reaching consequences.
But first things first. What exactly is brain-computer interface? Like artificial intelligence, definitions are aplenty. One neuroscientist in the film defines it as “anything that makes a connection between processing going on inside your brain and a machine.” Another describes it similarly as “a platform that can help us interact from the brain to the world.” At its core, BCI technology is a way for brains and machines to interact.
For some in the film, this symbiotic interaction is a transformational gateway to curing disease or injury (or at the very least markedly reducing their effects). It’s about restoring people to their former selves prior to an accident or diagnosis. The ability to walk again, pick up and move objects, communicate, experience life without crippling depression, regain dignity and independence—all of these things can be at least partly addressed by BCI.
The film, which features a handful of neurotech companies, includes San-Francisco based Emotiv. What they were able to achieve with their EEG headset gives viewers a vivid sense of just how powerful BCI technology can be. In 2017, a quadriplegic named Rodrigo Hubner Mendes was able to drive a specially designed F1 racecar using only his thoughts. Like so much else in recent years, it’s an event that sounds like science fiction but in fact is not. It’s happening right now.
While some pioneers in the BCI world are focused on using the technology to help people with severe physical or mental disabilities, some are also interested in using it for everyday enhancements. The film opens with just this line of thought. What if we could have our memory capabilities enhanced, wonders one neuroscientist. What if we had more control over our brains and the ability to learn in ways that are most conducive to each of us? What if we could have overcome the limitations of our vision and hearing and experience ultraviolet or ultrasound, respectively?
These are thought-provoking questions—and probably all of us have at one time or another wished our mental or physical faculties could be radically improved. A school exam, a performance review at work… What if we could go into such situations feeling extra sharp, essentially upgraded versions of ourselves?
While that could be beneficial, using BCI and other neurotechnologies to enhance our everyday abilities could also take us down a path with dire consequences. There’s increased talk lately about using neurotechnology in the near future to help humans compete in an age of AI where machines are becoming ever more capable. But how would that work in practice?
One esteemed neuroscientist in the film, Rafael Yuste, finds the idea of brain enchantment highly promising but also understands the possibility of profoundly undesirable outcomes. Neurotechnology could end up “accentuat[ing] the difference between different social groups of different countries,” and it could “cause major differences in society.”
That’s an understatement. Not only could brain enhancements lead to an even greater chasm of opportunity, it raises a host of other unpalatable scenarios. To remain competitive in the workplace, might an employee reach a point where they have little choice but to have an enhancement procedure? And more broadly, what kind of thorny issues does BCI open up when it comes to matters of privacy and free will? Is using neurotechnology for everyday enhancements really a path we want to go down?
Mind Forward only scratches the surface of these difficult questions (understandably so), but it does open viewers’ eyes. As the film discusses various use cases of BCI it’s hard not to oscillate between feelings of enthusiasm and trepidation. Nothing about the technology is trivial.
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