Big Tech is plotting to deploy brain chips capable of reading users’ thoughts, according to a chilling new Stanford University study on neural implants, also known as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which could expose innermost secrets while masquerading as aids for paralyzed individuals to communicate.
Published in the medical journal Cell, the research demonstrates how these devices decode brain signals to generate synthesized speech with unprecedented speed and minimal effort, raising alarms about privacy invasions as corporations like Neuralink push for widespread adoption. While proponents tout benefits for the disabled, critics warn that unchecked integration could allow tech giants to harvest neural data for surveillance, manipulation, or profit, turning personal cognition into a commodified resource without consent.
Modernity.news reports: BCIs work by using tiny electrode arrays to monitor activity in the brain’s motor cortex, the region controlling speech-related muscles. Until now, the tech relied on signals from paralyzed individuals actively trying to speak. The Stanford team, however, discovered that even imagined speech generates similar, though weaker, signals in the motor cortex. With the help of artificial intelligence, they translated those faint signals into words with up to 74% accuracy from a 125,000-word vocabulary.
“We’re recording the signals as they’re attempting to speak and translating those neural signals into the words that they’re trying to say,” said Erin Kunz, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford’s Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory.
But this technological leap has raised red flags among critics who warn of a dystopian future where your private thoughts could be exposed.
Nita Farahany, a Duke University law and philosophy professor and author of The Battle for Your Brain, sounded the alarm telling NPR, “The more we push this research forward, the more transparent our brains become.”
Farahany expressed concern that tech giants like Apple, Google, and Meta could exploit BCIs to access consumers’ minds without consent, urging safeguards like passwords to protect thoughts meant to stay private.
“We have to recognize that this new era of brain transparency really is an entirely new frontier for us,” Farahany said.
While the world fixates on artificial intelligence, some of the tech industry’s heaviest hitters are pouring billions into BCIs. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has raised $1.2 billion for his Neuralink venture, which is now conducting clinical trials with top institutions like the Barrow Neurological Institute, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.
Now, another tech titan is entering the fray.
OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman is launching Merge Labs to challenge Musk’s Neuralink. Backed by OpenAI’s venture arm and valued at $850 million, Merge Labs is seeking $250 million in funding, according to the Financial Times. While Altman will serve as a co-founder alongside Alex Blania of the iris-scanning World project, sources say he won’t take an operational role.
По материалам: http://www.planet-today.com/2025/08/big-tech-plans-to-use-brain-chips-to.html