Control a slider with your thoughts? The future of neurotechnology

With neurotechnology, brain activity can be measured or stimulated. This technique is becoming more and more perfected. “There are colleagues who say that in twenty years you can control a slider with your thoughts”, explains Pim Haselager. “Electrodes on your head would then observe your brain activity. The technique of artificial intelligence to decode these signals with increasing precision is developing. Eventually, you may also start thinking about decoding brain processes, because we are beginning slowly to understand something of this language that our neurons speak.”

Neurotechnology increasingly commercial

Previously, neurotechnology mainly took place in hospitals and universities. Nowadays, commercial companies are also doing it. For example, Elon Musk founded the company Neuralink a few years ago to be able to connect people and computers. “It’s now coming out of universities and hospitals and onto the streets. Elon Musk wants to use neurotechnology for all kinds of practical applications. And then you have to think carefully about how you want to regulate that. We have to think about it. before the technology was there.”

Now that neurotechnology is developing rapidly, there are now discussions about so-called “neuro rights”. “That should say your brain is always yours,” Haselager says. “So that you don’t accidentally click ‘ok’ somewhere and your EEG data then ends up in the hands of Facebook or Elon Musk.”