Paris: The “warp speed” combination advances in neurotechnologylike brain implants or scanners that can peer ever deeper into minds, and artificial intelligence poses a threat to mental privacy, Unesco warned Thursday.
The UN agency for science and culture has begun developing a global “ethical framework” to address human rights concerns raised by neurotechnology, it told a conference in Paris.
Neurotechnology is a growing field that seeks to connect electronic devices to the nervous system, mainly so far to treat neurological disorders and restore movement, communication, vision, or hearing.
Neurotechnology has recently been empowered by artificial intelligence algorithms that can process and learn from data in ways never before possible.aid Mariagrazia Squicciarini, UNESCO economist specializing in AI.
“It’s like putting neurotechnology on steroids,” he told a news agency.
Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO’s assistant director general for social and human sciences, said this convergence of neurotechnology and AI was “far-reaching and potentially damaging.”
“We are on the way to a world where algorithms will allow us to decode people’s mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms that underlie their intentions, emotions and decisions,” he told the conference.
In May, scientists in the United States revealed that they had used brain scans and artificial intelligence to convert “the gist” of what people were thinking into written words, provided they had spent long hours inside a large fMRI machine. .
Later that month, billionaire Elon Musk’s firm Neuralink received approval to test its coin-sized brain implants on humans in the United States.
Musk has said his ultimate goal is to ensure AI doesn’t overwhelm humans intellectually, though he launched his own artificial intelligence company xAI on Thursday.
Squicciarini stressed that UNESCO was not saying that neurotechnology is a bad thing.
“If anything, it’s fantastic,” he said, noting how technology could allow blind people to see again or paralyzed people to walk.
But with neurotechnology “advancing at the speed of light”, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said ethical guidelines were needed to protect human rights.
Investment in neurotech companies increased 22-fold between 2010 and 2020, reaching $33.2 billion, according to a new UNESCO report co-authored by Squicciarini.
The number of patents for neurotechnological devices doubled between 2015 and 2020, with the United States accounting for nearly half of all patents worldwide, according to the report.
The market for neurotechnology devices is projected to reach $24.2 billion by 2027.
