The Wall Street Journal and other sources are reporting that an upcoming revolution in medicine will include brain implants, and this is causing quite an ethical skirmish among observers. From The WSJ:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304914904579435592981780528
“Brain implants today are where laser eye surgery was several decades ago. They are not risk-free and make sense only for a narrowly defined set of patients—but they are a sign of things to come. Unlike pacemakers, dental crowns or implantable insulin pumps, neuroprosthetics—devices that restore or supplement the mind’s capacities with electronics inserted directly into the nervous system—change how we perceive the world and move through it. For better or worse, these devices become part of who we are.”
————————————-
The new technology promises to correct brain injuries, diseases like Parkinson’s and generally aid a host of neurological disorders. However, this does lead us down the slippery slope towards what futurists call “Transhumanism” – roughly –the combining of machines and the human body. Additionally, how widespread will involuntary use of such implants be used? Will they be given to criminals, addicts, the homeless… will they be given without the person’s knowledge?
Here’s what the Russian news service “Sputnik” has to say about this upcoming trend:
http://sputniknews.com/us/20150928/1027680002/pentagon-darpa-artificial-intelligence.html
The Pentagon’s secretive research and development arm, DARPA, hopes that implanting chips in soldiers’ brains will unlock the long-sought secrets of artificial intelligence, according to a new book about the agency’s history.
The Pentagon has been pursuing artificial intelligence since the 1950s. Today, DARPA is continuing that pursuit through a program ostensibly designed to help soldiers who have suffered brain injuries, said Annie Jacobsen, author of “The Pentagon’s Brain.”
“Of the 2.5 million Americans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, 300,000 of them came home with traumatic brain injury,” Jacobsen told NPR. “DARPA initiated a series of programs to help cognitive functioning, to repair some of this damage. And those programs center around putting brain chips inside the tissue of the brain.”
To the public, these programs look like DARPA is searching for a way to use computer technology to help people with brain injuries. However, Jacobsen said that former DARPA scientists are concerned that whatever is discovered in these programs could be used for ulterior initiatives.
“And what my sources suggested to me was that the key to artificial intelligence lies inside the human brain. And the suggestion is that these brain-chip programs that DARPA keeps very classified are, in fact, prototypes to push artificial intelligence to becoming a reality.”
According to Jacobsen, questions surround how DARPA’s search to achieve artificial intelligence relates to its long-term plans for autonomous “hunter-killer drones.”
As an example of what the Pentagon has in mind, Jacobsen said one could “show a drone a photograph and say, ‘Go kill this man and report back to me.’ And when you look at the documents that the Pentagon is producing for its plans 20, 25 years out, DARPA is leading those efforts.”
However, DARPA is still years from implanting chips, according to online magazine Defense News, which said in a report last year said that DARPA was not yet in the testing phase.
“The military hopes to have a prototype within 5 years and then plans to seek FDA approval,” the report stated.
When DARPA launched its RAM (Restoring Active Memory) program last year, it projected it would be about four years until researchers were implanting chips in human.
——————————————————————
This kind of technology has been in the works for about 70 years, going back to the ground-breaking work by Dr. Jose Delgado. Wikipedia fills in the story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Rodriguez_Delgado
(Excerpts)
“José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado (August 8, 1915 – September 15, 2011) was a Spanish professor of physiology at Yale University, famed for his research into mind control through electrical stimulation of regions in the brain. His work opened many doors to the understanding of brain activity with the use of electrical stimuli.[1]”
“Delgado’s research interests centered on the use of electrical signals to evoke responses in the brain. His earliest work was with cats, but he later did experiments with monkeys and humans, including psychiatric patients.
Much of Delgado’s work was with an invention he called a stimoceiver, a radio which joined a stimulator of brain waves with a receiver which monitored E.E.G. waves and sent them back on separate radio channels. Some of these stimoceivers were as small as half-dollars. This allowed the subject of the experiment full freedom of movement while allowing the experimenter to control the experiment. This was a great improvement from his early equipment which included implanted electrodes whose wires ran from the brain to bulky equipment that both recorded data and delivered the desired electrical charges to the brain. This early equipment, while not allowing for a free range of movement, was also the cause of infection in many subjects.[3]
The stimoceiver could be used to stimulate emotions and control behavior. According to Delgado, “Radio Stimulation of different points in the amygdala and hippocampus in the four patients produced a variety of effects, including pleasant sensations, elation, deep, thoughtful concentration, odd feelings, super relaxation, colored visions, and other responses.” Delgado stated that “brain transmitters can remain in a person’s head for life. The energy to activate the brain transmitter is transmitted by way of radio frequencies.”[4]
Using the stimoceiver, Delgado found that he could not only elicit emotions, but he could also elicit specific physical reactions. These specific physical reactions, such as the movement of a limb or the clenching of a fist, were achieved when Delgado stimulated the motor cortex. A human whose implants were stimulated to produce a reaction were unable to resist the reaction and so one patient said “I guess, doctor, that your electricity is stronger than my will”. Some consider one of Delgado’s most promising finds is that of an area called the septum within the limbic region. This area, when stimulated by Delgado, produced feelings of strong euphoria. These euphoric feelings were sometimes strong enough to overcome physical pain and depression.[2]
Delgado created many inventions and was called a “technological wizard” by one of his Yale colleagues. Other than the stimoceiver, Delgado also created a “chemitrode” which was an implantable device that released controlled amounts of a drug into specific brain areas. Delgado also invented an early version of what is now a cardiac pacemaker.[2]”
“The most famous example of the stimoceiver in action occurred at a Cordoba bull breeding ranch. Delgado stepped into the ring with a bull which had had a stimoceiver implanted within its brain. The bull charged Delgado, who pressed a remote control button which caused the bull to stop its charge. Always one for theatrics, he taped this stunt and it can be seen today.[5] The region of the brain Delgado stimulated when he pressed the hand-held transmitter was the caudate nucleus. This region was chosen to be stimulated because the caudate nucleus is involved in controlling voluntary movements.[2] Delgado claimed that the stimulus caused the bull to lose its aggressive instinct.”
Here is a video of Delgado stopping the charging Bull:
Electronic brain implants may be on the way, but something just as frightening is already here; voice-to-skull technology. Yes, commercial applications are already being used where a signal is beamed directly into a person’s head, and only they can hear it. It is being used in advertising, and on some trains in Europe. For much more information on this, take a look at this article we wrote in July 2013:
I am a victim of V2k and microwave torture and need to know if an implanted chip is required? And what will nullify it.. I’ve worked for the Red cross in Mankato MN for the last 5 years..I also know who is doing it to me.. John Mayer of Saint Peter, MN. Great grand nephew of Oscar Mayer… Owners of Casey’s convince stores.
I’m curious as to whether this Bible verse is talking about a stimoceiver being implanted under a tooth cap or in a tooth filling:
(Isaiah 30:28 KJV)
And his breath, as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity: and there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing them to err.
There are several Bible passages that talk about the ability of one person to CAUSE another person “to err”(to error) in the King James Version of the Christian Bible.
That’s the problem with this technology: it can be used to CAUSE the person with the stimoceiver inside their body TO DO WRONG.
Since Dec. 9,1969,at 14 years of age, I’ve been a unwitting subject victim survivor of unauthorized covert brain implant experimentation. (47 years) It hasn’t been fun. Adverse effects of these 43 implants in the cerebral cortex, has been increase and variation in seizure disorder, and continual episodes of cerebral hemmorrahaging in the operative field. These implants are torture, no one should ever be misled, that they are therapeutic or helpful. They are painful, boycott implants, they serve no useful purpose. http://www.thewhyfiles.net/mkultra4.htm#update