China is making strides in brain-computer interface (BCI) technology, aiming for general cognitive enhancement alongside military applications. Last week, NeuCyber NeuroTech, in conjunction with the Chinese Institute for Brain Research, showcased a novel BCI able to interpret a monkey’s thoughts and allow it to control a robotic arm.
Despite previously limiting their research to noninvasive technology involving electrodes in the past, advances in devices that implant directly in the brain, such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink, have galvanized Chinese researchers. Analysts suggest that their progress is now being conducted at a rate that is competitive with that of the United States.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has laid out its ambition to use brain-computer interfaces for “Nonmedical purposes such as attention modulation, sleep regulation, memory regulation, and exoskeletons,” raising national security concerns.
The potential for BCI technologies to influence warfighters’ cognition and merge human-machine intelligence could result in a military paradigm shift, potentially leaving the U.S. at a disadvantage if it does not follow suit.
“China’s strategy fundamentally links the military and the commercial, and that is why there is concern,” explains Margaret Kosal, associate professor of international affairs at Georgia Institute of Technology.
The research, made more viable by advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), also raises ethical concerns about a “transhumanist” future in which man and machine increasingly overlap and dystopian concepts such as “virtual children” become normalized.
