The results were undoubtedly impressive and are early steps in restoring a degree of independence to those who are completely or partially paralyzed. As more and more everyday products are connected to the internet as part of the Internet of Things, it's conceivable that the same people who were entirely immobile will be able to manipulate almost anything in their environment using a brain-machine interface that is also connected to the internet.
"There is a great deal of interest in providing the ability to control one's environment via a BCI, and we hope to be able to demonstrate further progress in this area in the not-too-distant future," Henderson told me. "I think the next 10 years will be a very exciting time of rapid growth for the field of BCI."
Others are even more optimistic. SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has launched Neuralink, a company dedicated to creating "neural lace," a brain-computer interface. Neuralink has already raised $27 million in funding.
The downside of connecting anything to the internet is, of course, a significant drop in the security of that device. Insecure IoT devices have enabled the largest botnet attacks in history, such as the recent Mirai botnet that temporarily took down huge swaths of the internet using a Denial of Service attacks. When these internet-connected devices are actually implanted and interfacing with someone's brain, this brings up entirely new security issues, such as the possibility of 'brain jacking.' It also brings up serious ethical questions about culpability. For instance, who is guilty when a brain-controlled computer kills?
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