Nearly 220 years ago, in January 1802, a heinous crime was committed in London. A certain George Forster murdered his wife and child, discarding their bodies in a canal. While Forster’s conflicts with his wife were well-known, it was the immediate discovery of her body contrasted with the three-day search for the child in the water that gripped the public. Witness testimonies, albeit imperfect by later standards, exposed the criminal who was sentenced to hanging. In accordance with the practices of the time, after the sentence was carried out, blood was released from his body, and his spine was cut in several places to ensure the efficacy of the execution.
Frankenstein story
The body of Forster was bequeathed for further scientific experimentation by the Italian scholar Giovanni Aldini. Aldini, a graduate of the Physics Department at the University of Bologna and incidentally the nephew of Luigi Galvani, famed for his experiments on frogs and his exploration of “biological electricity,” a popular scientific topic of the era. (Even Hugh Williamson, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signatory of the American Constitution, delved into this field.)
The experiment was decided to be conducted nearby, not far from the now vanished Newgate Prison, roughly midway between the contemporary edifices of the London Stock Exchange and the British Museum. Aldini affixed a system of electrodes to Forster’s body and head, applied voltage, and the corpse “came to life.” The prison gazette preserved a vivid description of the body’s movements – the opening of eyes, the waving of arms, and contortions of the face. Some of the official witnesses even questioned the very fact of the criminal’s death and were prepared to repeat the hanging of the “resurrected” child murderer in accordance with the sentence.
The experiment garnered widespread attention, and it’s argued that it served as an inspiration for the English writer Mary Shelley, author of the famous “Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.” In contemporary terms, Aldini’s electrode system served as an imperfect yet functional external «hardware” interface to the human nervous system, albeit inanimate.
What is new about Musk’s technology?
220 years later, Elon Musk announced the successful implantation of a chip into the nervous system of a living human being. While not the sole or inaugural instance (similar brain implants were successfully introduced to a paralyzed patient at a Swiss clinic last year, and just recently, a university in China resolved a similar task with a less invasive method for the brain), yet clearly the most prominent “man-machine” interface in the news at the onset of 2024 differs from Aldini’s primitive interface not so much in the technical details of execution, staggering as they may be (1024 individual electrodes interacting with the brain), nor in the complexity of coordinating the experiment itself (rumors suggest Aldini even bribed a London prosecutor for the expeditious conduct of his experiments, whereas Musk’s Neuralink company underwent a cycle of multiple approvals with regulators).
The key distinction undoubtedly lies in the bidirectionality of information exchange between the broader “mechanism” and humans — and the consequent ability to record, retain, and therefore replicate this data exchange. The initial experiments in developing Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) will be aimed at easing the lives of those entirely incapable of controlling either their bodies or receiving sensory impressions. The humanitarian aspect of such technologies is difficult to overstate. Paralyzed patients, whom Neuralink seeks to assist, individuals with missing limbs maneuvering mechanical analogs as naturally as their own, vision for the blind transmitted directly to the brain akin to cochlear implants for the hearing-impaired — the medical applications’ prospects are vast and nearly limitless.
Human sensations as a new product for sale
Limitless, however attentive any governmental or sector-specific regulator may be, are the non-medical applications of BCI. The wider the scope, quality, and complexity of information that can be transmitted between computers and the brain and vice versa, the more extensive the utilization of sensory production and reception — the primary commercial product of this new era. While conscientious commercial users might, at best, focus on the so-called “internet of senses” — inhaling the scent of the sea through appropriate sensors while in a different climatic zone or remotely petting a beloved dog, receiving the corresponding tactile sensation via BCI — a much more radical departure beyond the confines of immediate personal experience becomes inevitable.
Neuroplasticity will likely enable the operation of organs that modern Homo sapiens fundamentally lack. For instance, BCI may teach individuals (perhaps not at any age) to wave a tail, absent in humans but present in evolutionarily close relatives, much like a six-fingered child confidently maneuvers the “extra” digit from birth. Moreover, sensations, digitized arrays of nerve impulses generated in the brain, can be “recorded” and “replayed,” at least at the level of a specific sensory organ with engineerable innervation. Petting a beloved dog, no longer alive, could simply involve “replaying” the set of nerve impulses generated by the tactile nerve endings of one’s fingers.
Alternatively, if sensations can be recorded and replayed by oneself, they can also be replayed on a compatible interface of another person. Particularly vivid and commercially successful experiences will be replicated by millions — much like how modern travel bloggers transmit their visual experiences through social media to millions of followers.
The threat of the sensation market
A completely new and infinitely diverse market for trade, exchange, scaling, and ultimately creation of sensations will emerge, aided by generative AI. It’s safe to say that part of it will be illegal, while another part will be blatantly criminal.
The “recording” of the bodily sensations of lovers’ encounters will find its criminal expression in sexual violence; criminals’ sensations at the moment of committing crimes will attract followers among enthusiasts of trash streaming. However, perhaps the most unpredictable development will be society’s relationship with psychoactive substances, drugs, or whatever mass development and cost reduction of BCI will replace them with.
Humanity faces an even more apocalyptic scenario with centralized, synchronized, and mass access to BCI, where its legality or illegality will make no discernible difference to us. Which public figure, even led by the best intentions, will refuse to motivate dissenting parts of the electorate with righteous, kind, and humanistic feelings?
The risk of losing one’s feelings
It’s clear that transitioning from controlling a cursor on a screen through mental effort to mass-induced societal ecstasy will require many years of research and hundreds of millions of dollars in investments. The engineering, medical, and computer challenges facing the creators of this new reality are vast and unprecedented. However, the unequivocal focus in the immediate future must be on the issues of information security surrounding these new technologies. The risks of losing access to one’s sensations and, essentially, losing freedom of will are existentially unacceptable for individuals and society as a whole. The basic, unmanageable risk in this regard is fundamentally different from losing access to one’s bank account or even to the control console of a “nuclear briefcase.”
Technological breakthroughs of the past couple of years have confidently stripped the label of “fiction” from the science fiction literature of recent decades. Moreover, the entire experience of progress demonstrates that no technology can be contained within the confines of its initial practical intent. If Giovanni Aldini could have recorded, decrypted, and sold the sequence of electrical signals on the neurons of the executed Forster, Mary Shelley’s novel about Victor Frankenstein would have been far more harrowing.
