Brain-Computer Interfaces Raise Serious Questions

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Since the beginning, humans have been using implements to improve their existence. Adam probably fashioned a rake and a hoe to tend the garden. Jump forward to advanced technology with computers and artificial intelligence, and there are some startling things going on.

The quest for making self-aware artificial intelligence continues, merging humanity and machines in transhumanism, and even the possibility of mind cloning. Man tries to displace God in creation with evolution as well as with technology. The idea of brain-computer interfaces is both exciting and alarming.

Similar to transhumanism and artificial intelligence, scientists are working on connecting humans with machines. Questions of ethics must be considered, especially for Christians.
Network, Pixabay / Gerd Altmann
The exciting part is medical, providing people with handicaps or damage to connect with the outside world. Such applications are no more along the lines of playing God as a physician treating an injury or illness.

Science fiction writers have provided speculative and even cautionary stories that involve computers, androids, robots, and so on getting control of our minds through hardware of one sort or another. Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) are doing just that, but the process is just beginning and those warnings are not describing imminent dangers. 

Although preliminary, other areas that involve BCI have alarming possibilities. Indeed, the people in charge may not exactly have the good of humanity at heart, as seen with gene editing ethics. People, especially Christians, need to ask themselves some serious questions about these things.
“Mind-reading” used to be a figure of speech. The brain was the inner sanctum of privacy, agency, and autonomy. Telepathy existed only in fiction. But not anymore. The dawning epoch of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) has researchers calling for “Brave new rights for a brave new world.” With the integrity of our minds—if not the core aspects of our humanity—in the balance, everyday Christians need to carefully consider how to navigate the ethical world of BCIs.

To read the rest of this extremely interesting as well as disturbing article, see "Questions Christians Need to Ask Before Using Brain-Computer Interfaces."