Brainphone

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The brainphone is a brain-computer interface (BCI) device, as described by Scott Snair in the 2022 nonfiction book, The Brainphone Prophecy. The device is inserted in the human skull and has many of the processing, communicating, gaming, and social media features of the mobile phone. Future possible uses might include enhancing memory, recording memory, or creating memory (such as allowing the user to learn a new language instantly). When it reaches a certain level of popularity in societies, the device may essentially replace the mobile phone.

The first working device fitting the description of a brainphone is the Stentrode. In December 2021, the BCI company Synchron successfully inserted this implant in the head of Philip O'Keefe, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's disease. O'Keefe was able to email, bank, shop online, and send messages via Twitter, simply through his thoughts. The first mass marketed brainphone is likely to be the BCI device in development by Elon Musk's company Neuralink, although there are several companies, backed by well over $100 million (USD) from investors, also competing to bring such implants to the public.

The brainphone has dramatic implications for how humans might communicate, behave, and process information in the future. The device might also be the first step in merging humankind with machines or artificial intelligence.

The term brainphone first appeared in July 1999 as the name of a telecommunications company in Duluth, Georgia. The company applied for a trademark of the name but later abandoned the application. In August 2008, the Web domain Brainphone.com was created and registered through the domain-registration company NameBright.com. In October 2020, Nexus Magazine ran a cover story by Washington, D.C., data analyst Scott Snair on the device, entitled, "Are You Ready for the Brainphone?". In 2022, Snair published a nonfiction book criticizing the device, entitled The Brainphone Prophecy: Stop Corporations and the Government from Inserting a Smartphone in your Brain.

Hardware

A brainphone for broad, public use is likely to follow the most recent Neuralink design. A round device, one inch in diameter, will be inserted in the human skull, replacing a small, removed portion of the skull. Thousands of strands attached to the main device will be interwoven by a robot into the brain's neurons. The user's hair and skin will be put back in place, making the brainphone unseen. The device will contain a processor, a battery, and an inductive charger (for recharging the brainphone without having to insert a plug). Initially, the brainphone will contain a Bluetooth and use an outside modem, such as from a conventional mobile phone. As miniaturization advances, the brainphone is likely to contain a modem and be fully self-contained.

Possible Benefits

Medical

Synchron attained U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval and conducted the first successful trial of its device in December 2021. Neuralink is hoping also to launch its version of the product initially as a medical device. It has received a Breakthrough Device designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is still attempting to gain FDA approval for human trials. Eventually, with its ability to alter how the brain channels or processes information, this type of apparatus might be used to cure physically disabilities, spinal cord injuries, epilepsy, or blindness. The implant might cure or compensate for Alzheimer's disease.

Communication

From medical applications, the device might evolve into a commonly used, mass-communication gadget. The brainphone, as currently planned, will allow people to call up and communicate with other people (also possessing brainphones) just by thinking about them. Elon Musk has said his appliance will allow people to talk without speaking aloud. In future models, a screen will appear in one's mind, allowing for texting, or even photo and short-video messaging, such as is currently done with Snapchat.

Memory

With human thought transferred to code, and visa-versa, brainphone users will be able to purchase memories and have them downloaded for instant learning. For example, a brainphone user might purchase and instantly learn a new language or, perhaps, a talent for cooking. As with mobile phones, brainphone users will be able to record what they see and hear and store them as videos.

Entertainment

Eventually, brainphones will allow their users to immerse themselves in virtual worlds. Video games will seem very realistic, as the user experiences sights, sounds, and scenarios that, in reality, are not there. Elon Musk has suggested that, with his device, users will be able to enjoy music intensely, within their minds rather than through their ears.

Possible Disadvantages

Physical Side Effects

Aside from the obvious medical risk of having a brainphone implanted, there are likely to be physical side effects, with metal, strands of writing, electricity, and radio signals inside the brain. The currently-known, physical impact of mobile phones, such as increased obesity, lack of sleep, and dopamine addiction, might be greatly magnified by a mobile phone that is implanted.

Mental Health Side Effects

American psychologist Jean Twenge has conducted studies suggesting a strong correlation between mobile phone use in young people and mental health problems. Young people using mobile phones and social media are dramatically more likely to feel lonely, useless, and depressed. They are twice as likely to commit suicide as the young people of an earlier day without mobile phones. Once the mobile device becomes part of the brain, always on, always connected, these mental health problems might be intensified.

Constant Connectivity

Twenge, mentioned above, suggests that young people on social media often experience the social anxiety "fear of missing out" and feelings of failure. Without being able to walk away from their mobile phones, young people will always be connected and might fall victim to even more deepened anxiety. Online bullying might become more intense. People in general might begin having trouble distinguishing virtual reality from the real world.

Impact on Human Decision-Making

In 2021, the American Institute of Physics published a report suggesting that people with BCI devices will not only have their decision-making influenced, but that they might not realize that they are no longer independently making their choices. In their scholarly journal APL Bioengineering, they noted: "[O]wing to the lack of proprioception, the human brain is unable to acknowledge the influence of the external device on itself, which could potentially compromise autonomy and self-agency....Therefore, the design of mass marketed BCIs should aim to prevent impingements on user autonomy, as well as minimize the risk of dependency and impaired self-perception."

Humanitarian Concerns

Privacy

With brainphones, the human brain will become part of the Internet of Things, meaning that it will be able to be hacked. Corporations and governments, at least theoretically, will be able to monitor everyone's thoughts. Also, cancel culture and call-out culture might become amplified, as everyone is in everyone else's heads.

Freedom of Thought

If corporations and governments are able to hack a person's thoughts, then, theoretically, they should be able to change those thoughts. A corporation might use that ability to insert in people's minds the desire to purchase their products. An oppressive government might insert in people's minds a deep love for their leaders or an aversion to rebellion.

Hive Thought

As everyone is connected via their brainphones, they might begin to think and act as a collective, forming a group mind and behaving like a hive. Truth might become what the collective believes it to be, rather than what semantic externalism suggests it should be.

Humans Merging with Robots or Artificial Intelligence

In discussing his Neuralink device with Joe Rogan in May 2020, Elon Musk suggested that his reason for creating the implement was that humans might someday merge with robots. Musk argued that, soon, robots and artificial intelligence would be fully outpacing humans. His solution was, via his implant, for humans become one with the robots. By turning human thought into code, the brainphone might be the first step in the human race's transformation into cyborgs or transhumans.

External links

• Brain Implants: Hype or Hope | Katina Michael | TEDxASU | YouTube
• Why Neuralink Will Change Humanity Forever | Cindy Pom | Newsthink | YouTube

This article "Brainphone" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Brainphone. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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