First, full disclosure, I take any story that features Miguel with a truckload of salt.<p>I think it is fair to say that the ethical implications of certain new neurotechnology will need to be studied, however any practical implications are massively overblown in this article. Let us consider just two massive obstacles, the second of which will have even larger and more far reaching ethical implications than the ones discussed in this article.<p>1) Durable cybernetics implants. Have you ever seen the margin of an open wound needed to run the wires for the datarates needed to send or receive neural signals? I have, they are nasty, nasty things that only the severely disabled would start to consider. Our materials science knowledge here (cerebral spinal fluid is basically like ocean water, corrosive as all hell) is at least 10 or 15 years away from basic things. Our knowledge of how to get data in and out without wires at sufficiently high bandwidth is also at least 15 years. Preventing gliosis that blocks any electrodes from sending and receiving after a year? Not even going to speculate on that one. And this only names a tiny fraction of the issues here.<p>2) Effective human viral vectors or other gene delivery methods. Unless you are planning to genetically engineer humans to have channelrhodopsins (actually might be more viable in the short run) you have to get the genes for these things in there. I know of a couple studies looking at viral injections for gene therapy in Alzheimer's patients, transfection rates are exceptionally low because most of our best viruses for animal work suck in humans since we already have an immune response to them. Like with point 1 also have to crack someone's head open, which is a gigantic risk to the point where if someone wanted a channelrhodopsined super soldier they'd do the injection before training (at which point human genetic engineering would be more effective anyway).<p>tl;dr Absurdly premature to worry about this and there will probably be better and more fundamentally disturbing ways of accomplishing the same things. Hell, stick with the tried and true Amphetamine if you want results. Also don't worry about Hyperion Ouster style interrogation techniques being employed any time in the remotely foreseeable future.<p>Fun thought: aren't human beings biological weapons?
Oh this seems really crude and nasty.<p>I normally hate animal-rights-erists. but damn, how many monkeys need to suffer for this kind of hokum.<p>Edit: I mean, if someone getting real neurology out of monkey brains, whatever. But someone is really imagining going from monkey brains to a weapon they sell the defense dept. Well, as I said above.