Elon Musk's Neuralink Chip Could Lead to a 'Black Mirror' Episode in Real Life: Experts Warn It Could be Hacked
Elon Musk's Neuralink Chip
Could Lead to a 'Black Mirror' Episode in Real Life: Experts Warn It Could be
Hacked
8 August 2020, 2:32 am EDT By Nhx T. Tech Times
The hype around Elon Musk's
mysterious Neuralink brain-computer interface (BCI) is getting bigger as the
billionaire tech CEO is slowly detailing how the chip would work, but experts
have a warning: the chip, along with other neural interfaces, could be hacked.
Experts warn that
brain-computer interface like the Neuralink chip could be hacked.
Security Experts Warn About
BCIs
According to a Daily
Mail report, experts have issued a warning that hackers could target
these BCIs, including Musk's Neuralink chip, to create a worse breach than
anything else.
Based on the report, hackers
could exploit the tech, read and steal thoughts and memories, and delete your
skills, which could be easily mistaken for a Black Mirror episode--only
that it could happen in real life.
Elon Musk has been working on
Neuralink since 2016 when he first founded it.
Not much has been said about
the company, nor the brain chip they have been working on except a few details
that Musk has announced over his Twitter account.
Competing With AI
But one thing is for sure:
Musk said he has been developing the neural interface so that humans could
compete with artificial intelligence and avoid a looming Singularity
apocalypse, which is the theory that AI and robots will soon overtake people.
In a previous interview with
the New
York Times, Musk predicted that in the next five years, humankind could
already be overtaken by AI, and although humanity won't become extinct, it
could be "uncomfortable."
A few of the details that the
tech CEO has shared via social media is the chip's ability to cure depression,
change the wearer's mood, hear
things they weren't able to hear before, and even cure mobility
problems, which could be helpful for people who have paralysis due to injured
spines.
But while BCIs, specifically
the Neuralink's chip, appears to be a great answer to many problems with our
bodies, security experts are worried.
Why Target Neural Interfaces?
ZDNet reports
that experts believe that cybercriminals would try and hack into these types of
technologies, especially as they could use it to bring down large corporations
to even nations as they could read the minds of political leaders, business
executives, and such.
Furthermore, experts could
soon use these neural chips as an authentication mechanism as our brain
activities' patterns are incredibly unique.
They believe it could be used
to permit access to sensitive data, which is why cybercriminals think it would
be worthwhile to hack into these systems, despite the challenge they would face
in replicating brain waves.
But in the event a hack takes
place, what are the repercussions?
"What type of damage
will [an attack] do to the brain, will it erase your skills or disrupt your
skills? What are the consequences - would they come in the form of just new
information put into the brain, or would it even go down to the level of
damaging neurons that then leads to a rewiring process within the brain that
then disrupts your thinking," said director of research Dr. Sasitharan
Balasubramaniam from the Waterford Institute of Technology's Telecommunication
Software and Systems Group (TSSG).
To avoid these worst-case
scenarios, manufacturers such as Musk's Neuralink would have to ensure the
security of these interfaces by using all sorts of familiar measures to "ensure
that no unauthorized person can modify their functionality."
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