
Neural technologies could become the next battleground - sushirain
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/14/this-is-your-brain-this-is-your-brain-as-a-weapon-darpa-dual-use-neuroscience/
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hyperion2010
First, full disclosure, I take any story that features Miguel with a truckload
of salt.

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.

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.

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).

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.

Fun thought: aren't human beings biological weapons?

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seehafer
Hahaha, I take it by your first line you have some neural engineering
background?

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hyperion2010
A bit, though no direct lab experience on the engineering side. When I worked
upstairs from his lab I was doing social/behavioural recordings. I also have
some buddies who are deep into neural prosthesis engineering on the sensory
end.

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joe_the_user
Oh this seems really crude and nasty.

I normally hate animal-rights-erists. but damn, how many monkeys need to
suffer for this kind of hokum.

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.

