AI Endgame: Brain Chips Merging Humans with AI (Part 2) - Military and Commercial use

Newsletter #25

Mar 07, 2025

https://debbiecoffey.substack.com/p/ai-endgame-brain-chips-merging-humans-c37

March 7, 2025

By Debbie Coffey, AI Endgame

As I’ve learned more about the rapidly advancing technology of brain chips, known as Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs), a thought that continues to gnaw at me is:

Will brain chips steal our private thoughts, and take away what it is to be a human?

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are a part of the AI “arms race” for military superiority between the U.S., China and Russia.

If you’re wondering how fast brain chip technology is developing, the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command predicted brain enhancement technology, particularly in the form of implants, could be common by 2030. [1]

Military uses

A few mind-blowing facts include:

BCIs could be used to “enhance” soldiers by allowing them to control weapons that are thousands of miles away by using their thoughts. [2]

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) uses BCI technology for its Silent Talk program. This program enables battlefield communications without verbal speech, using neural signals akin to Brain-to-Brain Interfaces (BBIs). [3]

To reiterate, brain implants could facilitate communication without words, instead using thoughts to control objects located thousands of miles away.

BCIs can also be used to boost memory, alter moods, and suppress fear and anxiety during battle.

The Air Force is testing handheld devices and skull caps that use electrical current to stimulate the brain. The goal is to reduce the time it takes to train pilots how to fly.

The Rand Corporation, a think tank, published a report in 2020 titled “Brain Computer Interfaces, U.S. Military Applications and Implications.” [4]

Rand’s report warns that invasive brain chips carry the risk of any surgery, including hemorrhaging, infections or brain damage. Current implants corrode and are only useful for a limited time. Electrodes can also cause infections and degrade with time.

Rand notes that adversaries are already exploring methods to disrupt the human brain from a distance using ultrasonic frequencies, microwaves and other techniques, while implants may allow direct access to the brain to inflict harm.

BCI technology vulnerabilities include electromagnetic pulse in electronic warfare attacks, jamming signals, or allowing adversaries to intercept our signals, then replace them with their signals.

Most importantly, Rand’s report states “As humans become more closely intertwined with machines through BCI, technology could have profound implications” for interpersonal relationships, by reducing emotional and psychological bonds. This could fundamentally alter the nature of human relationships.

If this can occur with soldiers, it could also happen to the civilian population using BCI implants designed for commercial uses.

One of my main concerns about military use of BCIs is whether soldiers will be ordered, coerced, or forced into having brain chips implanted.

Ironically, Rand listed many concerns regarding BCIs, but then recommended ways to convince soldiers, who would likely be reluctant, to submit to having brain chips implanted.

These same ploys will probably be used in efforts to persuade the rest of us to get brain chips.

Rand noted that “the trust factor,” cultural barriers to BCI, particularly among infantry service members, would be high. Rand suggests that by starting with BCIs for medical use in wounded soldiers, other service members would be more likely to trust devices that have been vetted and tested.

In other words, start by using wounded soldiers as guinea pigs.

Rand also noted that BCIs could be more readily accepted by service members who already rely heavily on machine technologies. Rand suggested the military could also partner with private and commercial AI labs.

The only “bright side” of this will be more big government contracts for the AI oligarchs.

Commercial uses

BCIs for commercial uses are also part of the AI race for dominance between private companies.

What do you think could happen when BCI technology, used to communicate without words and use thoughts to control objects thousands of miles away, becomes commercially available?

Who will control any given BCI? A private company with no accountability to the public? A government?

Will data from our brains be stored on the cloud or on servers? Will this data remain anonymous?

The military and commercial use of BCI technology designed to “enhance” our brains comes with significant risks. It could compromise the privacy of our thoughts or even allow external control over our minds.

What about Bad Actors?

What will happen when bad actors (people with harmful intentions) gain access to BCI patents available online or learn to hack brain implants?

People have serious concerns about gun control in the world today. Imagine the possibility of bad actors using their minds to control a swarm of drones.

Could a BCI used to control objects thousands of miles away also be used to send a signal to cause a heart to stop beating?

If bad actors can communicate without words, will they send propaganda directly to our brains to manipulate or control us?

This technology could become available for use by everyone in the world. Once this genie is out of the bottle, there is no putting it back.

What about hackers?

If the brain chip in a soldier is hacked by an enemy, could it force the soldier to do something the soldier himself wouldn’t choose to do (like turn on his team with “friendly fire,” refuse an illegal order, or commit an atrocity)?

A scenario like this could parallel The Manchurian Candidate, where a soldier is unknowingly programmed to carry out an assassination, manipulated by forces beyond his control. Both raise unsettling questions about free will, autonomy, and the dangers of external control over the human mind, particularly in high-stakes environments like warfare and politics.

If a BCI is used commercially, could a hacker gain control of our minds or memories?

Remember that as we talk about BCIs, we’re talking about the control of our brains, the very essence of ourselves.

China

China just announced the world’s first two-way BCI, allowing the brain and machine to learn from each other. This is unlike conventional BCIs that only decode brain signals. This allows users to perform more complex tasks. [5]

This is also eerily similar to AI superintelligence learning and growing exponentially. Once AI becomes smarter than humans, we risk human extinction.

What could happen when a BCI implant becomes smarter than the human brain, and takes over?

Russia

Russia’s Kommersant Business Daily reported that in 2021, prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin personally approved a government program to research controlling electronic devices with the use of the human brain by implanted computer chips. [6] Russia is tight lipped about whatever they’re doing, and I couldn’t find many details on the internet.

Neuroweapons

I’m not the only one concerned about bad actors. Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy states “One key national security concern is the potential use of neuroweapons by hostile actors. Neuroweapons encompass biological agents, chemical weapons, and even directed energy targeted at the brains and central nervous systems of enemy combatants…neuroweapons have the potential to disrupt everything…from individual cells in a body to societies and geopolitics.”

You only need to look at what some military units have already been doing to interfere with our brains to consider how BCIs used by bad actors could have a “dark side.”

Havana Syndrome

Havana syndrome was first reported in Havana, Cuba in 2016, when U.S. embassy officials began experiencing severe headaches after hearing loud, piercing sounds. Since then, there have been more than 1,000 reported cases affecting U.S. government employees around the world.

In 2024, A joint investigation by The Insider, 60 Minutes, and Der Spiegel revealed that U.S. officials had been targeted by Russian sonic weaponry used by members of Russia’s Unit 29155, a highly secretive military group under the direct control of President Vladimir Putin. This Russian unit was placed at the scenes of reported health incidents involving U.S. personnel, and senior members of the unit received awards and promotions for work related to the development of "non-lethal acoustic weapons." [7]

Dr. Jeffrey Staab, chair of psychiatry and psychology at the Mayo Clinic and one of the 19 experts for the National Academy of Science on Havana Syndrome, explained that “exposed to directed RF energy, the brain could suffer at a functional level without having any structural damage.”

Dr. James Giordano, professor of neurology and biochemistry at Georgetown University and Director of the Institute for Biodefense Research, noted that “if RF or EM energy is sent in repetitive nanosecond pulses, it could induce neuropathologic effects, and it would be very difficult to detect such pulses.” [8]

A report from a United Nations panel warned that BCIs, which enhance the cognitive abilities of military personnel by merging human and machine intelligence, could be used inappropriately by the military and could lead to human rights abuses. The UN panel also expressed concerns about privacy, free and informed consent by soldiers, and the long-term physical and mental health of soldiers. [9]

If we’re lucky enough to worry about long-term health issues, an article in Military.com posed questions:

If DARPA's technology ever becomes a device that is implanted in the brain of a warfighter, what responsibility would the government have for maintaining that technology?

Will the Department of Veterans Affairs service degrading brain implants for decades after Americans take off their uniforms?

Will mental health or cognitive disorders emerge decades from now, and will those who suffer from them receive care? [10]

What about commercial uses? Will private companies be responsible for maintaining the devices for the rest of your life, and take care of any health, mental, or cognitive disorders that could develop?

Where will brain chip technology end for humanity?

We need to protect our human rights. We need international treaties or regulations for the use of BCIs. Now, before it’s too late.

Find links to all past AI Endgame newsletters HERE.

What you can do:

Some states plan to, or already have responded to, the rapid advancements in neurotechnology that could potentially exploit mental data for profit. Last year, Colorado’s governor passed a pioneering law to protect personal brainwave data. Please call, or send a link to this Colorado law, to your governor and state representatives and ask them to pass a similar law.

Support (and if you can, make donations) to organizations fighting for AI Safety:

Pause AI

https://pauseai.info/

Center for Humane Technology

https://www.humanetech.com/who-we-are

Center for Democracy and Technology

https://cdt.org/

[1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/07/28/next-frontier-warfighters-might-be-implants-their-brains-pentagon-ready-consequences.html

[2] https://theconversation.com/brain-computer-interfaces-could-allow-soldiers-to-control-weapons-with-their-thoughts-and-turn-off-their-fear-but-the-ethics-of-neurotechnology-lags-behind-the-science-194017

[3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343925383_Brain-Computer_Interfaces_US_Military_Applications_and_Implications_An_Initial_Assessment

[4] file:///C:/Users/wildh/Downloads/RAND_RR2996.pdf

[5] https://interestingengineering.com/science/worlds-first-2-way-bci-china