Some musings on what brain-computer interfaces might look like in the foreseeable future and ideas that could become research topics.

Prologue

BCI technology and brain-related sciences have appeared in countless iconic works of fiction. From The Matrix’s cranial plug-in, to Cloud Atlas’s growth chambers; from the full-body prosthetics and cyberbrain warfare in Ghost in the Shell, to Psycho-Pass’s Sibyl System—a judicial AI built from hundreds of human brains determining “crime coefficients.” Each offers a different vision of what this technology could become.

Among these, the digital warfare involving cyberbrain manipulation in Ghost in the Shell is perhaps the most directly relevant to security.

But the implications extend far beyond fiction. Neuralink has already demonstrated the industry’s state of the art, suggesting that BCI will tangibly affect our lives within our lifetimes. The exponential pace of technological development could mature these technologies remarkably fast.

For now, let me focus on one narrow question: how would BCI devices handle computation?

Visions of the Future

No doubt, many dreams can be realized through BCI.

Present: Industry

• Non-invasive BCIs can already help people with disabilities—for example, driving wheelchairs or playing video games.
• Invasive BCIs can precisely attach electrodes inside a mouse’s brain, enabling bidirectional electrical signal transmission.

Near Future

• BCIs should be able to perform auxiliary computation for the human brain—allowing the brain to use the BCI much like it would use a computer.
• BCI-based VR/AR controllers: when we no longer need mice, keyboards, joysticks, or even pen and paper, we could directly control external devices via brainwaves.

Distant Future

• Beyond language. Language is a remarkable invention, but its information bandwidth and precision are fundamentally limited. In the future, we might communicate directly via brainwaves.
• Memory dumps. The brain is arguably the body’s most complex organ, and memory remains one of its most mysterious functions. I recall learning in a neuroscience class that researchers could create false memories in mice by stimulating certain brain regions. Could our own memories one day be downloaded?
• Simulated experiences. If memories can be stored, they could be replayed. How would you relive a memory as if you actually experienced it? Or experience someone else’s memories?
• Digital transcendence. If a brain could be perfectly copied 1:1, would that constitute immortality? If it could be digitally simulated, would that be the singularity?

On the Technology

After consulting friends doing BCI research: they consider Neuralink’s technology relatively behind the academic cutting edge, though its productization is impressively advanced.

Current approaches fall into two categories: invasive (something gets implanted in the brain) and non-invasive (electrodes placed on the skull). See this Wikipedia article for details.

As a hobbyist, I’ve already started eyeing experimental equipment. EEG brainwave capture and analysis experiments are relatively straightforward to set up at home. Check out OpenBCI for open-source hardware and software, as well as HackEEG on Crowd Supply.

Security And BCI

The security community has already begun paying attention. There’s even a comprehensive survey on arXiv cataloging potential attack channels and their attack surfaces.

As early as 2017, researchers published a paper on passive brainwave eavesdropping. The basic idea: capture brainwaves while a user types a password, run an ML model, and infer the password. While the attack sounds impressive, its technical depth and real-world impact are limited.

So what would a more formidable attack look like?

• Remote brainwave capture and analysis. Current attacks require the target to be wearing a BCI device. Without widespread adoption, attacking someone without one is infeasible.
• Injecting signals to influence thought or decisions. Implanted BCIs can feed electrical signals back into neurons. Could this cause physical brain damage? Influence thinking? Affect behavior (e.g., muscle activation signals)? (Though honestly, social engineering can achieve similar results…)

Trusted Computing

Should all brain-related data processing happen in a sufficiently secure environment? I believe the answer is yes. If the environment isn’t secure, a person’s thoughts, cognitive patterns, and even memories could be stolen.

One approach using today’s technology: trusted computing. The premise is that the BCI’s on-body controller may lack the computational power for complex operations. Data would be uploaded to more powerful cloud machines, using trusted computing to protect computational integrity and confidentiality.

IoT & BCI

Can we treat BCI devices like ordinary IoT devices? Networked BCIs technically qualify as “Internet of Things,” but are far more critical. The BCI technology stack is considerably more complex: from sensors to signal processing to higher-level applications.

Beyond Technology

Primarily concerning fairness, warfare, and surveillance.

Fairness

People with better cognitive augmentation will naturally have advantages. Would those without advanced BCIs become an exploited underclass? If wealthy families can equip their children with million-dollar cognitive augmentation devices while poorer families rely on “stock” brains for memorizing textbooks, class mobility becomes virtually impossible. Educational inequality would be crushing and permanent.

Warfare

While piloting a mech suit would be incredibly cool, BCIs will almost certainly be weaponized. Whether we get mech suits depends on more than BCI—robotics and weapons technology matter too—but we cannot rule out BCI being abused for military purposes.

Surveillance

I won’t dwell on this, but I believe it’s a frighteningly natural development in authoritarian states. Imagine every newborn being fitted with a BCI or implanted with a chip: serving as identity verification, flagging “dangerous thoughts” to security services, or even using technology to suppress dissent at the neurological level.

This would undoubtedly become civilization’s darkest “invention.”