Elon Musk. A name a lot of us BIM students most likely are familiar with. He has some respectable companies behind his name such as Tesla, SpaceX and the BoringCompany. Perhaps a company of his which you haven’t heard of yet, is Neuralink.
The thing they’re developing over there is, as they say so themselves, a breakthrough technology for the brain. It could possibly defeat diseases such as paralysis, deafness, blindness, memory loss and strokes in the future.
The Neuralink itself is basically a small chip that would be implanted into the brain, as can be seen in the video referenced below. Besides that chip, they’re also building a robot which would be capable of performing the entire operation of getting the actual chip into the brain. This would mean that no doctor would be needed in the surgery.
Although all of this sounds rather promising, a promising story is not enough to get your product or technology to the masses. The people also have to be willing to adopt to the technology. Even though most people might say that the resistance to such a technology is high, try to think of the following situation. You love being outdoors and doing all sorts of activities. One day, you’re driving down the highway and the person in the car behind you isn’t paying attention and doesn’t see that you’re braking. He crashes into you which results in you having a whiplash. You’re paralyzed from your neck down. When you’re in that situation, it may be more compelling to have a chip implanted into your brain so that you could use your body again.
It depends on the relative advantage you get compared to the old situation. If you’re healthy, sure, you would oppose such a science-fiction thing. But when you’re in a position in which your daily life is almost unbearable, something like the Neuralink could be like a miracle.
Two other salient points in whether people accept a certain technology are visibility and the ability to communicate benefits. Neuralink is already giving presentations like the one I mentioned in the beginning of this blog. This helps to get people familiarize with this technology. In the future, Neuralink could also release examples of people that have been cured from their diseases with Neuralink. So I think there’s a great potential for Neuralink to communicate their products’ benefits to the people that would need it.
The complexity of the new technology also plays a pivotal role for people to decide whether or not they have the intention to adopt to a technology. As can be seen in the video, Neuralink can be implemented into the brain in less than an hour and you could leave the hospital within a day. They also show you that there are no visible signs of the Neuralink, so one could have it without someone else knowing it. As people are already sometimes ashamed of something as banal as glasses or hearing aids, I think that’s also very important. The only drawback I saw in the video regarding complexity, is the charging process. It’d have to be charged like you would charge your smartwatch. So you would still have to put something on your head at night for it to charge. They did not elaborate on this further so a proper opinion on this, can’t be giving yet. All we can do is imagine how we would have to charge it and none of those ways seem really attractive or practical to me.
Compatibility in regard to culture should also not be overseen and I think that this is perhaps the biggest hurdle Neuralink should overcome to really convince people. Numerous potential fears that people might have could be thought of. Such as Neuralink controlling your brain instead of yourself controlling it. But perhaps the biggest concern is just the overall thought of having a chip implanted into your brain.
Some other technologies that may have the same general concerns are genetic manipulation, deep fakes and advanced AI programs. These technologies are all very different from a new type of phone for example. So the adaptation of these technologies might also be very different. These are technologies that maybe need a lot of public discussion and regulations before such technologies even go to the possible adaptation phase. I think that for technologies like these, a new way of looking at the adaption cycle of technologies is needed as these are vastly different from the technologies we used to encounter. They also propose more severe potential dangers and resistance from people even though the implementations of them, when used properly, could be tremendously.
Concludingly, I think that Neuralink will eventually be accepted and adopted by the people, but that it will follow a different adaptation cycle than the type of technologies we’ve had before. This also emphasizes the importance of looking at the adaptation cycle differently for such new and controversial technologies as Neuralink isn’t the only technology that belongs to that category.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLUWDLKAF1M
neuralink.com
Li, T. 2020, Session 1 – Digital Disruption, Information Strategy BM01BIM, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 07-09-2020.
Education and giving people information about this concept are essential to ensure that this innovation will be accepted in the market. For me it seems unimaginable to have a device in my head that only does good for your brain. Education in this is therefore definately needed. Only this video is not enough I think. They should really include doctors telling the story (this is seen as more thrustworthy compared to listening to the company that sells the product itself).
Also sharing positive feedback might be beneficial. However, I think that it is also important to highlight the potential downsides to give a more realistic view of the pro’s and con’s of the product. Obviously, when stating the downsides, it is important to mention the chance of it to happen and how potential negative side-effects can be overcome. For example, will it affect other parts of the brain?
Great that you also highlight a potential issue about how to charge the Neuralink and that you inspire others to think about this. It is indeed not convenient when having to sleep while plugging something on your head. However, like mobile devices, it might be possible to convert your pillow into a charging dock. What do you think about this?
Furthermore, it is impressive how Elon Musk continuously comes up with new innovations. However, maybe it is better to not directly have an automated robut install a chip in your head but to have it done by a surgeon for a few years (until the procedure of having a chip in your head is accepted in the market and that people have more trust in robotic surgeons).