Dr Giordano “The need for a reality check is now” – DARPA’s N3 “Mind Control” Technology eliminates the need for Implants
10-31-2024
Mind Control – DARPA
By Sarah Westall | SarahWestall.com
This is the tech that I have been most concerned about. Once the “bad guys” with resources have the capability to manipulate the brain without implants (i.e. chips, nano sensors, etc) it becomes very difficult to protect yourself. It also makes it significantly easier for bad actors to implement agendas against governments and institutions. The need to develop solutions to protect ourselves is now.
Dr. James Giordano, the Executive Director of the Institute of Biodefense Research and a leading DARPA scientist, just sounded the alarm on the dangers of DARPA’s Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology project.
DARPA’s N3 project takes the power of communicating directly to a human’s brain to a whole new level. Previous brain communication required surgical implantation of a device, but this new technology makes it possible for two way communication directly to the brain without an invasive brain-machine interface:
The envisioned N3 technology breaks through the limitations of existing technology by delivering an integrated device that does not require surgical implantation, but has the precision to read from and write to 16 independent channels within a 16mm3 volume of neural tissue within 50ms. Each channel is capable of specifically interacting with sub-millimeter regions of the brain with a spatial and temporal specificity that rivals existing invasive approaches. Individual devices can be combined to provide the ability to interface to multiple points in the brain at once.
To enable future non-invasive brain-machine interfaces, N3 researchers are working to develop solutions that address challenges such as the physics of scattering and weakening of signals as they pass through skin, skull, and brain tissue, as well as designing algorithms for decoding and encoding neural signals that are represented by other modalities such as light, acoustic, or electro-magnetic energy. (source: DARPA)
The ability for mind control and human manipulation is magnified when surgical implantation is not needed. If a remote device is sufficient to control ones thoughts, emotions, and memories the ability for mass mind control is not only doable, but inevitable by powerful actors in the future if this tech is not controlled.
This concern is not going unnoticed by top neural scientists such as Dr. Giordano. On October 30th, 2024, Giordano posted on his LinkedIn account a brief description of the technology and the “Pandoras” box that it opens. He warns that DARPA’s new tech “doesn’t require much of a stretch to recognize that this is fundamentally ‘mind reading’ and ‘mind control’”.
He continues, “the real world is multinational, and DARPA – and the US – are not alone in pursuing these projects. Nations’ and people’s values, needs, desires, economics, allegiances and ethics differ, and any genuine ethical discourses – and policy governances – must account for that. The need for a reality check is now; the question is whether there is enough rational capital in regulatory institutions’ accounts to cash the check without bouncing bankable benefits into the realms of burdens, risks and harms.”
Dr James Giordano’s full statement:
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA)’s Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) project is an ambitious initiative aiming to develop vast array of nanoscalar sensing and transmitting brain-computational interfaces (BCls). An axiomatic attribute of such a system is obviating the burden and risks of neurosurgical implantation by instead introducing the nanomaterials via intranasally, intravenously and/or intraorally, and using electromagnetic fields to migrate the units to their distribution within the brain. It’s said that location is everything, and so too here. Arrays would require precise placement in order to engage specific nodes and
networks, and it’s unknown if -and to what extent any
“drift” might incur in system fidelity. The system works much like WiFi in that it’s all about parsing signal from the “noise floor” of the brain; but “can you hear me now?” takes on deeper implications when the sensing and transmitting dynamics involve “reading from” and “writing into” brain processes of cognition, emotions and behavior. I’d be the first one to argue for an “always faithful” paradigm of sensing and transmitting integrity; yet, even if the system and its workings are true to design, there’s still a possibility of components (and functions) being “hacked”. As work with Dr Diane DiEuliis has advocated, the need for
“biocybersecurity-by-design” is paramount (not just for N3, but for all neurotech, given its essential reliance
upon data). By intent, N3 holds promise in medicine; but the tech is also provocative for communications (of all sorts), and its dual-use is obvious. Yes, Pandora, this jar’s been opened. If we consider the sum-totaled operations of the embodied brain to be “mind”, and N3-type tech is aimed at remotely sensing and modulating these operations, then it doesn’t require much of a stretch to recognize that this is fundamentally “mind reading” and “mind control”, at least at a basic level. And that’s contentious. In full transparency, I served as a consulting ethicist on initial stages of N3, and the issues spawned by this project were evident, and deeply discussed. But discussion is not resolution, and the “goods” as well as the gremlins and goblins of N3 tech have been loosed into the real world. The real world is multinational, and DARPA – and the US – are not alone in pursuing these projects. Nations’ and peoples’ values, needs, desires, economics, allegiances, and ethics differ, and any genuine ethical discourses – and policy governances – must account for that. The need for a reality check is now; the question is whether there is enough rational capital in regulatory institutions’ accounts to cash the check without bouncing bankable benefits into the realms of burdens, risks and harms.