Brad Littlejohn: A world without friction, or free thought

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 6th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: AI and the brain. WORLD Opinions Commentator Brad Littlejohn says Elon Musk’s latest start-up may solve a few medical problems. But it may create some others.

BRAD LITTLEJOHN, COMMENTATOR: Last week, Elon Musk’s Neuralink announced it had succeeded in implanting the first-ever computer chip in a live human brain. The breakthrough represents the latest reminder that yesterday’s science fiction is rapidly becoming reality, with ethical implications we have barely begun to grasp.

Before jumping to dark conclusions, though, we should ask: Are Neuralink’s ambitions really that sinister? After all, Musk has insisted that the near-term goal for the project is medical—to enable paralyzed patients or those suffering from muscular degeneration once again to interact with their environment.

In themselves, such aspirations are not wrong. But they are not medicine in the traditional sense, whose task, ideally, is to heal the human body—enabling it to return to its proper functioning. In some cases, where medicine cannot do so, it devises work-arounds that can simulate the lost functions, such as a prosthetic leg. Often, what begins as a supplement for a small subset of the population is then generalized for all. Consider the trajectory of in vitro fertilization or IVF. It began as a “treatment” for infertility but is now being employed by those who’d just rather not have their own babies or who would like to genetically enhance them.

In fact, Musk has been open about the fact that Neuralink harbors broader ambitions. Why shouldn’t we use implanted brain chips to allow a more seamless interaction between men and machines? Neuralink’s goal is to offer a product called Telepathy, which “enables control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking.” The connection is also meant to be a two-way street. Not only will the chips feed my thoughts to a computer, but they will be able to feed the computer directly into my thoughts. Who doesn’t want to read their Facebook feed without even picking up their phone?

Well, presumably a lot of people. We are already grappling with the debilitating effects that the smartphone revolution has had on mental health. Where a generation ago I had to get up, walk to my desktop, and wait for dial-up internet to connect between browsing pages or composing a message, now I just have to pull my phone out of my pocket. There is little time for judgment to intervene before impulse and action. It is simply too easy to consume pornographic imagery or tweet an angry rant.

The world Musk imagines is not one that empowers thought, but one that abolishes it. Although too much friction would keep my car from driving at all, a world without friction would be one in which neither brakes nor steering wheels had any effect. Just so, effortless thinking would not be human thought at all, and effortless action would no longer be human action. Indeed, this is precisely Musk’s dream. He declared,“The long-term aspiration with Neuralink would be to achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence.”

Musk promises us a world without friction. But in such a world, will the word “I” still have meaning? The abolition of the stubborn barrier between mind and world may be the abolition of man.

I’m Brad Littlejohn.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.