Mind Over Machine: Are We Ready for the Brain-Computer Revolution?

From Xinhua News Agency, Aug. 12, 2025. Complete text:

Berlin – In a quiet hospital room, a man stares at a screen. His body remains still, but the cursor begins to move. There is no keyboard, no mouse, only a flicker of brain activity picked up by a tiny implant.

For decades, this kind of scene was the stuff of science fiction: controlling machines with the mind, commanding prosthetic limbs with a thought, restoring motion to those who cannot move. But today, brain-computer interface (BCI) technology is turning the unthinkable into reality.

Acting as a “bridge” between mind and machine, BCI technology is not only transforming how humans interact with devices but also opening new frontiers in neuroscience and the treatment of neurological disorders.

In Germany, neurotech firm CorTec has developed a 32-channel electrode pad that can be implanted beneath the skull. The device reads brain signals to interpret the user’s intentions while also delivering gentle electrical stimulation back to the brain to support recovery and rehabilitation. Recently, a 52-year-old American stroke survivor received the device, marking a new effort to stimulate brain activity and enhance rehabilitation through thought-guided electrical signals.

Strokes cause physical disability by damaging brain regions and connections involved in specific movements. In many cases, functional use of the affected body part can be lost. But researchers said if enough brain regions survive and remain connected, they can strengthen their existing connections and form new ones to help restore function, at least in part.

Meanwhile, China is also rapidly advancing the BCI frontier through clinical research and large-scale trials. Collaborating scientists from Shanghai-based startup INSIDE and Huashan Hospital affiliated with Fudan University implanted electrodes into participants with epilepsy in July, enabling 10 individuals to communicate complex Chinese sentences through their thoughts alone.

Huashan Hospital has been actively involved in BCI clinical trials. In August 2024, neurosurgeons at the Hospital implanted a 256-channel flexible BCI device designed by the Shanghai-based NeuroXess into a 21-year-old female patient with epilepsy. Within the 48 hours following the procedure, the patient successfully engaged in table tennis and snake computer games through brain control.

This June, a Chinese man who lost all four limbs in a high-voltage electrical accident 13 years ago was shown to play chess and racing games using only his mind, after a revolutionary procedure at Huashan in which a BCI device designed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences was implanted in his brain.

Despite breakthroughs, caution remains. “We still cannot be blindly optimistic,” said Mao Qing, director of the neurosurgery department at West China Hospital of Sichuan University.

Mao noted that BCI technology has become a strategic high ground, with countries around the world competing to dominate the technological frontier.

As technology edges closer to the core of the human brain, profound ethical questions begin to emerge. BCI chips are no longer just implantable devices, as they interface directly with the source of our thoughts. What about regulation? Who owns the neural data collected? And if such devices gain the ability not only to read but also to write signals into the brain, can our thoughts and our will still be considered truly our own?

“One of the main problems is privacy,” said Anil Seth, a neuroscience professor at the University of Sussex. He warned that exporting brain activity outside the body could grant access not only to what people do, but also to what they think, believe and feel.

“Once you’ve got access to stuff inside your head, there really is no other barrier to personal privacy left,” he said.

Christoph Bublitz, a legal expert at the University of Hamburg, warned that advances in BCI technology are raising “numerous philosophical, ethical and legal questions.”

Bublitz told Xinhua that once a BCI chip is permanently implanted and integrated with the body, it should no longer be viewed as an external device but rather as part of the person, “more like arms or organs.” The embedded software, too, may become inseparable from the user.

Thus, the legal implications. Since third parties cannot own body parts – “no one can own your arm” – manufacturers would lose ownership of both the hardware and its software after implantation. In such cases, he believed, copyright protections should no longer apply. Yet there is currently no legal precedent.

Bublitz also pointed to broader psychological and societal concerns. If BCIs begin to automatically regulate users’ emotions, what impact will that have on their sense of self? Will it make people happier, more anxious, or simply overstimulated? “In any case, it would change how people perceive the world and engage with it,” Bublitz said.