Your Brain Must Never Become Corporate Property, by Franiscus Nanga Roka

Elon Musk wins the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel were awarded the 2023 Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries that laid the groundwork for optogenetics. Their prize, announced in Stockholm on October 5th, recognizes scientific work that has allowed researchers to study neural circuits using light. To confuse that accomplishment with Neuralink is to give a billionaire credit for science he did not do.

The difference is significant because, in an increasingly troubling political economy of neuroscience where patients produce the vulnerability, scientists produce the knowledge, and private companies gain undue control over the resulting infrastructure–

Optogenetics is a technique used by the scientists to express genes that code for proteins that can be activated with light in specific cells and modulate their activity using light. It is not a one-size-fits-all treatment for all neurological disease, but its accuracy aids in explaining the mechanics of neural circuits. Neuralink takes a more direct approach: Electrodes threads implanted deep inside the brain pick up neural signals, and software converts that data into commands your devices can understand. They are just threads that penetrate brain tissue, they are not as simple sensors on individual neurons.

Being able to steer a pointer or better converse for somebody suffering from paralysis can be significant. That promise deserves serious investment. And it also deserves to not be held up for commercial over-hyperbole.

Musk’s announcement in January that Neuralink was aiming to scale up implant production and automated surgery in 2026 was reported by Reuters. However, an announced ambition to manufacture does not mean full deployment and clinical availability for unregulated use. Production capacity is a question of how much a factory can churn out. Clinical evidence addresses if implantation provides sustained benefits at an acceptable risk. These are questions that don’t lend themselves to a tagline.

Neuralink’s own materials describe clinical trials evaluating both safety of the implant and surgical-robot systems, as well as very early feasibility. Disclosures similarly note retraction of electrode threads and attempts to reduce it. We must hence you draw up systematic evidence on durability, complications and practical utility following pretty much demonstrations. What an interesting video has the potential to do cannot replace clinical accountability.

The deeper danger is dependency. What if the communication relies on proprietary software, support ends, a subscription becomes too expensive or a company dies? What about maintenance, replacement or removal? Who funds it? When patients can understand the operation but not the commercial conditions determining life to follow, consent becomes dangerously partial.

Hence, regulators must require that expansion is reserved for studies in the setting of independently-assessed safety and meaningful functional outcomes. Trial protocols, adverse events and long-term results should be published by sponsors while maintaining participant confidentiality. Assessments need to be practical measures of independent living, not contrived flashy performances.

Governments must legislate hard, enforceable protection for neural data: purpose limitation; strong security; meaningful control over secondary use by end users (eg. tech companies); prohibitions on coercive access by employers or insurers. Current assistive decoding should not be abused for general purpose mind-reading capabilities — the limited capability warrants stringent privacy protections.

Companies must fund guaranteed aftercare, contingent funding — for device failure, withdrawal and business insolvency — before implantation. Patient representatives are required to co-define acceptable outcomes and governance. Public investment should also ensure maintenance of basic neuroscience and affordable assistive alternatives; therapeutic hope should not become reliance on one private corporate platform.

The Nobel honors discovery. Commercial implants demand accountability. The critical question is whether people acquire enduring agency — or if their brand-new-found agency is only free by corporate license.

An ideal brain implant would enlarge autonomy. Its business model should never be a new way of getting stuck.

Franiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and Managing Partner Law Firm Victorious Indonesia