I’d like to predict that in the very near future, this idea will be coming to a novel and / or movie near you:
In a new scientific review paper published in World Neurosurgery, a group of Oxford neurosurgeons and scientists round up a set of dire, terrifying warnings about the way that neural implants are vulnerable to networked attacks.
The quote above is from a post on BoingBoing. The scientific paper is here, but sequestered behind one of those ludicrously expensive academic paywalls.
Perhaps the most concerning attack strategy feasible using currently implanted neural devices involves the use of operant conditioning to exert substantial control over a patient’s behaviour.
Reminds me a little of the character Kilgrave in Jessica Jones – only with science instead of comic book ‘mutation’.
(By the way, I’ve just invented the word ‘neurobabble’ – and I think I’m going to use it a lot).