The National Institutes of Health plans to map all human neurons following an Executive Order which promises to spend billions on bridging the “bio-electronic divide” between brain and computer.
The project, called Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnology, or BRAIN 2.0, is the literal brainchild of the NIH to set out to map all 86 billion human neurons and their countless interconnections; an endeavor comparable to the human genome project in size and impact.
If scientists manage to map the whole of the brain “in silico,” they can create a two-way read-out and editing-in functionality utilizing digital machines and artificial intelligence (AI).
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“It’s evolution on steroids,” Renee Wegrzyn, a former DARPA program manager, said during a 2017 lecture on Engineering Gene Safety at the Long Now Foundation.
“We’re ushering in the century of engineered biology,” she added. “Whether it’s through gene-editing, or it’s through engineering of living medicines that will be in our gut — or in soil to promote fertilization and growth, especially as we face challenges like climate change.”
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According to Wegrzyn, this technology will lead to “human-machine convergence” and the coming of “Human 2.0.”
DARPA and ARPA-H weigh in
The $5 billion Brain 2.0 project, which received an initial $600 million in grants, came in the wake of a Joe Biden Executive Order on advancing biotechnology and biomanufacturing earlier last month.
The Biden Administration also pledged to pour another $1 billion into creating an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) for its “high-risk, high-reward” projects with another with a full $5.5 billion upcoming if the agency gets its way.
“DARPA has been a pioneer in brain-machine interface technology since the 1970s, but we began investing heavily in the early 2000s,” Justin Sanchez,Director of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office, told The Federalist. “We’ve laid the groundwork for a future in which advanced brain interface technologies will transform how people live and work.”
“Imagine what will become possible when we upgrade our tools to really open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics,” added DARPA program manager Phillip Alvelda according to the outlet.
A broad EO
However, it seems the Administration is going for a whole of government approach in its push for a total transformation of society and an enormous growth of the military-biological medical complex.
“For biotechnology and biomanufacturing to help us achieve our societal goals, the United States needs to invest in foundational scientific capabilities,” the Order read.
“We need to develop genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers,” it continued.
“Unlock the power of biological data,” the text said. “Including through computing tools and artificial intelligence; and advance the science of scale-up production while reducing the obstacles for commercialization so that innovative technologies and products can reach markets faster.”
A step forward, or a step backward?
What these societal goals entail, nobody really knows. Still, according to Human Events author Libby Emmons, the whole plan is intended to exert federal power to re-create society through genetic engineering and biotech programs.
Emmons went as far as stating Biden is going to spend billions on a transhumanist agenda for societal recreation that far exceeds the authority of a federal government “to the point where it is impossible to differentiate man from machine.”
In order to reach these “societal goals,” the Administration has laid out an ambitious 11-point plan, which includes funding biotech and biomanufacturing and forming an all-encompassing biological data system.
This reworking of all federal agencies is supposed to happen within 180 days, which means all agencies should have submitted their plans to implement these projects to employ biotechnology and further these societal goals.
However, the EO laid out its plans and said the recommendations should be “developed and deployed in ways that align with United States principals and values and international best practices, and not in ways that lead to accidental or deliberate harm to people, animals, or the environment.”
But whether these principles and values corroborate with the best interests of the American people or whether the administration will follow its own take on values and best practices remains to be seen.
