Neurotechnologies : Unesco is Calling for Worldwide Ethical Control

Neurotechnologies: Unesco is calling for worldwide ethical control

In the age of so-called Artificial "Intelligence" (AI), Unesco has issued recommendations for the ethical use of neurotechnologies.

What exactly are neurotechnologies ?

Artificial intelligence, implants in the brain… the future is already upon us. Unesco has defined the neurotechnologies as "The apparatus, systems and procedures - including both hardware and software - which enable direct measurement of the nervous system, access to it, its monitoring, its analysis, prediction or modulation of its activity, in order to understand, influence, restore or anticipate its structure, its activity and its functions. The neurotechnologies combine elements of neuroscience, engineering, science of materials and computing, among others."

The neurotechnologies cover several fields of research: technologies which stimulate the nervous system, prosthetics, and what is often the most "spectacular", brain-machine interfaces. An example of a prosthesis which directly stimulates the nervous system is the cochlear implant, proposed to patients suffering from acute deafness. That implant has been available for many years. For patients suffering from retinal degeneration, the "bionic eye" aims to provide partial restoration of eyesight. The device can be coupled to a camera, attached to spectacles which capture the light signals from the environment. The signals are then transmitted to an implant which stimulates the retina nerve cells. A recent publication in a medical journal has reported encouraging results for some thirty patients suffering from age-related macular degeneration, an ocular pathology which is currently incurable, resulting in a loss of central vision. In France, this condition affects some 1.5 million people.

In order to detect or stimulate the brain, the available techniques are more or less invasive, whether they use electrodes implanted in the brain, or helmets equipped with tiny electrodes positioned on the brain. The placing of electrodes is used in certain cases for people suffering from Parkinson's disease. The results of research can be quite spectacular. Although Elon Musk's company, Neuralink, is best known to the general public, it is another company, Synchron, which achieved the first tests of a brain-machine interface on several patients. Thus, in 2025, a patient suffering from LAS (lateral amyotrophic sclerosis or Charcot's disease) was able to control a personal computer using thought control.

Neurotechnologies, control of the brain ?

"To influence the brain is to influence the future". This short sentence appears on the web-site of an American foundation devoted to "Neural law". It summarises the fears and possible risks associated with neurotechnologies. Machines which can record, decipher, and interpret what is going on in the brain could in turn influence the brain. In an interview for The Conversation, Hervé Chneiweiss, a research doctor and President of the ethics committee at INSERM (National Center for Scientific Research), underlines the speed of technical progress.

"The capability for deciphering the cerebral activity responsible for language with a brain-machine, which can translate such activity into words in a tenth of a second […] is one of the neurotechnology domains advancing most rapidly today. It can now be achieved using electrodes at the surface of the brain, rather than deeply embedded electrodes. Within the next five years, it will probably be possible to do the same thing using electrodes on the surface of the scalp, outside the skull." These advances are most often used for therapeutic purposes. The principle is to detect the cerebral messages for communication. The highest risk aspect would be the use of such techniques to stimulate the brain. Hervé Chneiweiss states that: "The aim of those developing such technologies for recreational purposes is to attempt to optimise addiction, by direct stimulation of the reward or appetite centres, in correlation obviously with a purchase operation."

Moreover, the neurotechnologies and AI are two domains which are linked. On the one hand, the functioning of the brain can inspire the architecture of AI models, on the other hand, AI can be used to model and to understand the cerebral processes. Such computerised models can assist research neuroscientists to elaborate and test hypotheses on the functioning of the brain. The European project on the human brain has also identified the current difficulties and limitations of such work.

The Unesco recommendations

On this immense research domain, UNESCO has just released its "Draft recommendations on the ethics of neurotechnology". It specifies that "Interventions on the nervous system are particularly sensitive because the human nervous system, which is highly complex, is the coordination centre for behaviour and mental processes. The nervous system enables individual autonomy, including the freedom to make personal choices, as well as the ability to act as a moral operator, to be responsible for one's actions, to cooperate with others, to deliberate on collective decisions and to develop personality."

The draft recalls the fundamental principles such as the respect for autonomy, freedom of thought, and other principles of medical research (for example the principle of harmlessness, "to do no harm"). Unesco calls for the fundamental respect for private life, including mental private life.

The so-called neural data, are the qualitative and quantitative data concerning the structure, the activity and the functioning of the nervous system, collected through neurotechnology. According to Unesco, "The collection, processing, modification and sharing of neural data as well as indirect neural data and non-neural data allowing interference with mental states may only be undertaken with the prior, free and enlightened consent of the person concerned."

Member States are invited to elaborate regulations "To control the collection, processing, sharing and any other use of neural data" in order to protect their citizens by strict guarantees for such data.

The neurotechnologies are the subject of considerable investment. The promises of medical advances are numerous, with occasional biblical accents ("Give sight to the blind, allow the lame to walk again etc."). As they interfere very closely with the human brain, these technologies demand ethical guarantees. Although the question of conscience manipulation is not new, the technical means available are increasing. The question of ethics is therefore becoming all the more urgent.