Imagine reading or listening to this article by controlling your technology with just your thoughts. No more keyboards or touchscreens. You could even control a video game with your mind.

The stuff of science fiction?

Actually, it’s now science fact.

Is this a good thing?

Elon Musk announced that his brain chip start-up Neuralink has implanted a device in its first live human subject. The quarter-sized chip is designed to interpret a person’s neural activity so they can control external devices with their thoughts. Is this a good thing? Let’s look at how medical ethicists consider the topic and then take four biblical steps.

Mind-reading technology is here

Elon Musk announced this week that his brain chip start-up Neuralink has implanted a device in its first live human subject. The quarter-sized chip is designed to interpret a person’s neural activity so they can control external devices with their thoughts. The chip is currently in clinical trials open to patients who have quadriplegia due to ALS or a spinal cord injury.

I serve as resident scholar for ethics with a Christian healthcare system. In this context, I can tell you that medical ethicists consider topics like today’s conversation in light of four factors:

• Benevolence: the obligation to act for the benefit of the patient
• Nonmaleficence: the obligation not to harm the patient
• Autonomy: respect for individual rights and dignity
• Justice: the responsibility to treat all persons and patients fairly and equitably.

Benevolence: Experts report that brain-computer interface (BCI) technology such as the Neuralink brain chip has a wide range of potential applications, especially for those with disabilities. BCIs have already helped paralyzed patients control a robotic arm or move a cursor with their thoughts. A recent trial even allowed a person to control a video game in this way.

Nonmaleficence: BCIs come with typical surgical risks and can also trigger epileptic attacks. There is the problem of ensuring the implant continues to function over time. And there is significant risk to patients if their BCI-enabled technology fails (as with a BCI wheelchair failing its user in crossing a street).

Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin recently utilized fMRI scans with AI tools to create a non-invasive BCI that was able to decode participants’ thoughts. Will such mind-reading technology one day enable advertisers to manipulate our minds? Will governments be able to use BCIs for surveillance or interrogations?

Autonomy: BCI devices could significantly enhance a disabled patient’s ability to function with dignity, but they might also affect a patient’s decision-making processes and result in inappropriate actions.

Justice: BCI devices need to be accessible without financial barriers and utilized in ways that do not provide their users with unfair advantages over others. Otherwise, they could become a type of “cyborg” used to enhance normal abilities—akin to earbuds with real-time translation capacities and bionic lenses that record video and exceed normal ocular abilities.

“The truest friend of the liberty of his country”

BCIs are in the early stages of development. This means it’s too soon to be alarmed, but it’s not too soon to take steps to ensure that such development proceeds in ethically appropriate ways.

Here’s the problem: we live in a “post-truth” culture that rejects objective morality, coupled with a capitalistic economy that privileges technological advancement for profit.

How confident are you that our secularized society will be able to harness the potential of BCIs while preventing the devastation they could one day wreak?

American founding father Samuel Adams warned:

Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue.

“Nobody makes a greater mistake”

To promote our country’s “virtue,” let’s take four biblical steps today.

One: “Destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Think biblically so you can act redemptively.

Two: “Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Use your influence to declare and defend biblical truth and morality.

Three: “Speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15 NLT) with humble compassion as you help others experience God’s best.

Four: “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). Your kingdom assignment is not completed until you are in heaven.

The British statesman Edmund Burke noted:

“Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little.”

What will you do today to embrace and advance biblical morality to the glory of God?

Thursday news to know

• FBI director warns Chinese hackers aim to “wreak havoc” on US critical infrastructure
• Israel and Lebanon are prepping for a war neither wants, but many fear it’s becoming inevitable
• State Department reviewing options for possible recognition of Palestinian state
• Powell: Federal Reserve is on track to cut rates, though not likely for months
• EU to launch a Red Sea naval mission within 3 weeks to protect ships from continued Houthi attacks
• This day in history: Columbia Space Shuttle mission ends in disaster

Quote for the day

“The flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide.” —Winston Churchill

Denison Forum

Why did Hitler hate the Jews?

Why do so many people share his antisemitic animosity?

Tomorrow is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, designated by the United Nations General Assembly to coincide with the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis’ largest extermination and concentration camp, by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945.

This annual remembrance focuses on the six million Jews murdered by the German Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. One-fourth of them, 1.5 million, were children.

We remember the horror of antisemitic hatred so it will not rise again in our day.

But it is.

Antisemitism is surging on college campuses, part of a growing tide of animosity against Jews in America, Europe, and around the world. The Anti-Defamation League is reporting an unprecedented 337 percent increase in antisemitic incidents after Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, massacring more than 1,200 Jews.

What can we learn from the past to keep it from happening again in the present?

“The arsenal of antisemitism”

The roots of antisemitism go back centuries before Hitler:

• There was a widespread belief in Christian Europe that the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ.
• Because they rejected the Christian faith, they were considered agents of the devil.
• During the Middle Ages, laws restricted and prevented Jews from owning land or holding public office.
• They were excluded from most occupations, forcing them to make a living through money-lending, trade, and commerce. When they became successful at these professions, they were accused of using them to oppress their non-Jewish clients and community.
• They were also accused of causing plagues, murdering children for religious rituals, and secretly conspiring to dominate the world.

After World War I, the new Nazi Party and its leader, Adolf Hitler, blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat, falsely claiming that German Jews had “stabbed Germany in the back.” When his party took power in 1933, their antisemitic racism became official government policy and led ultimately to the “Final Solution,” the Nazis’ genocidal attempt to eradicate all Jews.

Three steps to a better world

From the Garden of Eden to today, one dimension of our sinful nature is our desire to blame others for our sins. When God called Adam to account for his sin, Adam blamed Eve (Genesis 3:12), then Eve blamed the serpent (v. 13).

Like our first parents, we are all tempted to blame others for our failures.

When Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I, his rhetoric found national support and led to the most horrific genocide in human history. Hamas does the same today, blaming the Jews for the plight of the Palestinian people and other suffering around the world.

How does God want us to respond to this perennial temptation?

One: Take personal responsibility for our sins.

Satan loves to tempt us to sin, then tempt us to blame others when we sin. The second sin only compounds the first and distracts from the forgiveness we need. Instead, we should immediately admit our sin, confess it to our Father, and claim his mercy and grace (1 John 1:9).

Two: Oppose racial prejudice in every way we can.

Such prejudice is one way inferior people can make themselves feel superior to others. If we decide that Jews—or Blacks, or Asians, or any other minority—are innately “inferior” to us, we therefore think we are superior people. This, too, comes from the “father of lies” (John 8:44) who comes to “steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).

Instead, pray for God’s heart to love all people as unconditionally as he loves them (Galatians 3:28). Then help answer your prayer with redemptive acts of ministry and grace.

Three: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6).

Intercede daily for Israel and the Palestinians as they seek security and justice. Pray for global leaders to act with wisdom and courageous resolve. Pray for war in the Middle East to end and for righteousness to prevail.

If every follower of Christ took these steps every day, imagine the impact on our broken world. Imagine the consequences for Jews and all other persecuted peoples. Imagine the lost people who would be drawn to our Father as their Savior.

Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) observed:

“Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.”

Let’s choose faith and hope today, to the glory of God.

Friday news to know

• CIA Director Burns helping broker another deal to release hostages from Hamas
• A new tallest building in America has been proposed—and it isn’t in New York or Chicago
• 13 ways the world got better in 2023
• Alabama gasses prisoner with nitrogen in first new execution method in decades
• US economy grew at a surprisingly strong 3.3% pace last quarter

Quote for the day

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: You don’t give up.” —Anne Lamott

Note: For more on today’s discussion, please see my latest website paper: “Why the ‘Holocaust’ was not a holocaust: A reflection on the gravest crime in human history.” I also invite you to listen to our new podcast on today’s subject, “Confronting the past: Why International Holocaust Remembrance Day matters.”

Denison Forum