Ethical limits of brain linking

Linking nervous systems concentrates several neuroethical concerns at once: consent (especially the receiver, into whose brain something is written), agency and responsibility (who is accountable for an action one brain triggers in another), mental privacy (what of the sender's inner state is exposed), and coercion or manipulation (the fear of controlling a person through their motor cortex). These map onto proposed neurorights — mental privacy, personal identity, free will, and protection from coercive neurotechnology.

Proportionate analysis matters. Today's BBIs are opt-in, extremely low-bandwidth, computer-mediated, and mostly consciously perceived, so the imminent risks are ordinary ones — data protection, informed consent for stimulation, over-claiming to the public — rather than mind control. The forward-looking concern is the trajectory: as write channels become richer and less voluntary, the receiver-agency and consent questions sharpen, which is why governance frameworks want to engage before, not after, higher-bandwidth linking exists.