Receiver agency and awareness

A central design and ethics variable in a BBI is whether the receiver is a conscious agent or a stimulated effector. A perceptual write (a phosphene) enters awareness: the receiver notices the cue and decides whether to act, so agency is preserved. A reflexive write (motor-cortex TMS that jerks the hand, as in Rao and Stocco) bypasses intention — the movement happens before, or without, the receiver's decision to make it.

The distinction matters for both function and responsibility. Perceptual writes keep the human in the loop and let the receiver veto errors; reflexive writes are faster and unambiguous but raise the question of who owns an action that one brain triggered in another body. Every serious human BBI to date is opt-in and, for phosphene channels, consciously perceived — precisely to keep the receiver an agent rather than a puppet.