James Giordano (December 2021): The Human Mind as a Battlefield.

by Jerry Alatalo | May 2, 2024

(Transcript)

A warm welcome to the technology day of the Stockholm Security Conference and the session on the human mind as a battlefield.  I’m Sybille Bauer the director of studies for armament and disarmament here at SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. And for those of you who are joining for the first time we have four dramatic days at this security conference. Yesterday we focused on international law, tomorrow it will be strategies and doctrines, and on Thursday we will focus on the protection of civilians. And we will be concluding the conference with the peace prize ceremony in Belgium which will connect the battlefields of the past with the battlefields of the future.

Today we have one more session, which will be on current trends in missile technology and missile proliferation, which will be just after this one. But now onto the human mind and, just like the quantum technology sessions earlier today, we will now zoom in on one technology area and explore implications for current warfare and for future warfare. And like quantum it’s a very complex; it’s a very fast-moving area with many interconnections to different technologies, and many of us in the arms control community have come across terms like brain hacking, neuralink, human enhancement, super soldiers, brain computer interfaces.

Some of it we’ve seen in science fiction movies; some of it we’ve heard about in the real world, and we’re all trying to make sense of it and trying to figure out what’s hype, what are we missing, um, what of the applications that we think are science fiction are actually real, and where is it the other way around? So we are very lucky to have with us today one of the world’s leading experts on this issue – and I should also say that unfortunately Professor Noll had to cancel his participation this morning due to unforeseen and unforeseeable circumstances.

But we have with us Professor Giordano, who could actually fill all day and actually all week I believe on this topic, so there’ll be plenty to dicuss. So, he is professor of neurology, biochemistry and ethics at Georgetown University and also a bioethicist of the Defense Medical Ethics Center, he’s a fellow both at the U.S. Naval Academy at the Naval War College, and science advisory fellow of the joint staff at the Pentagon and director of the Institute for Biodefense Research and has written many books and articles on this subject.

So, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that we are very lucky to have him with us at this session. So Dr. Professor Giordano will first give an introductory presentation about the state of play, current potential future military applications, and then there will be a chance for you to ask questions. I would ask you for… that you use the Q+A function and not to use it for statements please. Only put in questions and I will then draw on that pool of questions and put them to Jim for the Q+A section. But with that, now over to you Jim.

Thank you very much Miss Bauer, and so again thank you to each and all of you for having me here. It’s a privilege and an honor to present at this forum, and I think the title of the forum is very important. I mean not just the brain or the mind as the 21st century battlespace, but also the implications of what current science and technology can do, the way it may be used, the way it most likely will be used, and what that infers for stances of preparedness, readiness, and the sustainability for peace, particularly given the very influential role that the brain/mind will play in a variety of subtle influences in the way we think feel and act.

And perhaps a larger question is what needs to be done in terms of multinational engagement, guidance and oversight so as to maintain an ethical course forward, while being very realistic and appreciating the multinational nature of the enterprise Neuro S/T, if we consider neuroscience and technology to be ever more a unified entity. Colloquially we refer to this as Neuro S/T, and the reason for that is quite simple in that there’s a relative inseparability between the science, that is to say the understanding and insights that we gain to the mechanisms of the nervous system in the brain, and what that infers for the functions of brain, most broadly construed to be mind, but perhaps more metaphysically if not practically construed to be identity, self-decisions, feelings, and the expression of same in a variety of interactions from the personal to the political.

But over and above that is that this science has given the ability to assess the brain, access the brain, and affect the brain

and the science has been capabilized by an increasing tool set, a toolkit, a set of technologies. Those technologies have allowed us to advance certain theoretical constructs about the brain, but have also taken us to the limit of our capabilities to assess and affect the brain and therefore have prompted the development of new tools.

So, what that affords us is the actual capability to harness and engage neuroscience and its technologies in what has increasingly become known as integrative scientific convergence, a relative de-siloing of the physical natural life and social sciences in those ways that provide a more three-dimensional understanding of what the brain and its functions are and how the brain and its functions can be assessed, accessed and affected, and the nature of those effects. And that assessment, I think, most probably is aimed at what I would consider to be the quote “low hanging fruit”.

In other words much of the driver of contemporary neuroscience and technology is aimed at biomedical purposes if you will relatively benevolent ends wanting to do good to improve the human condition, to reduce the human predicament of disease, injury, and perhaps even the frailties that are a consequence of our finitude and aging.

But please understand, to paraphrase the works of the philosopher Alasdair McIntyre, we have to ask what good? Which rationale? Whose justice? What we may see, whoever the proverbial “we” are, as being a viable good can also be seen in certain ways as providing inequities, inequalities, or in some cases frankly, engagements, harms, and burdens to others, but over and above that understand if we can use any science and technology for definable good means it really is only a case of how we define good and then whether or not that science and technology can be used in a way that is withheld from others to prevent them from accessing those goods and enjoying those goods, or can be inverted and as a consequence be used to incur burdens, risks, and harms to others.

So, what we can see is that by understanding the brain and its processes it gives us the capability of affecting human activities on the individual, group, and perhaps even population levels, and these effects can influence a variety of postures, including postures towards peace, postures of vulnerability, and volatility postures of violence and bellicosity.

And of course, I think it becomes critical to understand that, like any science and technology throughout human history, the capability, the potential, and the allure of using cutting-edge science and technology in ways that could be leveraged, a variety of competitive engagements from the economic all the way to the bellicose is a reality.

So, if we consider those ways that these realities are enacted we must understand the existing domains in which neuroscience and technologies are employed in what was formerly referred to as NSID applications, national security intelligence and defense operations, well, there’s a bit of a misnomer with that because in some ways it whitewashes the scenario here.

Perhaps more appropriate is to understand how neurosciences and their technologies can be employed in warfare, intelligence, and what various collectives view to be agendas and initiatives of national security, whatever nations they may be. Here I allude to some of the wonderful work I had the privilege and honor of undertaking with my colleagues at the European Union Human Brain Project’s focal group on dual use brain science. And a nod of homage to my esteemed colleague professor Dr. Evers of University of Uppsala in Sweden as well as many of my colleagues that were participatory in that working group.

But I think what becomes important to understand as a consequence of some of the results of our working group deep dive is that the ability to surveil, oversee, guide, and perhaps govern the brain sciences is highly contingent upon the understanding that these brain sciences are multinational in their enterprise and in their effect, and so the discourse must widen and in many cases is dialectic.

Please understand at this point in time there are a number of neuroscientific tools and technologies that are viable if not already uptaken into warfare intelligence and national security operations and agendas. Nothing I’m about to tell you is science fictional; it is all science fact in terms of what is currently available or is what at a high technological readiness level so as to be made available within the next two to five years. How can we use these techniques and technology as well again any aspect of medicine, and in this case, we need to consider military medicine.

But when we’re considering military medicine it’s not just a question of what we can do to treat those members of the military when in fact they are injured or ill, but what can we do preventatively. Here we see a gray zone arising, working, if you will, left of bang where bang is some event that induces trauma, insult, injury or change. Can we work to the left of that, can we for example employ the neurosciences and technologies in areas of preventative military occupational medicine to restore what we may consider to be HOPE, an acronym for maintaining health, instilling operational and occupational protection, and enabling these personnel to do their job, affect those missions more capably and effectively in those ways that will enhance their survivability, keep them protected, and ultimately may also affect the way they interact with competitors or adversaries.

HOPE…  What are we hoping to do when we consider operational and occupational protection and enabling the combat warfighter, the intelligence operator, military personnel of all types to do their jobs better? Well, this then gives rise to the idea of what constitutes optimization, what constitutes enhancement, if in fact optimization and enhancement differs from some form of treatment, particularly when healthy individuals are involved and what are the implications for taking individuals beyond some stated norm. And is that not on one level or another the implicit if not explicit goal of almost any profession’s training and certainly military intelligence training? To be the best of the best, to do those jobs well, and to do them in a way that provides some advantage to one’s own forces against other forces, whoever they may be.

Which gets us back to the idea of what is good if a military and or some operational national security institution or organization purports to be able to protect the ideology, ideals, ways of life things that are held viable for kin kith, the polis, or some political agency or organization, then, that’s held as a viable good and can be used to justify the applications of these types of techniques and technologies. Perhaps in somewhat more gray zone operations the neurosciences can also be paired to intelligence operations to afford increased cognitive capability for intelligence operators and systems to be linked to computational systems, so as to be able to discern more accurately what may be an intelligence viable signal from what may be noise, whether that’s in human intelligence, signal intelligence, communication intelligence.

And of course, the issue there becomes what are we actually doing; can we also not only affect the way we perceive and

gain intelligence, but can we use this in a proactive way in other words for psychological or what’s now referred to as neurocognitive operations, NCOs, to create more viable narratives – propaganda if you will, images to therefore create impressions, experiences in others that affect them in certain ways that we now have a deeper understanding of how we can affect the brain to elicit emotional, behavioral, and perhaps even community and cultural responses. And what does that mean? On one hand certainly I think that the idea, the intent, and perhaps the hope, is that by better understanding the way our brains work we’ll gain greater insight and appreciation for those things we have in common, be able to bridge our differences, and in so doing facilitate improved communication to avoid the escalation to volatility, to reduce vulnerability, and therefore to avoid violence.

But let’s not be pollyannish, because the reality is that these tools and techniques offer viable and, in some cases, estimated valuable capability to be able to assess and modify the thoughts, actions, and therefore overall stature of others – the operational definition if you will, of a weapon taken from the Oxford English dictionary – a weapon is simply a means of contending against others. Far more colloquially we see this in bellicose framework, in other words the means to injure or impair or perhaps kill others. But in its strictest definition a weapon is some means of influence/deterrence and the question then becomes: can the brain sciences be weaponized in those ways that may be less lethal or non-lethal, yet their influence be overwhelmingly more powerful in that the effects are getting at the essence of what it means to be the relatively enviable space of the self of identity of mind of being able to assess, and perhaps control, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors remotely, and in so doing influence postures of individuals, groups, collectives, and perhaps populations.

Is there some line that’s being crossed there whereby this cognitive liberty is being intruded upon, to paraphrase the

words of my colleague nita farahani at the University of Pennsylvania? Well, I think if we understand weapon in that context, we can then frame the brain sciences into those domains, and those tools if you will, that could be weaponized in such ways. Generally, we can parse these into two non-mutually exclusive and interactive domains: the assessment neurotechnologies which include things like various forms of neuroimaging, neurophysiological recording,

neurogenomics, neurogenetics epigenetics and phenotypics, neuroproteomics, and the use of neurobig data, which when coupled to decision technologies, machine learning, and AI creates an omnibus juggernaut of capability, to not only acquire data and utilize data but also to manipulate the data itself, whereby assessment immediately can turn into effect.

This then brings us into the realm of the interventional neuro technologies, and perhaps first and foremost, if not easiest, is the ability to use excellent systems of computational technology and engineering together with decision technologies, big data acquisition, and use in various forms of soft to hard AI to manipulate the data themselves, and by manipulating the data on large scales it may be possible to literally paint a new reality of what an individual is, to implant information into large-scale data banks, make individuals appear to have certain neurological or psychiatric conditions to affect their capability to do their job, by virtue of, if you will, their profile, their data profile, by affecting aspects of their metadata so that they’re regarded and perhaps treated in different ways economically, socially, militarily, politically.

But wait there’s more. The more we know the further we can go and one of the existing concerns is that the ubiquity of what’s called bio data, particularly neurobio data, creates certain vulnerabilities and target abilities to be able to create precision pathogens. Now those pathogens need not be the traditional drugs bugs or toxins; they can also be certain devices that can be tuned to individual parameters of anthropometry, physiology to differentially affect individuals in a variety of ways, to direct or compromise their capability for thought emotion and action. Putting all of these together we see a new toolkit that essentially engages not only those domains that have been well addressed by current language of biological toxins weapons conventions, chemical weapons conventions, and various declarations of signatory treaties, but in some ways sidestep that.

As I hope to show you, which may as we’ve called for together with our international colleagues, necessitate a revisiting if not revision of the language, scope, and tenor of these existing conventions and treaties – new drugs for example, that are able to penetrate the brain space far more capably at much lower doses. For example, linking pharmaceuticals to nano-engineered scaffolds micelles, chaperones that allow facile penetrance into the brain space, sometimes through means that can be rather clandestine or covert; inhalation, transdermally, and doing so with higher (success?) In fact, in some cases targeting these pharmaceuticals to be able to work in key individuals or groups of individuals based upon an understanding of their pharmacogenomics and dynamics, here too we see the ability to generate novel microbiologicals whether that may be bacteria, fungi, viruses. And increasingly there is worry about the potential weaponization of prions, that based upon individual, collective, and populational information can be developed so as to high selectivity, affecting key individuals, either individually targets of high value or more globally more universally creating, if you will, bellicose value.

And affecting relatively benign and generalizable targets like the general population, a conversation you’ll have later in your conference as well, we can utilize various methods of gene editing and synthetic biology to develop organic neurotoxins that are far more stable, less labile, more effective and can be used with precision, particularly if and when delivered to the variety of unmanned vehicles, aerial, ground, or sea based, and a variety of technological devices that can be used to augment or change cognitive capacity, things that can be donned or doffed, for example: transcranial, magnetic, and electrical stimulation, vagal nerve stimulation.

And there is a robust move forward to create implantable devices that are non-invasive or minimally invasive in their implantation methods, so as to create next generation neural modulation that allows real time access to read from the living brain and write into the living brain remotely. Such capacity, with this ability I think also comes necessary in authentic anticipation and in some cases anxieties and apprehensions. Please understand that the neurosciences in the development of neurotechnology is not the provence of, if you will, a given few at present. There are multiple, large-scale national level brain science initiatives that are pouring billions of currency units into projects in the brain sciences.

Again, the most notable direction of these the drivers clearly is explicit – those things that are benevolent wanting to do good reduce the burden of human predicament in disease, injury, capability, but that capability curve exists along a spectrum, and here too the ability to utilize the brain sciences to improve our quality of life and or to use the brain sciences in preventive ways immediately allows us to confront again the idea of occupational, preventive, military intelligence medicine, super soldiers, proverbial super spooks for the intelligence operator.  But recall here, too, what is my good may not necessarily be your good; what I and my kin and kith hold to be valuable, defensible may not in fact be what yours defines to be so.

And so the use of advancing tools science and technology inclusive of the brain and cognitive sciences in those initiatives and agendas that can be used in defensive ways, or in some cases explicitly offensive ways to decapablize others, to reduce their will, their willingness, or perhaps their cognitive and physical capabilities to advance towards some level of volatility or violence is very real, but more than that what becomes important to understand is that the underlying philosophies, ethics, anthropologies, and therefore limitations and constraints on the brain sciences in terms of research and their translation into various practices inclusive of those that could be used for military medicine, and to be used in military warfare intelligence operations, differ as a consequence of culture.

We know that large-scale initiatives of the brain sciences are multinational. There is an increasing Asian effort to

be sure that is explicit. This is advancing developed nations and giving them certain capabilities to leverage the brain sciences in and across fusions of governmental initiatives, research initiatives, and commercial initiatives – that at the very very least could leverage the brain sciences and economic ways to create new balances of power on medical markets and perhaps even lifestyle if not military markets as well. What we’re seeing is a rise in what has been colloquially referred to as neuro hacking, a do-it-yourself community which not is not problematic per se but is certainly vulnerable to influence and manipulation by state actors and non-state actors.

And the development of proxies, both state and non-state proxies, within the global neuroscience community and do-it-yourself community that can be manipulated in those ways to affect sovereign states through the infiltration of capabilities within those states’ jurisdictions difficult, if you will, to monitor. For example, here in the United States there is a directed program with our Federal Bureau of Investigation to work with the do-it-yourself neurohacking community in cooperation with Interpol, so as to maintain the stringency, rigor, and, if you will, ethical probity of that community and render them somewhat more resistance to infiltration by various actors and agents who may have capricious, if not nefarious intent.

But I think it’s also important to understand that these different cultures, different countries bring to the table different histories, different needs, different values, different philosophies and very often those histories are long-standing, and these philosophies, anthropologies, and values establish distinct ethics, and those ethics may be far more permissive than we, whoever “we” may be, would like. And in other cases it affords opportunities for things like research tourism; can’t get it done here, go there.

Well, what does that mean? Is that ethics dumping or is that simply ethical heterogeneity? But clearly what it does is it reestablishes the capability for leveraging the brain sciences in ways that can be used in multinational relations that range from the economic, as I said earlier, all the way to the bellicose.

And this is becoming easier. Much of the neuroscience is shared an international forum and I’m not making any proposition to decrease that. But I think there is a need for increased responsible conduct of research inclusive of its dissemination and sharing, to be able to understand what’s being shared, and how it might be used. There are a number of tools and methods that are available off the shelf, and as I mentioned previously, there are dedicated efforts by nations, and nations and their proxies, towards not only developing these capabilities in brain sciences that could be weaponized but actually putting them into play as recent evidence would show. Case in point such things like Novichok, the use of a variety of organic toxins, and the still somewhat controversial consideration of the use of various types of neurologically directed energies.

So, I think it becomes important to recognize that these things are ready for prime time. The technological readiness level has been indeed acknowledged and appreciated by a number of worldwide groups, not only ours, working within Human Brain Project, World Health Organization, UNESCO, most recently NATO, the national academies here in the United States, National Research Council, – all of them recognizing the viability, potential bellicose value, and realities of neuroscience and technology as tools in warfare, intelligence and national security.

Some of the more recent discourse, for example by the Council, some of the work of our group, not only with the Human Brain Project but with others, have addressed those ways that we might be able to surveil and oversee these initiatives and agendas. But there is also a sticking point. If one of the recommendations, and I think perhaps a viable recommendation, is that the brain sciences shall not be uptaken into those agendas, explicitly by those countries who would sort of embargo or push back on these intents, we have to appreciate not only what that does idiosyncratically within a country or community but what are the benefits, if not burdens, risks, and perhaps threats systemically because a lack of commitment to neuroscientific and technological research.

Development testing does not in any way preclude others’ research, development, testing and perhaps application and translational use initiatives, and in some cases may augment it. And this gets us to the difficulty of global surety.

The difficulty of global treaties, conventions, Helsinki biological toxins and weapons conventions are having a difficult time dealing with some of these non-conventional techniques and technologies. Very often international treaties don’t necessarily guarantee cooperation, but more than that, the extant verbiage of many of these treaties has only begun to scrape the surface as to the categorical diversity of the way these neuroscientific tools and technologies could be developed and used.

And the BTWC and CWC don’t explicitly prohibit medical use, occupational preventive medical use, commercial or proprietary use in the development of particular tools and technologies that can be employed in commercial testing, inclusive of commercial testing for example of organic materials to assess their vulnerability in the workspace, in some cases the research, development, test, evaluation and use of neurotechnology. This latter point was specifically addressed by the Australia delegation, the Australia Group, at the review conference of the biological toxins and weapons conventions a couple of years ago and so this is coming to the fore increasingly, and I’m encouraged by that.

But I think what we’re really facing here is that neuroscience and technology can be likened to an international super speedway, a formula one race, multiple lanes, multiple vehicles a very high technological prowess and capability. A rapid pace, relatively big prizes, again, that range from the financial all the way to global hegemonies and the ability to influence and exert forces in a variety of different domains, again, from the economic to the bellicose. And there are risks and hazards, risks and hazards that are inherent to the technology and those that are derived from its various uses and military operations, although very often exists with some level of limited transparency, in an open society must have some level of responsibility and communication to the public that it vows to protect.

The question then becomes: If we’re going to enter the race, and we already have, are there race rules and or restrictions? Well, our group, working together with others here in the United States and internationally, have proposed that if you’re going to get on the racetrack, you need some rules to get on the ramp. We’ve proposed something called the on-ramp approach, an operational neurotechnology risk assessment and mitigation paradigm, and I provide those references for you writ large in overview. It involves a general 6R approach, that then drills down into specific questions that must be asked and key context of framing that must be appreciated.  It demands responsibility for realistic assessment of the technology, not science fiction. There are plenty of real things that need to be addressed, reviewed, and in some cases guided, evaluating research as viable uses in practice. What constitutes dual use research of concern? What does not? What constitutes gain of function research (being) a concern, and what does not? Responsive to the burdens and effects, not only idiosyncratically among individuals and collectives, but perhaps systemically as well.

Given certain harms of omission or commission, revising that technology, in response to those risks that may be relatively intractable or relatively unpreventable, in this case advancing something of an advanced precautionary principle, but not just going beyond that making sure that those revisions are also regulatory within the framework of these key questions. Because what we see is that very often the ethics that are important to guiding these transcend simple civilian ethics, or perhaps even science and technological ethics, and interface with the ethics of power, the ethics of competition.

The underlying issue here is that these types of scientific and technological developments, that have such capability to affect thought, emotion, and behavior, are certainly being considered for and uptaken within initiatives and agendas of warfare, intelligence, and national security, and very often being done to the drumbeat of their powerful capability that are exercised to preserve what a politics or polis may be, those communal values, ways of life, and exercising power to do that.

And if one considers that the explicit mission of a military or intelligence operation is to protect the ideals, objectives and integrity of the state, whether that state is an open society whereby politics is there to protect the polis, or a politically referential state, in which case the ideals, directions, and power of the state supersede any and all else, it prompts real questions, discourses, and, I believe, dialectics of relative good. And it has to begin to refer to those constructs of what represents just use of various techniques and technologies in warfare, and perhaps even what represents just use of techniques and technologies to prevent warfare. 

It must pose the question: Who is harmed?, Who is not?, and are there certain aspects of these neurosciences and technologies that are indeed malevolent in say bad unto themselves and therefore should be arrested or restricted? I can tell you from my own experience working with the Human Brain Project, working with NATO, working with World Health Organization and others that, although it only took me perhaps 30 minutes to talk about this, the actual enterprise itself is laborious.

Any approach to surveillance oversight, ethics, and regulatory guidance must be cosmopolitan as cognizants recognize these different values that exist within cultures and communities and nations, and what that means with regard to various power balances that can be affected using the brain sciences. But it also has to be capable within communities of use, medical communities, social communities, etc.. It needs to at least appreciate if not accommodate pluralist values but not necessarily be a lazy for a fair form of ethics. 

And it must also appreciate how the brain sciences and their technologies are affected by and affect economics, politics, military intelligence capability, and in the balance, power. Working with many of my colleagues internationally, what we’ve tried to do is appreciate what type of an ethical approach, what type of neuroethical approach, may have some viability in this forum. Working with my well-known colleague Dr Jonathan Moreno (spelling?) and our mutual colleague Michael Tennyson (spelling?), we’ve examined what this sort of “ethics for pandora” might actually obtain and entail. I only have a bit of your time here today, and I hope that my presentation has allowed you to be informed about the realities of neuroscience and technology, and what it’s capable of doing, what the real capabilities and limitations of the technology are, and how very often those limitations provide nothing more than throwing an opportunistic gauntlet of what could be done next, and the power that the brain sciences yield.

So, the real question is in cashing the reality check of our perspective relative humility and perhaps our gratitude, to the systems that we have in place, and the capability to, at this point, remain prepared and ready for what shall come – what comes next. Well, I think we need to cash the reality check, and understanding neurobioeconomic saving in our group together with others has written quite a bit about this, and I refer you to that in a recent volume of the journal Health Security that addressed the bioeconomy at large and the neurobioeconomy more specifically.

The factors that can be leveraged in what we call non-kinetic engagements of warfare and economics by which power can be exercised utilizing brain tech, just within the medical domain considerable, if we then take that domain over to advances and capabilities of power within intelligence and military it becomes ever more the juggernaut.

This necessitates some appreciation, if not development, of biosecurity by design inclusive of perhaps revisiting and revising key aspects of international conventions and signatory treaties to be more inclusive and remain apace with the capabilities of that science.  And ultimately, if what we’re going to try to do is create discourse and do so in a way that is reflective, perhaps in a… if not Rawlsian reflective way, and we’re going to do this in a way that maintains some ethical high ground, so that ethics can inform policy and law. Law and policy try to uphold those ethics; we have to appreciate a globally relevant neuroethics because the capabilities that a variety of nations have leveraged in the brain sciences has brought them to those discussion paper tables as key players. 

And so I offer this to you not necessarily to provide answers but to pose key questions in the spirit of the philosopher of science Bruno Latour: Science doesn’t just answer questions, it creates questions that are ever more difficult that prompt our engagement on a variety of levels in both the sciences and humanities to address reasonable solutions or at least trajectories to be prepared, ready, and perhaps resolve those questions that are generated. 

If you’re interested in the information that my group has done over the past several years I provide you these additional readings, and if you’re interested in getting in touch with me after today’s lecture in conference beyond the question and answer period, I provide you my point of contact. Simply put in the subject line Stockholm Conference and I’ll get back to you promptly. 

*

That is where James Giordano ended his presentation. A few of his responses to questions make up the conclusion to this article.

I guess buried within that question is sort of the implicit, “Okay what keeps me up at night?” Um, you know convergent sciences are very important to address key questions where the limitations of one discipline are approached by another.  It affords, if you will, it’s called fresh eyes on the target, fresh eyes on the task. But I think one of the things that happens there too is that the capabilities of different disciplines allow for a multi-capability expression and reality of what the brain sciences could achieve. So what we’re able to do is we essentially use neuro or some other technological prefix or suffix and we put them together: neurocyber, cyber neuro, neural microbiology, neuro anthropology, where the neuro really is used as synecdoche, in other words a representation of what our capabilities and our limitations in brain science and technology are.

And when you pair these they essentially work as force multipliers, where essentially one hand is washing the other and they’re both engaged in some tasks.  What gives me most pause uh …  I’m particularly worried about gene editing techniques, and gene editing techniques particularly when coupled to synthetic biology, because gene editing techniques when coupled to synthetic biology, particularly in applied neurocognitive dimensions, offer unique capabilities to be able to affect the structure and function of the nervous system, those organisms that have a nervous system, in a variety of ways, sometimes rather subtly and other times far more severely

I’m equally worried about the pairing of neural systems with computational systems. So, what we’re really seeing is the reciprocal augmentation of the human operator increasing capabilization of the machine component. So, you’re really getting a truly cybernetic organismal system where you’re having dual cooperativity, reciprocity and therefore you’re delimiting aspects of both systems. The issue there is at some point you will get a relative functional fusion of human cognitive capabilities with that of the machine and the capability of the machine to human cognitive capabilities inclusive of insight to human emotionality, intentionality, impulse, and response which can then be engaged if we take humans either on the loop or out of the loop to have considerable effect on the way a non-biological system, that may be cognitive in its capacity and AI system, affects the dynamics of human individuals and populations.

And I must tell you although we in the United States, Europe and many of our international co-operators are very concerned about keeping proverbial human in the loop, or at least on the loop, such considerations for humans in and on the loop are not universal. In some cases artificially intelligent systems that are devoid of any human engagement beyond the original builder’s bias seem to be favored and de-rigged because they’re viewed as not necessarily being purloined (?) by human influence, but being somewhat more.  And I’m using the language that has been bantered pure, and that then becomes a consideration of how the brain sciences will need to interface with the information sciences in those ways that are going to be proactive.

*

It is worth noting that this appearance by Dr. James Giordano at the Swedish International Peace Research Institute event occurred in December 2021. This is especially important, in that Dr. Giordano made no mention of or specific reference to the COVID-19 Pandemic, officially declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. What is the rational, legitimate – even necessary, from a criminal investigation standpoint – explanation for Dr. Giordano’s non-mention of the global pandemic – already declared, some 21 months earlier? 

Col. Douglas Macgregor and Dr. Francis Boyle Talk Biological Warfare, Medical Tyranny, Prosecutions and WHO Global Police State.

By Jerry Alatalo | April 12, 2024

After searching Rumble for any recent interviews of international law professor Dr. Francis Boyle, it was our good fortune to come across his recent, wide-ranging and explosive discussion with Col. Douglas Macgregor, where two of the most truthful and courageous men in America revealed for Americans the most important issues facing the country.

Col. Macgregor is the CEO of the organization “Our Country, Our Choice”, which opposes digital IDs, central bank digital currency (CBDC), weather manipulation, transhumanism, globalism and the World Health Organization’s Pandemic Treaty.  After his retirement from the U.S. military, he has become a popular, much sought after, frequent guest commentator on independent and traditional media news/world affairs programs.

Dr. Francis Boyle is a renowned legal expert on biological warfare/weapons, Harvard Law graduate, professor of international law and international human rights law, and authored The Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 (BWATA).

Please listen closely to the tremendously important, extremely timely facts and details discussed by Col. Douglas Macgregor and Dr. Francis Boyle. Then think seriously about ways to effectively support their wise, necessary recommendations. Thank you. Peace.