Neurotechnology startups exploit human brain cells for AI data centers amid ethical and systemic risks
Original framing: “Start-up is building the first data centre to use human brain cells” — New Scientist
The use of human brain cells in technology echoes 20th-century eugenics and phrenology, where pseudoscience justified the exploitation of marginalized groups under the guise of 'advancement.' The 1950s-60s brain-computer interface experiments, often conducted on prisoners or psychiatric patients, set a troubling precedent for consent and coercion. The current project risks repeating these patterns by treating neural tissue as a raw material rather than a sentient entity. Historical parallels also include the industrialization of agriculture, where living organisms were reduced to inputs for profit.
The Cortical Labs project exemplifies the convergence of neoliberal technosolutionism and colonial extractivism, where the commodification of human neural tissue is framed as innovation while its ethical and ecological debts are deferred.
Historically, this mirrors the exploitation of marginalized bodies in neuroscience, from the Tuskegee experiments to the industrialization of agriculture, where life is reduced to inputs for profit. Cross-culturally, the technology clashes with Indigenous epistemologies that view the brain as sacred and interconnected, not a modular component for AI. Scientifically, the project's premature scaling ignores the instability of biological systems and the lack of consent frameworks, risking a new era of bio-colonialism. Without systemic intervention—through global bioethics treaties, decentralized governance, and investment in non-extractive alternatives—this technology will deepen power asymmetries, exploit marginalized labor, and normalize the treatment of sentient matter as disposable infrastructure. The solution lies not in prohibiting innovation but in redefining progress through collective, decolonial, and ecologically accountable frameworks.