Brain Hacking – Brain-Computer Interfaces as a Digital Interface to the Brain

What once sounded like science fiction is becoming a reality: brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are leaving the lab and evolving into a strategically important technology. They capture brain signals, analyze them digitally, and translate them into technical commands – for example, to control computers or prosthetics using only the power of thought.

Medical applications are still the primary focus. However, as technology advances, a new area of risk is emerging: for the first time, mental states can be technically recorded, analyzed, and potentially influenced. This becomes particularly relevant where BCIs are used beyond the medical field—for example, in everyday work, in digital media, or in the security sector. In such cases, they can not only provide support but also measure attention, collect highly sensitive neural data, serve military purposes, or become a new vulnerability in networked systems—leading to scenarios such as “brain hacking”, “brainjacking”, and forms of targeted influence (“mind control”).

This development is being driven in no small part by influential tech barons such as Elon Musk (Neuralink) and Sam Altman (OpenAI, Merge Labs), who view BCIs as a key technology for the next phase of human-machine interaction. At the same time, this pursuit of “transhumanism” brings new questions regarding control, data power, and societal safeguards into sharp focus.

The Cognitive Briefing by the FERI Cognitive Finance Institute (available in German) analyzes this exciting development and highlights in particular:

• how BCIs are opening up direct technical access to brain functions for the first time,
• why neurodata is becoming the new key resource for digital platforms,
• what risks this poses to human consciousness and mental privacy,
• and how this is already giving rise to a global race for technology, data sources, and economic power.

The analysis is available in German in the download section on this page.