AI Library
The Age of Autonomous Scientific Discovery
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
AI Scientists and Self-Driving Labs
This book follows how AI scientists and self-driving labs are changing the way science generates and verifies claims. It covers literature-based discovery, natural-language protocols translated into robot commands, multi-agent research systems, closed-loop laboratories, materials search, the verification gap, chains of evidence, research harnesses, journal ethics, and legal responsibility.
AI Library
A New Era of Life Sciences Opened by Artificial Intelligence
Structural Proteomics, Genomic Foundation Models, Autonomous Laboratories, and Global Governance
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
This book is a research volume compiled with artificial intelligence. A human selected the materials and structured the work, while AI models drafted the sentences and cross-checked the facts.
AI Library
The Double Structure of Digital Sovereignty
Europe’s Departure from Palantir and the Chains of American Big Tech
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
This is a record of 2026, when European intelligence agencies and defense ministries began removing analytics tools from America’s Palantir. It covers the replacement decisions made by France’s General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), and the Netherlands Ministry of Defense; the incident in which US export controls severed an ally’s ac…
New English Edition
Artificial Intelligence in Horticulture
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
Across five chapters and ten sections, this book examines computer vision for crop diagnosis, harvesting robots and autonomous field systems, smart greenhouses and digital twins, precision irrigation and supply-chain quality control, high-throughput phenotyping, and predictive breeding.
New English Edition
Artificial Intelligence in Food Crop Agriculture
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
Across six chapters and eighteen sections, the book examines digital agricultural infrastructure, remote sensing, crop diagnosis, yield forecasting, precision irrigation, genomics, molecular breeding, agricultural robotics, climate-smart agriculture, and global food security.
New English Edition
The Future of Forestry and Agroforestry
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
Driven by Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation
Across five chapters and fifteen sections, the book follows satellites, drones, LiDAR, digital twins, forest-specific language models, wildfire and pest forecasting, forestry robotics, agroforestry, timber traceability, and forest carbon markets.
New English Edition
Smart Livestock Farming: AI Enters the Barn
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
Sensors listen, cameras watch, and artificial intelligence helps farmers decide.
Across five chapters and fifteen sections, the book follows precision livestock farming from animal health and reproduction to robotic milking, virtual fencing, digital twins, methane reduction, welfare, and data ownership.
Table of Contents
Han Dong-hoon, Busan Buk-gu Gap: A Record of the 100 Days Before and After the Election (Mar. 26-Jul. 3, 2026)
Kim Kyung-jin
Table of Contents and 13 sections
From March 26 to July 3, 2026, this record follows the spring after expulsion, the Busan Buk-gu Gap by-election, victory as an independent, and the first bill submitted in the National Assembly.
Table of Contents
Artificial Intelligence and Medicine
Kim Kyung-jin, Attorney at Law
AI in clinical care, hospitals, education, and research
AI in medical imaging, risk prediction, treatment planning, hospital operations, education, and research, with patient safety, privacy, and accountability.
[AI Library] Chapter 15. Neurorights and the Legal Regulatory Framework
Brain Readers: Neuralink and the Final Human Revolution
Chapter 15. Neurorights and the Legal Regulatory Framework
Kim Kyung-jin
A. The Emergence of the Neurorights Concept: Professor Ienca's 2017 Proposal at EPFL
Late one night in 2017, the lights were still on in the bioethics lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). Marcello Ienca, a thirty-five-year-old bioethicist, sat staring at two documents, shifting his gaze between them. One was the latest issue of a neurotechnology journal. The other was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written in 1948. The seventy-year gap between them unsettled him. The people of 1948 could not have imagined machines that read the brain. What they sought to protect against was torture, imprisonment, and censorship. But now technology could penetrate the most intimate regions of a human being without any physical coercion at all. Ienca asked himself: when someone steals and reads my thoughts, what exactly is being violated?
Ienca set out to answer that question with Roberto Andorno, a human rights lawyer at the University of Zurich. Over several months, they analyzed the existing framework of international human rights law. Their conclusion was clear. The current human rights framework had a gap. Freedom of the body was guaranteed, but freedom of the mind was only implicitly assumed. Privacy was explicitly protected, but whether that protection extended to thoughts inside the brain remained unclear. Ienca and Andorno proposed a new language of rights to fill this void. They called it neurorights.
In April 2017, the two published a paper in the journal Life Sciences, Society and Policy. The title was "Towards New Human Rights in the Age of Neuroscience and Neurotechnology." In it, they proposed four neurorights. The first was cognitive liberty. This refers to an individual's right to control their own mental processes. A person should be able to decide for themselves whether to use brain-augmentation technology. At the same time, it includes the right to refuse involuntary intervention in one's brain. Ienca wrote: "Cognitive liberty is the precondition for all other freedoms. Without the freedom to think, freedom of speech is meaningless."
The second was mental privacy. We already take it seriously when call records or emails are leaked. But brainwave data is far more sensitive than that. Neural data can contain raw emotions before they are filtered into language, unconscious desires, information about whom I love and whom I fear. Ienca argued that this kind of information must be prevented from being collected or traded without consent.
The third was mental integrity. This means the right to keep one's brain state intact, protected from external hacking or manipulation. What would happen if a hacker broke into a brain implant and disrupted the motor signals of a Parkinson's disease
patient? Or if someone hacked an emotion-regulation device and forced a person to feel rage or terror, what should we call that? Ienca regarded this as a violation equal to, or more serious than, physical violence.
The fourth was psychological continuity. This is the right to maintain one's identity, the sense that I am still me, even as time passes. When deep learning algorithms begin intervening in the brain's decision-making, users can become confused. Was the decision I just made my own, or did the machine guide me toward it? If technologies emerge that can edit memories or alter personality, human beings could lose the continuity of the self.
The paper by Ienca and Andorno sent ripples through the academic world. That same year, the Morningside Group, led by Columbia University neurobiologist Rafael Yuste, published a similar proposal in Nature. They advocated for five rights: mental privacy, personal identity, free will, fair access to cognitive augmentation, and protection from algorithmic bias. Yuste argued that these rights should be added to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Many people thought the proposal was premature. In 2017, Neuralink was a startup barely a year old. Most BCI research was still confined to laboratories. But only a few years later, chips were implanted in the brains of pigs and monkeys, and a human began operating a computer with thought alone. Ienca's insight turned out to be prophetic. In an interview, he said: "Traffic laws could only be created after the automobile was invented. But brain technology is different. The guardrails must go up before the technology overtakes humanity."
In 2021, Ienca was appointed as an advisor to the Council of Europe's Bioethics Committee and authored an official report on neurotechnology and human rights. The small spark that began in his lab changed Chile's constitution, influenced state laws in the United States, and became a global agenda item at UNESCO. Neurorights are no longer an abstract philosophical concept. They are the new language humanity has built to protect itself in an age when the brain and the computer are being connected.
B. Chile's Constitutional Amendment (2021) and the Neuroprotection Act: The World's First Legislative Case
Late autumn 2019, at the Future Congress event held in Santiago, the capital of Chile. A man sat near the front of the audience.
Guido Girardi, a Chilean senator and physician-turned-politician. On the podium stood a neuroscientist who had come from New York. Rafael Yuste, a professor at Columbia University and one of the world's foremost authorities on brain science. Yuste put up an image of a mouse brain on the screen. Then he spoke: "We can make this mouse believe it saw something it never saw. By injecting signals directly into its brain."
Girardi leaned forward in his chair. Yuste continued: "This technology will be applied to humans before long. The problem is that there are no regulations. If things continue as they are, a world is coming where companies will collect and trade your brain data at will." When the lecture ended, Girardi approached Yuste. The two talked for hours. That night, they made a decision. Let Chile move first. Let this small South American country do what neither the technology powerhouse America nor the regulatory leader Europe had done.
In October 2021, Chile's congress stunned the world. It amended Article 19 of the constitution to explicitly recognize mental integrity as a fundamental human right. The amended provision declares: "Scientific and technological development must serve human beings while respecting human life and physical and mental integrity. The law shall protect brain activity and the information derived from it." This was not an empty declaration. Chile backed the constitutional amendment by enacting a specific Neuroprotection Bill.
Senator Girardi said at a press conference right after the bill passed: "Brain data should have the same legal status as human organs. It cannot be bought or sold, it cannot be traded, and it cannot be used without the person's explicit consent." Chile's bill restricted the donation of neural data to medical, scientific, and altruistic purposes only. Commercial trading of brain data was banned outright.
What makes this interesting is that the bill received bipartisan support. Chile at the time was deeply polarized politically, torn by intense social conflict. But on the question of neurorights, there was no distinction between left and right. The fear that the human mind could be subjugated to machines transcended ideology. Professor Yuste, testifying before Chile's congress, said: "This technology is humanity's hope for curing Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. We are not trying to stop research. We are just trying to fasten the seatbelt so that technology does not touch the human soul."
An incident in 2023 showed the world that Chile's constitutional amendment was more than a symbolic declaration. Former Senator Girardi purchased a brainwave-measuring headset called Insight, made by Emotiv, a company headquartered in San Francisco. This wireless device, shaped like a headband, measured the user's brain electrical activity and analyzed focus, stress, and emotional states. The problem was that Girardi could not freely view or delete his own brain data. Emotiv did not provide raw data to users who did not pay for a subscription, and it stored the data in the cloud and used it for research purposes.
Girardi filed a constitutional complaint. He argued that Emotiv's use of his brain data for research without his consent violated the mental privacy and integrity guaranteed by the constitution. On August 9, 2023, Chile's Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Girardi's favor. The court ordered Emotiv to delete all of Girardi's brain data. It also directed Chilean health authorities to conduct a further investigation into the device.
The Supreme Court stated in its ruling: "Even when neural data has been anonymized, advances in technology mean it can be re-identified at any time. A simple terms-of-service agreement is therefore insufficient; explicit and specific prior consent is required for each intended use." This ruling was the world's first judicial decision on neurorights. Emotiv suspended sales in the Chilean market.
The ruling's impact reached beyond Chile. In Mexico, two constitutional amendment bills on neurorights were introduced. In Brazil, a bill was submitted to add neural data as a sensitive information category under the General Data Protection Law (LGPD). Uruguay's congress began reviewing similar legislation through exchanges with Chilean lawmakers. In 2022, the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament (Parlatino) drafted a model law on neurorights. The signal flare launched from a small country at the foot of the Andes was spreading across the entire continent.
Chile's case was exceptional in an era when the speed of technological development overwhelms the speed of law. Normally, laws arrive belatedly to clean up after technology has already caused problems. But Chile enacted preventive legislation before Neuralink had even begun human trials, before ordinary consumers were routinely wearing brainwave headsets. In the words of Senator Girardi, it was "not about regulating the future, but about protecting the present to save the future."
C. Neural Data Protection Laws in Colorado and California
One afternoon in April 2024, in the main chamber of the Colorado State Capitol. The vote tally appeared on the electronic board. 61 to 1. Bill HB24-1058 had just passed the House. Legislators shook hands with one another. There was no divide between left and right. This bill was the first state law in American history to explicitly designate neural data as a legally protected category. Days later, Governor Jared Polis signed it. Colorado became the first U.S. state where brainwaves were recorded in the language of law.
Behind this bill was a peculiar regulatory gap. The United States has HIPAA, a strong federal law protecting medical information. Brain data collected by FDA-approved medical devices like Neuralink falls under its protection. But the problem lay outside hospitals. Brainwave headsets available on Amazon for a few hundred dollars, meditation apps that claim to boost focus, earbuds that analyze sleep patterns: these are classified not as medical devices but as wellness gadgets or consumer electronics. HIPAA does not cover them.
Researchers at the Neurorights Foundation investigated this gap. They analyzed the privacy policies of thirty consumer BCI devices and meditation apps on the market. The findings were alarming. Most companies had clauses allowing them to share users' brain data with third parties. In many cases, users were not even given an explicit right to delete their own data. It meant the stress index measured by your meditation app could be sold to an insurance company or an advertising firm.
Colorado's HB24-1058 addressed this problem head-on. The law amended the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) by adding biological data to the definition of sensitive data. It then listed neural data as a subcategory of biological data. The law defines neural data as "information generated by measuring the activity of an individual's central or peripheral nervous system, which can be processed with the aid of a device." Now, in Colorado, companies must obtain explicit and specific consent before collecting a consumer's brain data. Consumers are guaranteed the right to access, correct, and delete their own neural data.
Five months later, there was movement on the Pacific coast as well. On September 28, 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1223 into law. The bill amended the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to classify neural data as sensitive personal information. California is home to giant tech companies like Neuralink, Meta, and Apple. Regulation here directly shapes technology standards around the world.
California law defines neural data as follows: "Information that is generated by measuring the activity of a consumer's central or peripheral nervous system, and that is not inferred from nonneural information." That last clause matters. It left room for interpretation that technologies inferring brain states through indirect indicators, such as heart rate or eye movement, might fall outside the law's scope. Some experts worried this could become a gap in the regulation.
California State Senator Josh Becker, who spearheaded the bill's passage, said at a press conference: "Our thoughts and feelings should belong to us. They should not become products for data brokers." The Neurorights Foundation called the bill's passage "a major victory in protecting consumers' mental privacy."
The legislation in both states shares a common philosophy: the recognition that brain data is not just another type of information. Our brain waves don't only reveal our health status. They contain the stimuli we unconsciously react to, subtle shifts in cognitive ability, and the rise and fall of our emotions. Imagine a gaming company collecting users' brain waves through a VR headset. They could analyze when users feel the most excitement and when they grow bored, then maximize the addictiveness of the game. Analyzing brain responses to political advertisements could enable profiling of voters' tendencies.
The bills in Colorado and California are a first step toward cutting off the roots of this kind of neuro-surveillance capitalism. Tech companies pushed back, of course. They argued that excessive regulation would stifle innovation and block the development of useful wellness services. But lawmakers held firm. Having your smartphone's location data leaked is unpleasant. Having your innermost thoughts leaked is an existential threat.
The movement in these two states is sparking discussion at the federal level. Other states, including Minnesota and Montana, are reviewing similar bills. As of 2025, the recognition that brain data deserves the same strict protection as credit card numbers or fingerprints is spreading across the United States.
D. International Regulatory Discussions at the Council of Europe and UNESCO
November 12, 2025. UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Representatives from 194 member states had gathered in the General Conference hall. The chair spoke: "Those in favor of adopting the recommendation on the ethics of neurotechnology, please raise your hands." Hands went up. It was unanimous. For the first time in human history, a global ethical framework governing the relationship between the brain and machines had been born. In the gallery, a man's eyes glistened with tears. Rafael Yuste. The journey that had begun with the Morningside Group's proposal eight years earlier had finally borne fruit as an international norm.
UNESCO's Recommendation on the Ethics of Neurotechnology was the product of three years of intense deliberation. In November 2023, the UNESCO General Conference voted to draft the recommendation. Director-General Audrey Azoulay assembled a 24-member Ad Hoc Expert Group composed of specialists from multiple disciplines. The selection balanced regional and gender representation. Nataliya Kosmyna, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, was among them.
The expert group met twice in Paris, in April and August 2024, to produce the initial draft. In September 2024, the draft was circulated to member states for comment. In May 2025, an intergovernmental meeting of experts convened to review the final version. It was adopted at the General Conference in November. The recommendation contains more than 100 specific provisions.
The core of the recommendation can be distilled into several points.
First, the protection of mental privacy. Neural data must be treated with greater sensitivity than any other form of personal information.
Second, transparency and consent. When neurotechnology is used, users must be given sufficient information, and explicit consent must be obtained.
Third, protection for children and vulnerable populations. Children whose cognitive abilities are still developing, and patients with diminished decision-making capacity, require stronger safeguards.
Fourth, regulation of uses outside clinical settings. Ethical guidelines must also apply to neurotechnologies that serve non-medical purposes, such as consumer EEG devices and gaming BCIs.
Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences, issued a statement immediately after adoption: "We must prevent brain data from being commodified. Neurotechnology must serve the benefit of all humanity, not become the privilege of a few." The recommendation is not legally binding. But it established a moral standard that 194 member states should reference when drafting domestic legislation. Just as the international community drew a line on human cloning technology, it has now created a list of things that must not be done with brain technology.
The Council of Europe has been moving along a separate track. This body, with its 46 member states, has governed the relationship between human dignity and biomedicine through the 1997 Oviedo Convention. More recently, it has been conducting a thorough examination of how neurotechnology affects existing human rights treaties, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in particular. Marcello Ienca, serving as an advisor to the Council of Europe's Committee on Bioethics (DH-BIO), authored an official report on neurotechnology and human rights.
A fascinating debate is unfolding inside the Council of Europe. Some experts argue that a broad interpretation of existing human rights is sufficient to address the risks of neurotechnology. They say provisions on the right to privacy and freedom of thought can simply be applied in the context of brain data. Others counter that direct intervention in the brain represents an entirely new dimension of concern that existing legal frameworks cannot accommodate. Their position is that explicit neurorights must be introduced.
The OECD also adopted its Recommendation on Responsible Innovation in Neurotechnology in 2019. This recommendation focuses on ensuring safety and ethics without stifling innovation. In 2024, the OECD released a concrete policy toolkit to help implement the recommendation.
Reaching international consensus is a rough road. The positions of technology-leading nations like the United States and China differ sharply from those of Europe, which emphasizes regulation. China is developing BCI technology under state direction through its China Brain Project and is actively applying it in education and defense. The United States wants regulation that does not impede private-sector innovation. Europe puts privacy and human rights first.
But there is one thing they all agree on. The human brain is the last stronghold of what makes us human. Each time technology unlocks another secret of the brain, we must, paradoxically, wrestle all the more fiercely with the question of what it means to be human. The documents passing back and forth in the conference rooms of Paris and Geneva are safeguards, designed to ensure that humanity can still exist with dignity in an era when the brain and the computer are fully merged. The steps are slow. But that is how international norms move forward.
Kim Kyung-jin
Attorney · Former Member of the National Assembly · AI Policy Researcher
© 2026 Kim Kyung-jin. All rights reserved.