As Augmentation Nears One in Twenty, the Safety Review Stays Open

BOSTON — More than one person in twenty now carries some form of neural or somatic augmentation, and the review meant to govern the newest interfaces remains, deliberately, undecided. Regulators reaffirmed this week that their safety examination of Somaform Augmetics' neural-interface line is still open and contested, with no clearance and no timetable. Founder Julian Morrow, who has built his firm around augmentation as a right, called the delay its own kind of harm. "Every month the review sits open, people who would benefit wait, and people who fear the technology are told their fear is official," Morrow said. Clinicians are split. Dr. Priyanka Setalvad, a neuro-ethicist who has advised the panel, said an unresolved review is not indecision but honesty. "We do not yet know the ten-year answer, because there has not yet been a ten-year," she said. The number of augmented humans keeps rising; the standard that would govern them does not.