Augmentation Review Grinds On as the Five-Percent Line Holds

LAGOS — The safety review into somatic and neural augmentation entered another contested session this week, and the notable thing, again, is that it did not conclude. With augmented humans now past five percent of the population, the pressure to either clear the newest neural-interface designs or ban them is constant — and regulators are doing neither, keeping the review deliberately open. "The honest answer is that we do not yet know enough to say either word — 'safe' or 'unsafe' — and pretending otherwise would be the real recklessness," said one review-panel clinician, who asked not to be named while proceedings continue. Julian Morrow, the augmentation-rights advocate who founded a leading implant maker, has argued the delay itself carries a cost borne by patients waiting on approved devices. The panel's counter is patience. For the roughly six hundred million people already living with augmentations, the review's slow, unglamorous caution is, its members insist, the point rather than the failure.