July 11th, 2024, Lesley Simeon
Earlier this year, tech billionaire Elon Musk-founded startup Neuralink claimed to have successfully implanted one of its wireless ‘brain-reading’ device into a person. The company’s human trial, following contentious implant procedures involving monkeys, aims at controlling the intention to move and eventually, enabling people to execute certain actions using just their thoughts.
But picture this: if a computer chip technology were to make it to the commercial stage, would you consider getting a chip implanted in your brain?
According to data from a recent YouGov survey, one in five (20%) respondents across 17 international markets, would consider it.
Men are significantly more likely than women (25% vs. 15%) to consider getting a computer chip implanted in their brain, YouGov’s demographic data shows.
Brain chip implant technology, in its potential commercial stage, would find the least takers in Neuralink’s home country the US (11%), and in Great Britain (11%).
Indians lead in, and are the most likely to say they would consider getting a computer chip implanted in their brain (38%), followed by respondents in Indonesia (35%) and the UAE (35%). Within Europe, Italians (20%) and Poles (20%) lead in their consideration of the procedure.
Brits (79%) account for the largest proportion of respondents across all markets surveyed who would not consider having a chip implanted in their brain. Germans (77%), Americans (76%), Canadians (75%), Spanish (75%) follow Brits. As for Asia, Hong Kongers (65%) and Singaporeans (65%) are most likely out consideration of a to not consider having a brain chip implanted.
Finally, Danes (16%) account for the largest proportion of those who aren’t sure whether or not they would undergo a brain chip implant procedure.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from
nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 17 markets with sample sizes varying between 500 and 2002 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in February 2024. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
Photo by Google DeepMind on Pexels