The potential of Brain-Machine Interface technology has Silicon Valley excited, and ethicists worried Posted WedWednesday 10 updated ThuThursday 11 MarMarch 2021 at 1:31am Experimentation in the field of brain-machine interfaces has so far been small scale, but big players are involved. ( Print text only Cancel Having hundreds of needles injected into your brain may sound more like a torture than a treatment. But the process is already allowing some patients with severe paralysis to control a robotic arm by thought alone. Brain-Machine Interface technology (BMI) is a field of science that's small and relatively new, but it has Silicon Valley brimming with excitement.