Brainwave-tracking startup BrainCo in controversy over tests on Chinese schoolchildren

The concept of telekinesis, which is the ability to move objects at a distance through the sheer power of the mind, can be a feat to behold.

Startup BrainCo has removed that capability from the realm of science fiction into practical applications, some of which it has presented in trade exhibitions.

Photo credit: Francisco Osorio

At the annual CES trade show in Las Vegas in January, a number of visitors to BrainCo’s booth were given the opportunity to demonstrate their brain power. They were asked to wear the company’s headband, focus on the toy car in a miniature racetrack and, as if by magic, see it zoom away and make the rounds of that track.

BrainCo, which was incubated at Harvard University and founded by Chinese engineer Han Bicheng, has been attracting plenty of buzz for its brain-machine interface (BMI) products since it first took part in CES in 2017. The company’s Focus headband, which features what it describes as “real-time brainwave feedback and visualisation,” is targeted at the education, fitness and wellness sectors.

In China, however, BrainCo has been caught in a social media controversy amid concerns about how the widespread use of technologies, such as facial recognition and big data, could trigger the creation of a surveillance society.

BrainCo has received plenty of criticism on microblogging service Weibo after a post earlier this month showed its Focus headbands being worn by Chinese pupils at an undisclosed primary school. The devices allowed teachers to monitor how focused pupils were during class. The findings were instantaneously revealed via a light on the headband: Blue means relaxed, yellow means focused and red means very focused.

“What did these children do wrong to deserve this life of constant monitoring? It boggles my mind that we can’t put ankle bracelets on pedophiles, but it’s astonishingly easy to put headbands on these powerless kids,” one commenter posted on Weibo.

The headbands from BrainCo use so-called electroencephalography (EEG) sensors to detect brain signals and use an AI algorithm to translate the signals into focus levels in real time. EEG, which records the electrical activity of the brain, has long been used in the medical field as a non-invasive method to diagnose epilepsy, sleep disorders and encephalopathies, or disease of the brain.

Data gathered from the headbands can be used to design focus-training games to help students prime their brain for optimal performance before they start class, according to the BrainCo website.

On April 5, BrainCo issued a statement on Weibo in response to the online criticism. The company reiterated that the headbands were used in a number of school trials in China to help children improve learning efficiency. It said the headbands have not been sold to any public school.

BrainCo has partnered with an unnamed Chinese school to test its Focus 1 flagship device on 10,000 schoolchildren aged between 10 and 17, according to a January 2019 report by the UK’s Daily Mail.

Email and phone inquiries sent to the company and its founder went unanswered.

The criticism levelled against BrainCo has come amid Beijing’s efforts in pushing AI technologies such as facial recognition into many corners of peoples’ lives. In July 2017, China’s State Council unveiled its “Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan” for the country – a three-step road map for AI dominance by 2030.