Digitising Consciousness and Cognitive Sovereignty

This essay is part of the series: World Creativity and Innovation Day 2026: Sparks and Shields

In March 2026, computational neuroscientists and artificial intelligence experts at Eon Systems PBC made a breakthrough by demonstrating the mapping and reconstruction of a fruit fly brain and “uploading it” into a high-fidelity virtual simulation platform, often likened to the Matrix. This demonstration required them to digitally recreate the fruit fly's neural connectome to mimic its behaviour, without physically transferring any part of its body into the computer-based system. In light of World Creativity and Innovation Day, such innovative progress often blurs the line between fact and fiction. While the creative process determines the direction of scientific innovation, it is the responsibility of policymakers to anticipate and manage its future impacts by preparing appropriate governance tools. Such developments demand not only scientific ingenuity but also institutional innovation in the governance of emerging technologies.

The development of whole-brain emulation (WBE), neural decoding, and brain connectome construction raises questions regarding basic premises about identity, autonomy, and the integrity of the self. If the self can be copied, altered, or replicated in several versions, then the very idea of personal identity and individual agency starts to fall apart. The use of WBE techniques may enable the recreation of cognitive functions from neural information. Still, they would pose ethical challenges to how such data is preserved and protected, what indicates personhood, the possibility of behaviour modification, and unauthorised cognitive replication.

Current AI systems already leverage large-scale behavioural prediction models based on data trails, but with more sophisticated neuro-digital interfaces, these predictions can evolve into complete cognitive reconstructions.

Current AI systems already leverage large-scale behavioural prediction models based on data trails, but with more sophisticated neuro-digital interfaces, these predictions can evolve into complete cognitive reconstructions. Similar to “harvest now, decrypt later” paradigms, neural signal data generated through BCI may be subject to a similar risk, wherein sensitive cognitive information is captured in the present and later reconstructed as analytical and decoding capabilities improve, particularly given existing evidence of reconstruction and inference vulnerabilities in neural data systems.

In addition to technical weaknesses, the rise of digitised cognition could create systemic problems for sensitive data (whether biometric, biological, or cognitive) sovereignty in countries where AI technologies have been incorporated without appropriate policy protection. The cognitive decision-making may also be at risk beyond data privacy. When identical cognitive systems are available across multiple computational environments, what is defined as personal and held accountable comes into question. Such difficulty in accountability and attribution will complicate the future of WBE. In military, governmental, or economic infrastructure, digitised cognitive actors can be used to make decisions faster than humans, thereby shortening decision-making cycles. However, this will compromise the attribution if cognitive sovereignty is extended beyind the individual and increase escalation potential.

Cognitive Emulation and Identity Security Architecture

WBE has created excitement in the fields of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The success of such innovations on a larger scale could mean creating digital backups of one’s cognitive functioning, protecting against biological and neurological extinction. However, this would also make us vulnerable to involuntary cloning, exploitation of digital consciousness, or forced simulations.

The success of such innovations on a larger scale could mean creating digital backups of one’s cognitive functioning, protecting against biological and neurological extinction.

 As a means of achieving cognitive immortality and even greater simulation, WBE requires the development of new forms of cybersecurity that would control identity authenticity, memory integrity, and cognitive access. The architecture of cognitive emulation systems may need to implement identity verification mechanisms that will guarantee the integrity of the cognitive state and prevent unauthorised copying and manipulation of digitally recorded brains, thus creating a completely new type of “neurodigital security protocols.” Marcello Ienca and Roberto Andorno, in their paper, argue that this should include the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.

While these rights primarily focus on the individual, they do not fully address the systemic governance implications of large-scale neural data use

Addressing The Regulatory Lacunae

As part of its national innovation policies, India is prioritising AI and digital neurotechnology to implement an effective infrastructure for digital public governance. Though WBE on a massive scale remains a distant reality for present-day researchers, preparatory work has been done in neuroscience, AI, cybersecurity, and digital governance for the emerging era.

Presently, partial and proto-emulation methodologies are being explored globally, with projects such as the Human Brain Project in the EU, providing platforms such as The Virtual Brain, which succeeded the Human Brain Project, for massive-scale simulation of network brain dynamics, and other models like BOLD signal reconstruction methods to enable cellular-to-system-level brain network dynamics. While all these do not yet comprise the concept of full WBE, they are steps towards realising the possibility of multiscale modelling of brain activities computationally.

In India, similar groundwork can be seen, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham establishing the Amrita Mind Brain Center (AMBC), where advancements have been made concerning brain-cognition-computation interface research and neuroengineering projects. Within a framework of collaboration such as the BOLDsim project, researchers are creating computational technologies to simulate brain functional signals at the cellular level.

With the advent of neurotechnology, the regulatory and financing mechanisms of DBT would have to take into consideration certain protective measures in terms of neural data management, dual-use evaluation, and limitations to brain modelling through artificial intelligence.

Nevertheless, the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence leads to the development of an emerging regulatory gap, especially concerning neural data security, cognitive identity, and the possibility of reconstructing mental conditions from brain signals. Here, one critical organisational issue that falls under the responsibility of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), which is increasingly engaged in neuroscience and brain research applications, may need to play an increasing role in shaping standards for. With the advent of neurotechnology, the regulatory and financing mechanisms of DBT would have to take into consideration certain protective measures in terms of neural data management, dual-use evaluation, and limitations to brain modelling through artificial intelligence.

To address these new challenges, the nation must develop an innovative form of governance. In such an environment, it is necessary to coordinate among CERT-In, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Such coordination, especially in the form of a framework, can help manage potential dual-use threats that may arise in the future. To achieve this innovation-oriented governance system, the country can start by focusing on the following four aspects of governance:

• Incorporating cognitive privacy standards in existing privacy laws, or formulating new laws to ensure cognitive data is categorised as special category data, would ensure that neural and cognitive data are kept safe from abuse, noting that neural signals can contain sensitive information about an individual, such as intention, emotional state, and even personal identity. This will involve prohibiting non-consensual data collection and further exploitation of neural datasets, including secondary use for behavioural profiling.
• Cognitive and neural data security policies to ensure that cognitive data is secure when transmitted, stored, and processed in BCI ecosystems. This will require the three organisations to develop encryption standards for neural signal traffic, secure access credentials for cognitive devices, and threat modelling against potential adversarial attacks.
• Transparency of algorithms that interact with cognitive or neural inputs, especially in such high-risk sectors as healthcare, defence, and governance. This will include establishing an auditing process that tracks how neural inputs are handled and used in machine learning.
• Institutionalising Regulatory Sandboxes at a national level to enable controlled experimentation in BCI technologies will ensure innovation proceeds within defined ethical boundaries. These sandboxes should explicitly incorporate the aforementioned standards for when AI systems interface directly with neural or behavioural data streams. 

Conclusion

The achievement of digitally emulating a neural system at a fly level represents an early step towards the prospect of digitised consciousness. Although digitising the human mind is a way away, current progress in neuroscience and artificial intelligence makes the possibility more real each day. This possibility of digitising the brain brings both benefits and risks to humanity. The potential for cognitive preservation is matched by risk. The most important issue to be addressed today, then, is not just how governments can encourage innovation, but how they can innovate governance itself.

Shravishtha Ajaykumar is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy, and Technology.

• Cyber and Technology
• Artificial Intelligence
• India
• BOLDsim project
• brain computer interfaces
• brain computer interfaces
• fruit fly brain mapping
• fruit fly brain simulation
• wbe techniques
• Whole Brain Emulation

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