The ALS patient who became a BCI power user, and why South Korea isn’t afraid of AI

Two stories caught my eye today that, on the surface, have nothing to do with each other. But they both touch on something I think about a lot: how people actually relate to technology when it gets close to them.

The first real power user of a speech brain implant

Casey Harrell has had electrodes in his brain for almost three years. He has ALS, he’s paralyzed, and he first used his brain-computer interface to “speak” back in 2023. Since then, he’s logged thousands of hours of use.

What’s striking isn’t just that the thing works. It’s that Harrell has become genuinely independent with it. The team behind the device at MIT Technology Review calls him “the first power user of a speech BCI.” That’s not marketing speak. He uses it to surf the web, do his job, and the team keeps adding new features because he’s actually pushing what the system can do.

“Living with a disease like ALS, you are supposed to have diminished dreams. I do not,” Harrell told MIT Technology Review.

That line hit me. Most BCI demos are carefully controlled lab sessions. This guy is just living his life with electrodes in his brain, and the tech is keeping up. The team plans to add more enhancements. I’m curious how far they can push this before the hardware itself becomes the bottleneck.

South Korea’s AI embrace vs. America’s AI panic

Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center dropped a survey that confirms what many of us have suspected: Americans are scared of AI, and South Koreans are not.

Only 16% of South Koreans say they’re more concerned than excited about AI. That’s the lowest of 25 countries surveyed. Compare that to 50% of Americans who are more worried than excited.

Michelle Kim’s reporting for MIT Technology Review traces this back to a deep cultural conviction in South Korea that technology is how you modernize and secure your place in the world. AI is just the latest version of that ethos.

I find this genuinely refreshing. The US discourse around AI has become so dominated by doomerism and regulatory panic that it’s easy to forget other countries are just trying to build useful things. South Koreans aren’t naive. They just don’t see technology as an existential threat by default.

Other things worth your time

• The US Commerce Secretary says he restricted Anthropic over foreign intelligence risks. Lutnick cited national security fears, and Anthropic responded by disabling access to its new models. Both sides seem dug in. (Reuters, BBC, WSJ)
• DeepSeek just became China’s most valuable startup after raising $7 billion in what’s reportedly the largest first-round funding for an AI company ever. The deal values it at over $50 billion. Its unusual structure preserves founder control, and its new flagship model has been causing a stir. (The Information, WSJ, Reuters, MIT Technology Review)
• Alibaba released AI models for robots, joining the shift from chatbots to physical world AI. This is a space I’m watching closely. AI that understands its surroundings is fundamentally different from AI that just processes text. (SCMP, MIT Technology Review)
• Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion. That’s a lot of money for a streaming platform that’s been struggling, but Fox clearly sees value in the distribution.

That’s it for today. No grand conclusions. Just interesting things happening in technology that are worth knowing about.