The Download: 2022's best stories, and what's next for AI

Today, there are lots of neurotechnologies that can read what's going on in our brains, modify the way they function, and change the wiring. Deep brain stimulation, for example, involves implanting electrodes deep into the brain to stimulate neurons and control the way brain regions fire. It's considered pretty invasive, in the medical sense. Other treatments, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, which involves passing a device shaped like a figure 8 over a person's head to deliver a magnetic pulse to parts of the brain and to interfere with its activity, are considered "noninvasive" because they act from outside the brain. But if we can reach into a person's mind, even without piercing the skull, how noninvasive is the technology really?