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Home » Opinion » Foreign Views
Where brain gadgets end and humans begin
By Jens Clausen |
December 4, 2009, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
WE are so surrounded by gadgetry nowadays that it is sometimes hard to tell where devices end and people begin.
From computers and scanners to mobile devices, an increasing number of humans spend much of their conscious lives interacting with the world through electronics, the only barrier between brain and machine being the senses - sight, sound, and touch - through which humans and devices interface.
But remove those senses from the equation, and electronic devices can become our eyes, ears and even arms and legs, taking in the world around us and interacting with it through software and hardware.
This is no mere prediction. Brain-machine interfaces are already clinically well established - for example, in restoring hearing through cochlear implants. And patients with end-stage Parkinson's disease can be treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS).
Future advances in neurosciences, together with miniaturization of microelectronic devices, will enable more widespread application of brain-machine interfaces. This could be seen to challenge our notions of personhood and moral agency.
In brain-controlled prosthetic devices, a computer that sits in the device decodes signals from the brain. These signals are then used to predict what a user intends to do. Invariably, predictions will sometimes fail, which could lead to dangerous, or at least embarrassing, situations.
Who is responsible for involuntary acts? Is it the fault of the computer or the user? Will a user need some kind of license and obligatory insurance to operate a prosthesis?
Fortunately, there are precedents for dealing with liability when biology and technology fail.
Increasing knowledge of human genetics, for example, led to attempts to reject criminal responsibility, based on the inappropriate belief that genes predetermine actions. These attempts failed, and neuroscientific pursuits seem similarly unlikely to overturn our views on human free will and responsibility.
Moreover, humans often control dangerous and unpredictable tools, such as cars and guns. Brain-machine interfaces represent a highly sophisticated case of tool use, but they are still just that. Legal responsibility should not be much harder to disentangle.
But what if machines change the brain? Evidence from early brain stimulation experiments a half-century ago suggests that sending a current into the brain may cause shifts in personality and alter behavior.
And, while many Parkinson's patients report significant benefits from DBS, it has shown a greater incidence of serious adverse effects, such as nervous system and psychiatric disorders and a higher suicide rate.
Case studies revealed hypomania and personality changes of which patients were unaware, and which disrupted family relationships before the stimulation parameters were readjusted.
Moreover, the availability of technologies has begun to cause friction. For example, many in the deaf community have rejected cochlear implants, because they do not regard deafness as a disability that needs to be corrected, but as a part of their life and cultural identity. To them, cochlear implants are an enhancement beyond normal functioning.
Distinguishing between enhancement and treatment requires defining normality and disease, which is notoriously difficult.
Anita Silvers, a philosopher at San Francisco State University and a disability scholar and activist, has described such treatments as "tyranny of the normal," aimed at adjusting the deaf to a world designed by the hearing, ultimately implying the inferiority of deafness.
(The author is a research assistant at the Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, Germany. The views are his own. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009. www.project-syndicate.org)
From computers and scanners to mobile devices, an increasing number of humans spend much of their conscious lives interacting with the world through electronics, the only barrier between brain and machine being the senses - sight, sound, and touch - through which humans and devices interface.
But remove those senses from the equation, and electronic devices can become our eyes, ears and even arms and legs, taking in the world around us and interacting with it through software and hardware.
This is no mere prediction. Brain-machine interfaces are already clinically well established - for example, in restoring hearing through cochlear implants. And patients with end-stage Parkinson's disease can be treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS).
Future advances in neurosciences, together with miniaturization of microelectronic devices, will enable more widespread application of brain-machine interfaces. This could be seen to challenge our notions of personhood and moral agency.
In brain-controlled prosthetic devices, a computer that sits in the device decodes signals from the brain. These signals are then used to predict what a user intends to do. Invariably, predictions will sometimes fail, which could lead to dangerous, or at least embarrassing, situations.
Who is responsible for involuntary acts? Is it the fault of the computer or the user? Will a user need some kind of license and obligatory insurance to operate a prosthesis?
Fortunately, there are precedents for dealing with liability when biology and technology fail.
Increasing knowledge of human genetics, for example, led to attempts to reject criminal responsibility, based on the inappropriate belief that genes predetermine actions. These attempts failed, and neuroscientific pursuits seem similarly unlikely to overturn our views on human free will and responsibility.
Moreover, humans often control dangerous and unpredictable tools, such as cars and guns. Brain-machine interfaces represent a highly sophisticated case of tool use, but they are still just that. Legal responsibility should not be much harder to disentangle.
But what if machines change the brain? Evidence from early brain stimulation experiments a half-century ago suggests that sending a current into the brain may cause shifts in personality and alter behavior.
And, while many Parkinson's patients report significant benefits from DBS, it has shown a greater incidence of serious adverse effects, such as nervous system and psychiatric disorders and a higher suicide rate.
Case studies revealed hypomania and personality changes of which patients were unaware, and which disrupted family relationships before the stimulation parameters were readjusted.
Moreover, the availability of technologies has begun to cause friction. For example, many in the deaf community have rejected cochlear implants, because they do not regard deafness as a disability that needs to be corrected, but as a part of their life and cultural identity. To them, cochlear implants are an enhancement beyond normal functioning.
Distinguishing between enhancement and treatment requires defining normality and disease, which is notoriously difficult.
Anita Silvers, a philosopher at San Francisco State University and a disability scholar and activist, has described such treatments as "tyranny of the normal," aimed at adjusting the deaf to a world designed by the hearing, ultimately implying the inferiority of deafness.
(The author is a research assistant at the Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, Germany. The views are his own. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009. www.project-syndicate.org)
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