Who Is Responsible If a Brain-Controlled Robot Drops a Baby?

Summary: As brain controlled robots and neuroprosthetics are rapidly growing in popularity, researchers impress the need to create guidelines to help insure safe and beneficial use of brain machine interactions.

Source: Wyss Center.

Neuroethics: Neurotech experts call for new measures to ensure brain-controlled devices are beneficial and safe.

As brain-controlled robots enter everyday life, an article published in Science states that now is the time to take action and put in place guidelines that ensure the safe and beneficial use of direct brain-machine interaction.

Accountability, responsibility, privacy and security are all key when considering ethical dimensions of this emerging field.

If a semi-autonomous robot did not have a reliable control or override mechanism, a person might be considered negligent if they used it to pick up a baby, but not for other less risky activities. The authors propose that any semi-autonomous system should include a form of veto control – an emergency stop – to help overcome some of the inherent weaknesses of direct brain-machine interaction.

Image shows a woman in an EEG cap.
An electroencephalography (EEG) cap is for measuring brain activity on study participant. NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Wyss Center.

Professor John Donoghue, Director of the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, Switzerland said: “Although we still don’t fully understand how the brain works, we are moving closer to being able to reliably decode certain brain signals. We shouldn’t be complacent about what this could mean for society. We must carefully consider the consequences of living alongside semi-intelligent brain-controlled machines and we should be ready with mechanisms to ensure their safe and ethical use.”

“We don’t want to overstate the risks nor build false hope for those who could benefit from neurotechnology. Our aim is to ensure that appropriate legislation keeps pace with this rapidly progressing field.”

Protecting biological data recorded by brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) is another area of concern. Security solutions should include data encryption, information hiding and network security. Guidelines for patient data protection already exist for clinical studies but these standards differ across countries and may not apply as rigorously to purely human laboratory research.

Professor Niels Birbaumer, Senior Research Fellow at the Wyss Center in Geneva (formerly at University of Tübingen, Germany) said: “The protection of sensitive neuronal data from people with complete paralysis who use a BMI as their only means of communication, is particularly important. Successful calibration of their BMI depends on brain responses to personal questions provided by the family (for example, “Your daughter’s name is Emily?”). Strict data protection must be applied to all people involved, this includes protecting the personal information asked in questions as well as the protection of neuronal data to ensure the device functions correctly.”

The possibility of ‘brainjacking’ – the malicious manipulation of brain implants – is a serious consideration say the authors. While BMI systems to restore movement or communication to paralysed people do not initially seem an appealing target, this could depend on the status of the user – a paralysed politician, for example, might be at increased risk of a malicious attack as brain readout improves.

About this neuroscience research article

The article: Help, hope and hype: ethical dimensions of neuroprosthetics by Jens Clausen, Eberhard Fetz, John Donoghue, Junichi Ushiba, Ulrike Spörhase, Jennifer Chandler, Niels Birbaumer and Surjo R. Soekadar is published in Science.

Funding: Wyss Center research assistant Naomi Iwata was also a co-author. The research was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, German Ministry of Education and Research, European Commission, LUMINOUS, BRAINTRAIN.

NeuroscienceNews would like to thank Jo Bowler for submitting this article to us for inclusion.

Source: Jo Bowler – Wyss Center
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Wyss Center.
Video Source: The video is credited to Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering.
Original Research: Abstract for “Help, hope, and hype: Ethical dimensions of neuroprosthetics” by Jens Clausen, Eberhard Fetz, John Donoghue, Junichi Ushiba, Ulrike Spörhase, Jennifer Chandler, Niels Birbaumer, and Surjo R. Soekadar in Science. Published online June 30 2017 doi:10.1126/science.aam7731

Cite This NeuroscienceNews.com Article

[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]Wyss Center “Who Is Responsible If a Brain-Controlled Robot Drops a Baby?.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 30 June 2017.
<https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroethics-brain-devices-7009/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]Wyss Center (2017, June 30). Who Is Responsible If a Brain-Controlled Robot Drops a Baby?. NeuroscienceNew. Retrieved June 30, 2017 from https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroethics-brain-devices-7009/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]Wyss Center “Who Is Responsible If a Brain-Controlled Robot Drops a Baby?.” https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroethics-brain-devices-7009/ (accessed June 30, 2017).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]


Abstract

Help, hope, and hype: Ethical dimensions of neuroprosthetics

Brain-controlled prosthetic robots that restore independent activities of daily living to paralyzed people are about to enter everyday life environments (1). The regained ability to grasp a cup of coffee, hand over a credit card, or sign a document with a pen (1) enhances the independence and self-determination of severely paralyzed individuals. However, introducing devices controlled via brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) into everyday environments, possibly enhancing the capabilities of able-bodied people to interact with digital devices, raises a number of ethical and social challenges in the areas of (i) autonomy, responsibility, and accountability; (ii) data security and privacy; and (iii) managing end-user expectations about a promising field of medical advances. We here take a closer look at these issues and suggest some possible answers to addressing them.

“Help, hope, and hype: Ethical dimensions of neuroprosthetics” by Jens Clausen, Eberhard Fetz, John Donoghue, Junichi Ushiba, Ulrike Spörhase, Jennifer Chandler, Niels Birbaumer, and Surjo R. Soekadar in Science. Published online June 30 2017 doi:10.1126/science.aam7731

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