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Never say, "...it can never get worse..."
I attended ... where the speaker gave a passionate/animated talk on neuro-ethics...that's not the electronics neural net but the actual brain and associated ethics.
The investment in nanomedical technology by international players suggests that there are serious attempts being made towards human manipulation for therapeutic purposes but the potential for abuse makes social media manipulations look like child's play. Hopefully, human beings can embrace the value in protecting there personal "beings"....if not, the future will be bleak. [Our] efforts to characterize rational privacy legislation may actually help in defining some bio-chemical endeavors coming down the pike very soon...
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My reply:
Yes, I agree 100%. It reminds me of Trent Frank's old saying; "You folks are only worried because you don't have all the facts. if you had all the facts you would be terrified out of your mind." (When I heard him say this, he went on to describe how he himself gradually calmed down, after he took charge of the House committee which gets the hairiest threat information.)
One of several good sources on this problem is:
Because it was close to what I was working on at NSF at the time, I watched carefully the whole day.
I still remember the AfroAmerican woman who got up (you can see her on the video!) and asked the NIH guy, roughly: "And if you guys decide you don't like our behavior, are you going to force this stuff on us, implant it against our will, to make us do and feel what you want us to do and feel?" His response: "Why not? Why are you making such a big deal of it? After all, that's what we ALREADY do with drugs. Society has the right to decide what is acceptable behavior and what is not."
I am also worried how far the concept of "inalienable rights" seems to have been forgotten in a lot of modern culture. So if an employer decides to require a brain implant as a condition of employment, who is to stop him, or even to limit him if he wants an implant designed to change the personality to make it more docile and obedient with less of any kind of independence or ethical values other than serving the employer, 24 hours per day?
I still remember the day (not the date, the day) when a guy came to my office at NSF looking for money for his neural stimulation technology. "Look at the great things I have already accomplished on DOD funding. Here is my helmet which can beam microwaves to the reinforcement centers of the brain, and turn a soldier into an ideal warfighter, not distracted by anything but his assignment. No fear, no inhibitions, no need for surgery. Noninvasive that way. But I can do more, so much more, just fund me.." He did have evidence of his accomplishments.
I also remember a small workshop on "convergence," combining nanotechnology and cognitive technology, which was basically the same thing. The neuroscientists there certainly knew the classical story of Delgado, which made it to the press, but I learned of worse cases which had been hushed up, including a doctor/researcher who used brain stimulation on female patients in a predictable sort of way.
There actually were folks who were surprised and upset that I never became a "team player" enthusiastically pushing this kind of thing further. But let me not go on at too great length... though I should mention how FDA has been stakeholder oriented for years.
Congressman Chakkah Fattah and a guy at OSTP were among those who pushed especially hard for more of this kind of thing. Though Fattah did other more positive things, I have to admit he may have earned it when the FBI took him down (for yet other things, probably for less benevolent motives). Still, the lobby groups which crave the benefits of this are still very active and very powerful.
The analogy to drugs (made by the NIH guy) is actually quite precise, scientifically. The short circuiting of the primary reinforcement centers of the brain is serious business.
Best of luck,
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