Connecting Brains to Computers Is a Shortcut to Dystopia
Evan: That’s really troubling. As things stand, fighting for privacy is hard. A.I.-powered facial recognition technology is a perfect tool of oppression, one so dangerous Woodrow Hartzog and I argue it should be banned. Perhaps the last thing society needs is for tech companies to have yet another way to sell our data — especially if the technology reduces barriers for extracting deeply personal and highly intimate details. Do you think we should try to prevent A.I. from intruding into our heads?
Susan: I’m excited about the development of A.I. and neurotechnology for medical therapies. Existing research includes Ted Berger’s project to create an artificial hippocampus to aid those with radical memory loss, which is already in human clinical trials, and DARPA’s efforts on closed-loop neural implants to aid those with PTSD. But the idea that we should move beyond therapeutic uses to enhancement is a different beast.
So, should you enhance at a Mind Design Center? Science alone can’t determine this. How we should proceed is a matter of value. And as the second part of my book suggests, it is also a matter of getting the metaphysics right and understanding debates over the nature of consciousness, selfhood, and mindedness. And we need proper A.I. regulations, though the default route is to trust the future of the mind to companies like Facebook.
Evan: Absolutely. To be sure, we need to be vigilant about tech companies hooking us in with enticements about innovation making life more convenient and fun. It’s all too plausible to imagine Facebook hyping up a service that lets consumers send status updates directly into the minds of their friends by emphasizing that it’s a drag to exert the effort required for saying or typing words. And if Mark Zuckerberg were to tout the medical benefits of brain-controlling wearable and implantable tech, watch out. It would be prudent to be skeptical and, as Katina Michael rightly recommends, ask how the tools associated with care can be repurposed for expanding social control.
Susan: Yes, this illustrates how crucial it is that all stakeholders are involved in discussions of A.I. and the future of the mind.
Evan: Beyond concerns associated with privacy, what’s at stake in a scenario like this — one that has preoccupied many cyberpunk science-fiction writers?
Source: A Medium OneZero paper by Evan Selinger, co-authored by Susan Schneider, that can be found here: https://onezero.medium.com/connecting-brains-to-computers-is-a-shortcut-to-dystopia-c08dc62e7517