From Brain Reading to Mind Reading: Evidence for Neurorights?
Frederic Gilbert1, Ingrid Russo1, University Of Tasmania 1University Of Tasmania
Abstract
Background: The International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO’s report on “The Risks and Challenges of Neurotechnologies for Human Rights (2022)” highlights the multifaceted impacts of combining AI and neurotechnologies capable of “reading” and “writing” brain activity. This report aligns with extensive media and academic discussions concerning the growing use of AI-enabled brain reading neurotechnologies for mind reading purposes.
Aim: This presentation investigates whether the terms “brain-reading,” “mind-reading,” “brain-writing,” and “mind-writing” used to convey current neurotechnological findings carry evidence of introducing neuro-rights. The objective is to explore how neural data extracted through brain reading processes might potentially threaten human rights due to mind reading or writing implications.
Methods: We conducted a scoping review of 988 academic articles to gain insights into the current state of the art and examine assertions made by academics regarding neurotechnologies. We explored whether mind reading and writing are genuinely achievable, the possibilities of mind reading and writing, capabilities of different neurotechnologies, and potential threats to mental privacy and integrity.
Results: Our analysis revealed that up to 47% of the examined articles suggest the possibility of mind reading through brain reading. Among these articles, visual perception (68%) and hidden ‘intentions/thoughts” (30%) were the most achieved types of mind-reading. Additionally, there is a growing trend of associating brain writing with brain-computer interfaces and AI. Ethical issues discussed frequently include mental privacy, mental freedom, and personhood.
Conclusions: Advancing neurotechnologies necessitate the development of new language to accurately interpret findings. This may result in exaggerated calls for novel specific neuro-rights, potentially overshadowing the legitimate need to regulate neural-data extraction. Our findings stress the potential misleading effects linked to the contemporary use of the “brain-reading” language. However, the potential necessity for tighter regulation linked to neural-data extraction cannot be overlooked or excluded.
Biography
I’m the Head of Discipline for Philosophy at the University of Tasmania, and founder of the EthicsLab. My research seeks to pioneer a cross-disciplinary examination of the ethical, philosophical and policy issues raised by the development of novel therapeutic and non-therapeutic neurotechnologies.