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Emerging Technologies and Ethical Issues in Engineering Papers from a Workshop (2004) / Chapter Skim
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Neurotechnology and Brain-Computer Interfaces: Ethical and Social Implications
Pages 57-66

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 57...
... Neuroethics is a field that looks at emerging technologies and their relation to the brain. In Europe, the term has been used to refer to the clinical care of people with strokes and other neuropathologies.
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From page 58...
... We think in terms of genetics and metaphors of information technology. Bill Wulf was talking earlier about how intervening in a single bit of a complex software code can cause problems; well, so, my Microsoft Office crashes if there is an error.
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From page 59...
... Their resistance is not based on a Luddite resistance to technology -- the Japanese love technology. The brain death criteria violate their cultural model of where personhood resides.
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From page 60...
... can leave morphological signs on the brain that can be seen on CAT scans, although not individually yet. If you look at a group of people who are now in total remission or who don't use cocaine but were once cocaine addicts, and
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From page 61...
... Believe me, NASA would like nothing better than to put astronauts into brain scanners and say, "Looks like we have a pilot here -- great visual cortex, good spatial sense." That is a pipe dream, of course, but NASA is looking for any piece of information that might improve their chances. Aptitude tests might soon be replaced by brain scans.
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From page 62...
... We can put actual fetal nigral cells into people's brains for Parkinson's and other diseases. In the United States, the ethical conversation about that issue was focused entirely on where we would get the fetal cells; abortion was central to our discussion.
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From page 63...
... Nicolelis has put electrodes in the brains of owl monkeys, 30 or 40 electrodes in one, 200 in another, and then had them remotely control robotic arms. Nicolelis and his team determined what the monkeys' brain waves looked like when they moved their own arms, then used algorithms to translate them and taught the monkeys to control robotic arms.
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From page 64...
... Many people are already trying to answer these questions in the negative. For example, Bill McKibben in his book, Enough; Leon Kass, the head of Bush's Presidential Bioethics Council, who has come out against in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, and other technologies; and Francis Fukuyama, who wonders in his book, Our Posthuman Future, if we are threatening "human nature." These and others are forces arrayed against these technologies.
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From page 65...
... 2003. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age.
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Key Terms

  • psychotropic drugs
  • robotic arms
  • control robotic
  • ethical conversation
  • own arms

  • functional mri
  • wealthy suburban
  • cognitive states
  • suburban schools
  • morphological features

  • nigral cells
  • brain scanners
  • inner city
  • sex offenders
  • fetal nigral

  • city schools
  • defense agencies
  • personhood resides
  • emory university
  • martin luther

  • clinical input
  • cell research
  • bill mckibben
  • historically specific
  • presidential bioethics

  • robotic arm
  • clinical trials
  • psychotropic drug
  • using technology
  • incredibly difficult


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