Remote Controlled Individuals? The Future of Neuralink: Ethical Perspectives on the Human-Computer Interactions

Maria Cernat, Dumitru Borțun, Corina Matei

2022

Abstract

In an experiment presented to the public, a monkey with a Neuralink inserted in its brain is able interact directly with the computer. The Neuralink experiment opens the door to an extremely complex debate with questions ranging from ontology to epistemology. We explore the political economy of these cutting-edge technologies. What we aim to investigate are ethical questions, namely: is it ethical to install such a device in someone's brain and connect it to a computer? And who controls the computer, since it is plausible to assume that the communication could be bidirectional? We argue that this is in fact the key question we, as social scientists, IT specialists, and computer science specialists, have to ask and attempt to find answers to. Oftentimes, scientific discoveries could lead to disasters and in the era of "surveillance capitalism" we could easily imagine a scenario where companies are competing to gain access to our consciousness, and where our decisions are being marketed and sold to the higher bidder. Scientific discoveries do not occur in a purely rational society and questions of power, access, and control are vital for a future where technology and society are not at odds.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Cernat M., Borțun D. and Matei C. (2022). Remote Controlled Individuals? The Future of Neuralink: Ethical Perspectives on the Human-Computer Interactions. In Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 1: ICEIS, ISBN 978-989-758-569-2, pages 348-354. DOI: 10.5220/0011086700003179

in Bibtex Style

@conference{iceis22,
author={Maria Cernat and Dumitru Borțun and Corina Matei},
title={Remote Controlled Individuals? The Future of Neuralink: Ethical Perspectives on the Human-Computer Interactions},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 1: ICEIS,},
year={2022},
pages={348-354},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0011086700003179},
isbn={978-989-758-569-2},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Volume 1: ICEIS,
TI - Remote Controlled Individuals? The Future of Neuralink: Ethical Perspectives on the Human-Computer Interactions
SN - 978-989-758-569-2
AU - Cernat M.
AU - Borțun D.
AU - Matei C.
PY - 2022
SP - 348
EP - 354
DO - 10.5220/0011086700003179