Should computers be allowed to read our thoughts?

The range of possible applications for BCI is growing and research is making ever-greater progress. What ethical questions are being raised?

Katrin Amunts: The more we understand about the object of our research – in this case the brain and its processes – the more options we have to influence these processes. As a medical doctor, my goal is naturally just that, namely, to know what happens in the brain when a certain disease occurs and, building on this knowledge, to be able therapeutically to change this state for the better – be it medically, behaviourally or technology-based as in the case of BCI.

Or change it for the worse.

Amunts: That’s correct. Sometimes, we do encounter other effects than the ones we intended. Deep brain stimulation, which can be used for instance in Parkinson’s disease, may lead to a reduction in motor symptoms such as tremors – a massive relief for many of the affected people – if it’s successful. At the same time, every now and again, it’s possible to observe personality changes after surgery. This gives rise to ethical questions: how certain do we need to be that we will only achieve the desired effect? This is particularly difficult to contain in an organ as complex as the brain. Here, a procedure at a very specific position in the brain often has effects on the entire system.

What BCI applications could be used in healthy people?

Amunts: Some studies have reported a short-term improvement in patients’ cognitive abilities through deep brain stimulation or transcranial magnetic stimulation, in which strong external magnetic fields act on certain areas of the brain. Since various non-invasive procedures are available nowadays, it would be entirely conceivable to achieve such improvements in cognitive abilities – in the sense of digital neuro-enhancement – in healthy people too. Sometimes, however, a treatment’s effect on healthy individuals is the exact opposite of that which is observed in sick patients. All this, and many other unanswered questions – for instance, regarding long-term effects – show the need for research and underline the risk of such approaches.

How should we deal with these possibilities? And what questions do they throw up?

Amunts: These are complicated questions. Should the use of BCI in healthy people be completely rejected? Is it right to reject it? After all, we use different aids such as glasses or hearing aids to support and enhance our abilities. So where do we draw the line? Am I allowed to enhance the power of my hearing but not the power of my memory? And, assuming that I am, how far am I allowed to go? Will my health insurance cover everything? There are many possible answers to these questions. We need to carefully analyse and balance the opportunities and risks of such procedures. In addition to the very specific medical questions, there are also ethical, legal and philosophical ones that arise.

Such as?

Amunts: For example, what does it do to us humans when we use this “digital doping” to optimise ourselves further? Is the conception of the human being changed as a result? Does any sort of social coercion arise? Will I still be myself if I enhance my performance, and perhaps even change my personality, with the help of magnetic stimulation? Would it be fair to those of my fellow humans who may not be able, or willing, to do the same? In my view, these are very interesting, but also challenging questions. We need to talk about them.

Who could answer these questions?

Amunts: We can actually only find solutions by working together as a society: brain researchers, psychologists, lawyers, ethicists and philosophers should sit down at the same table to identify the critical or controversial aspects, as well as to identify early on any potentially harmful developments or dangers in order to be able to counteract them in time.

Locked-in patients can communicate again with the help of BCI and implants. But you cannot ask them whether they consent to the procedure. How do you proceed in such cases?

Amunts: We’re still a long way from this procedure being applied routinely, but there are also a few promising approaches that are non-invasive. For example, by measuring brain activity, researchers are working on reliably composing the individual letters that a patient thinks of while in the MRI scanner. If a patient’s locked-in state is caused by a progressive disease, we could also obtain consent before communication is broken off.

Do we need stronger regulation in this area?

Amunts: We need to develop an opinion on this issue. It would be important for society to agree on whether, and under what conditions, it should be allowed. For example, would we find it acceptable for transcranial magnetic stimulation to be used in order to gain a cognitive advantage in an exam or a job interview? Or do we say that everyone should just be free to do it? What about possible risks and side effects? Should the health service – that is, we as a society – pay for any harm caused? I think the time has really come for society to discuss these issues now.

Side note Controversy about Professor Dr Niels Birbaumer and his CLIS patients

Breakthrough or playing with hope?

Psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Dr Niels Birbaumer is an eminent authority in the field of brain research. One of his research projects dealt with so-called CLIS patients. CLIS stands for “completely locked-in syndrome” and describes patients whose muscle activity has come to a complete standstill. These are people who cannot even move their eyes. The brain itself remains, as it were, their last means of communication with the environment.

Birbaumer and his team were looking for a way to use BCI to enable communication with CLIS patients. They developed a solution in the form of a neoprene cap that uses infrared rays to measure the blood flow in the brain. Birbaumer was convinced he had found a way to distinguish between a “yes” and a “no”.

In 2017, he published a well-received essay in the US journal PLOS Biology about his breakthrough in this field. But then a computer scientist from Tübingen had doubts about the validity of the measurement data used. This gave rise to a scientific controversy that continues to this very day.

Three journalists from the German broadsheet newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the SZ-Magazin, Patrick Bauer, Patrick Illinger and Till Krause, have researched the topic (https://www.sueddeutsche.de/ge..., video available for free, article subject to charge). In June 2019, a commission of inquiry at the University of Tübingen, where Birbaumer conducted research and taught until his retirement in 2013, found Birbaumer and his colleague Ujwal Chaudhary guilty of scientific misconduct. You can find the article here.

Sources and reading tips

Grosse-Wentrup, Moritz: Gehirn-Computer-Schnittstellen – eine neue Form der Kommunikation, Forschungsbericht 2011, Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme, Tübingen.

Dickel, Sascha: Der neue Mensch – ein (technik)utopisches Upgrade. Der Traum vom Human Enhancement, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte/APuZ 87-38/2016.

Chapin, J. K., K. A. Moxon, R.S. Markowitz, and M.A. Nicolelis, 1999. “Real-Time Control of a Robot Arm Using Simultaneously Recorded Neurons in the Motor Cortex”, Nature Neuroscience 2 (7): 664-70, doi: 1038/10223.

Stanley, Garrett B., Fei F. Li, and Yang Dan. 1999. “Reconstruction of Natural Scenes from Ensemble Responses in the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus”. Journal of Neuroscience 19 (18): 8036-42.

Information on the European Union’s joint project The future of Brain/Neural [JF1] Computer Interaction – with detailed information on BCI, the latest developments in this field and research projects and groups, etc.: http://bnci-horizon-2020.eu/

[JF1]Achtung im Deutschen: Neutral, aber siehe http://bnci-horizon-2020.eu/