6 ms·

Neurotechnology: Current Developments and Ethical Issues

51 points by Quinzel 3y ago

Quinzel 3y ago
I was researching AI-enhanced BCI's a while ago, and this was an article I stumbled upon.
paraschopra 3y ago
I once went deep into rabbit hole of why neurotechnology progresses so slowly. My conclusion was that it’s a chicken and egg situation. Tech advances depend on what we know about human brain and what we know about it is constrained by ethical concerns Here’s the full write up https://notes.invertedpassion.com/Consciousness/Why+brain-machine+interfaces+progress+so+slowly https://notes.invertedpassion.com/Consciousness/Why+brain-ma...
- _uhtu 3y ago
  "constrained by ethical concerns" glosses over "chimps that we test on die at horrific rates" pretty hard.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    if we are just chemical reactions writ in meatspace, then where's the room for "ethical considerations" except as performative nod to the illusory problem of pain and death? /speaking sarcastically about hard materialism, of which I am simultaneously a critic but also recommend to be the universal null hypothesis
    - jschveibinz 3y ago
      That is quite the statement, sarcasm aside. I guess I need to read more on hard materialism. These sound like folks you probably don’t want to chat with at a dinner party.
      - ChatGTP 3y ago
        You don’t find enough hard materialists on HN?
        Filligree 3y ago
        Not many that are ethically bankrupt.
wslh 3y ago
Neurotechnology involves more stuff that the article depict. It shows the author doesn't really know about the topic. One missing examples is transcraneal estimulation [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5180077/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5180077/
apienx 3y ago
I haven't read the paper because I consider Frontiers Media a shit-tier publisher. Their acceptance rate is 90%. A few institutions don't consider their papers when judging the performance of researchers. The National Publication Committee of Norway doesn't consider their papers to be "academic". Sorry for attacking the medium rather than the message. I just feel that more people need to know about the shady practices of Frontiers.
- dr_dshiv 3y ago
  There are some great Frontiers journals and plenty of amazing papers. Here is some nuance: “As of 2022, 96 Frontiers journals are listed in the Norwegian Scientific Index, two of which are rated 'Level 2' (top 20% of all journals in the field), and more than 88 journals has been rated "Level 1" (standard). academic journals), 1 journal has a rating of Level X (probably predatory), and 5 have a “Level 0” (non-academic) rating.” https://academic-accelerator.com/encyclopedia/frontiers-media https://academic-accelerator.com/encyclopedia/frontiers-medi...
- f6v 3y ago
  I think this particular article doesn’t look credible. And the whole “Opinion” type probably shouldn’t be published in journals, just post your opinion on Twitter. That being said, I know for a fact that publically funded Norwegian research is published in Frontiers and researchers from Norway do consider those to be real academic journals.
  - kensai 3y ago
    One of the coauthors is a professor of Philosophy specializing in the field of Neurotechnology. Given that an academic journal is at least partly "peer-reviewed" let laymen post their opinions on Twitter and academics on... journals.
- frontalier 3y ago
  Nice to see someone is paying attention.
- Wherecombinator 3y ago
londons_explore 3y ago
I reckon you could do some cool things with mice and neural implants and large language models. Find a way to semi-automate the process of fitting the neural implant, and you should be able to do science a lot faster too.
sylvain_kerkour 3y ago
Neurotechnology is coming way faster than most people expect, especially with AR/VR headsets (EEG) and wristbands with electrodes (EMG), which are pushed hard by Meta, Apple & co. I wrote a few notes about it: https://kerkour.com/nobody-cares-about-the-metaverse-neurotechnologies-ar-vr-headsets https://kerkour.com/nobody-cares-about-the-metaverse-neurote...
- isaacremuant 3y ago
  Some of us didn't budge when entire nations, media, tech and security forces were trying to lock us down, denying are movement and associatio rights and trying to coerce us into taking things that presented no health benefit based on a played up risk profile. We'll be okay not wearing the shit they push. You CAN say no.
  - feoren 3y ago
    That's a very self-congratulatory way to say "I intentionally coughed on people in WalMart"
    - isaacremuant 3y ago
      Yours is a self congratulatory way to say "I pretended to follow the rules and buried my head in the sand". It's all you can do, really. Can't really argue the insanity of the policies because we've been proven right time and time again. It's just the public needs to "move on and forget". Keep living in fear every time they tell you to. It's not pathetic at all.
      - squigz 3y ago
        [dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
anonymouse008 3y ago
Nothing will depress you more than showing VCs how those on academic probationary can literally lift themselves to academic achievement only to be told “people don’t care about education” “who is actually going to spend money on this” “sounds nice but hardware is just too much” “keep in touch” etc —- This technology is waiting for its Mike Markkula - the person who can shepherd neurotech’s next generation founders. Without his early leap of faith, marketing influence, and savvy capital, I’m convinced Apple wouldn’t have made it out the garage - who will be neurotech’s?
- BSEdlMMldESB 3y ago
  but transhumanism is ideologically corrupt!
arisbe__ 3y ago
The trend of employing optogenetics and optogenetic-like functional tech to this problem I find frightening. And keep in mind "opto" isnt just visible light. The other big idea (which the paper mentions) is the coupling of systems being sensed. For example in the medical research they now couple fMRI (bloodflow) with EGG (coarse firing activity) and also EGG with pulsed ultrasound neuromodulation. This is interesting because the metabolic process is almost a "mind if its own".
- etrautmann 3y ago
  Why is this frightening? Because of the use of viral vectors or some implication of interfacing with the brain more effectively?
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Looks like this should say (2017)

51 points by Quinzel 3y ago

I was researching AI-enhanced BCI's a while ago, and this was an article I stumbled upon.

I once went deep into rabbit hole of why neurotechnology progresses so slowly. My conclusion was that it’s a chicken and egg situation. Tech advances depend on what we know about human brain and what we know about it is constrained by ethical concerns Here’s the full write up https://notes.invertedpassion.com/Consciousness/Why+brain-machine+interfaces+progress+so+slowly https://notes.invertedpassion.com/Consciousness/Why+brain-ma...

_uhtu 3y ago
"constrained by ethical concerns" glosses over "chimps that we test on die at horrific rates" pretty hard.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pmarreck 3y ago
  if we are just chemical reactions writ in meatspace, then where's the room for "ethical considerations" except as performative nod to the illusory problem of pain and death? /speaking sarcastically about hard materialism, of which I am simultaneously a critic but also recommend to be the universal null hypothesis
  - jschveibinz 3y ago
    That is quite the statement, sarcasm aside. I guess I need to read more on hard materialism. These sound like folks you probably don’t want to chat with at a dinner party.
    - ChatGTP 3y ago
      You don’t find enough hard materialists on HN?
      - Filligree 3y ago
        Not many that are ethically bankrupt.

wslh 3y ago

Neurotechnology involves more stuff that the article depict. It shows the author doesn't really know about the topic. One missing examples is transcraneal estimulation [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5180077/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5180077/

apienx 3y ago

I haven't read the paper because I consider Frontiers Media a shit-tier publisher. Their acceptance rate is 90%. A few institutions don't consider their papers when judging the performance of researchers. The National Publication Committee of Norway doesn't consider their papers to be "academic". Sorry for attacking the medium rather than the message. I just feel that more people need to know about the shady practices of Frontiers.

dr_dshiv 3y ago
There are some great Frontiers journals and plenty of amazing papers. Here is some nuance: “As of 2022, 96 Frontiers journals are listed in the Norwegian Scientific Index, two of which are rated 'Level 2' (top 20% of all journals in the field), and more than 88 journals has been rated "Level 1" (standard). academic journals), 1 journal has a rating of Level X (probably predatory), and 5 have a “Level 0” (non-academic) rating.” https://academic-accelerator.com/encyclopedia/frontiers-media https://academic-accelerator.com/encyclopedia/frontiers-medi...
f6v 3y ago
I think this particular article doesn’t look credible. And the whole “Opinion” type probably shouldn’t be published in journals, just post your opinion on Twitter. That being said, I know for a fact that publically funded Norwegian research is published in Frontiers and researchers from Norway do consider those to be real academic journals.
- kensai 3y ago
  One of the coauthors is a professor of Philosophy specializing in the field of Neurotechnology. Given that an academic journal is at least partly "peer-reviewed" let laymen post their opinions on Twitter and academics on... journals.
frontalier 3y ago
Nice to see someone is paying attention.
Wherecombinator 3y ago

londons_explore 3y ago

I reckon you could do some cool things with mice and neural implants and large language models. Find a way to semi-automate the process of fitting the neural implant, and you should be able to do science a lot faster too.

sylvain_kerkour 3y ago

Neurotechnology is coming way faster than most people expect, especially with AR/VR headsets (EEG) and wristbands with electrodes (EMG), which are pushed hard by Meta, Apple & co. I wrote a few notes about it: https://kerkour.com/nobody-cares-about-the-metaverse-neurotechnologies-ar-vr-headsets https://kerkour.com/nobody-cares-about-the-metaverse-neurote...

isaacremuant 3y ago
Some of us didn't budge when entire nations, media, tech and security forces were trying to lock us down, denying are movement and associatio rights and trying to coerce us into taking things that presented no health benefit based on a played up risk profile. We'll be okay not wearing the shit they push. You CAN say no.
- feoren 3y ago
  That's a very self-congratulatory way to say "I intentionally coughed on people in WalMart"
  - isaacremuant 3y ago
    Yours is a self congratulatory way to say "I pretended to follow the rules and buried my head in the sand". It's all you can do, really. Can't really argue the insanity of the policies because we've been proven right time and time again. It's just the public needs to "move on and forget". Keep living in fear every time they tell you to. It's not pathetic at all.
    - squigz 3y ago
      [dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

anonymouse008 3y ago

Nothing will depress you more than showing VCs how those on academic probationary can literally lift themselves to academic achievement only to be told “people don’t care about education” “who is actually going to spend money on this” “sounds nice but hardware is just too much” “keep in touch” etc —- This technology is waiting for its Mike Markkula - the person who can shepherd neurotech’s next generation founders. Without his early leap of faith, marketing influence, and savvy capital, I’m convinced Apple wouldn’t have made it out the garage - who will be neurotech’s?

BSEdlMMldESB 3y ago
but transhumanism is ideologically corrupt!

arisbe__ 3y ago

The trend of employing optogenetics and optogenetic-like functional tech to this problem I find frightening. And keep in mind "opto" isnt just visible light. The other big idea (which the paper mentions) is the coupling of systems being sensed. For example in the medical research they now couple fMRI (bloodflow) with EGG (coarse firing activity) and also EGG with pulsed ultrasound neuromodulation. This is interesting because the metabolic process is almost a "mind if its own".

etrautmann 3y ago
Why is this frightening? Because of the use of viral vectors or some implication of interfacing with the brain more effectively?

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

Looks like this should say (2017)