Embodied Cognition: What it means to "Throw like a Girl"

By Jenn Lee

Jenn Laura Lee is a PhD candidate in neuroscience at New York University. Her scattered neuroethics projects involve advancing harms reduction policies for illicit drug use and re-evaluating the ethics of animal experimentation.

While I tell myself now that I’m just “not the athletic type,” the reality is that I might have been. Back in middle school, I recall actually really enjoying track and field, basketball, and soccer. But at just the age when girls reach peak athletic shape, a socially-imposed understanding of “femininity” begins to forge a new, contrived relationship between one’s self and one’s body.

The rehearsal of gendered social performances run deep enough to mould even our most basic bodily movements. In Throwing like a Girl, Iris Young dissects this phenomenon through the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (who was, coincidentally, one of Simone de Beauvoir’s first romantic interests).

Many are familiar with de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, in which she describes some of the structural biological differences between men and women that have perhaps led to female oppression. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, also a preeminent phenomenologist of the 40’s and 50’s, argued mainly for the primacy of embodiment – meaning that any sweeping claims about the nature of the external universe must first take into account our physical bodies and how they move, perceive, sense, and interact with the outside world. He would argue that if we want to study consciousness, we can’t only study the brain – we must concurrently strive to understand the basic sensorimotor phenomena which feed the brain everything it knows.

The concept of embodied cognition is taking off in cognitive neuroscience. The embodiment thesis suggests that “features of cognition... are deeply dependent upon characteristics of the physical body of an agent, such that the agent’s beyond-the-brain body plays a significant causal role, or a physically constitutive role, in that agent’s cognitive processing."

This is, of course, a hot topic in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research. Turing himself remarked that in order for AI to think and speak like a human, it would probably not only need heavy-duty cognitive processing power; it would require fully human-like peripheral sensorimotor capabilities (touch, sight, movement), as well.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Drawing on basic principles of embodied cognition and feminist theory, Young’s hypothesis suggests that despite the purely physical, genetically-encoded differences between the sexes, one’s being a woman prevents her from achieving her full physical potential because, to some degree, she is constantly engaging in cognitive self-objectification.

Her proposal is elegant, and complete: Women are used to being looked at and acted upon, like objects rather than subjects; and this conditioning changes even our most fundamental cognitive processing at a basic, sensorimotor level. We have been conditioned to see ourselves in relation to the objects of our environment, rather than free and autonomous agents within it.

When, for instance, a ball is thrown to me, I have a tendency to think that it is being thrown at me, and will run, duck, and hide, instead of trying to catch it. Or when girls learn to ride bikes or ski, they often see themselves as the object of a motion, rather than its originator.

Absolute strength aside, women are less likely than men to throw a ball or lift a box with our full weight and corporal potential because we are conditioned to believe we are delicate objects; we have been taught to constantly second-guess our chances of successfully completing physical tasks. Through social feedback, we become cognitively confined by our own bodies. Rather than seeing the body as an avatar through which we can achieve our ends, we perceive the body as a hindrance which must be overcome.

The cognitive component to Young’s argument cannot be overstated. Our relationship with our body is critical to determining how we even so much as perceive the world around us. Consider recent neuroscience papers which demonstrate that visual processing is modulated by active flight in drosophila (fruit flies). This could essentially demonstrate how the very act of dynamically controlling our bodies changes the way we visually process the world in real-time.

Recent fMRI studies have moreover shown how the planning and perception of actions may be influenced by one’s body posture. Popular science outlets have moreover found clickbait fodder in studies showing that “power posing” (assuming a broad, upright posture of dominance) produced lower cortisol and higher testosterone levels in both men and women, leading to socially advantageous behavioral changes. The implications of this finding are particularly disturbing when paired with the observation that women are rewarded for taking up as little space as possible in social situations, both literally and metaphorically. I shudder to think of the cognitive effects that being taught to “sit like a lady,” “walk like a woman,” and “throw like a girl” might have on the way a woman perceives her sense of self, her body, and the obstacles and challenges in her environment. It is especially jarring to think that the effects of being taught to physically shrink oneself might become so deep-rooted throughout childhood as to impact cognition at the level of primary sensory perception and sensorimotor modulation.

Young’s paper touches on the related idea of the “male gaze” and its equally profound effects on bodily comportment. In my track and field days, I can certainly recall girls holding back in shot put simply because they were afraid of how it would look to other people (full physical exertion is deemed masculine and therefore unattractive). Perhaps owing to this constant third-person scrutiny, Young suggests that young girls are typically conditioned to be “field-dependent” learners, in contrast to their field-independent male counterparts.

Image courtesy of PublicDomainPictures

The idea of field dependence as cognitive style was one of the earliest of its kind, advanced by Herman Witkin in the 60’s. Empirical support for this gendered trend is quite extensive. Women are more likely to perceive themselves as continuous with their spatial environment, while men tend to perceive themselves as independently-moving, central agents within it (think: Sims character vs. first-person shooter). Unsurprisingly, this cognitive style suggests women are conditioned to be heavily context-driven when performing basic tasks. For instance, female performance in a clerical task seemed to be far more affected  by whether their examiner appeared “approving” or “disapproving” throughout, reflecting a “greater attentiveness to the attitudes of those around them.”

I’ve moreover often wondered why horse-back riding was such a female-dominated sport, and Young’s essay shed light on this for me. The classic Freudian explanation is that young girls crave the ability to tame and control a wild, powerful animal (representative of the id). Girls (lacking a phallus, and therefore hopelessly incomplete) are attracted to and wish to possess powerful, phallic creatures like horses.

Young’s theory might explain this “innate” draw in a much more scientific (and less misogynistic) way. If it’s true that women have a conditioned tendency to see themselves in relation to the actors of their physical environment, then horseback riding is quite naturally appealing to young girls, being one of the only “empathetic” solo sports in which one must position oneself in relation to another agent in order to succeed (coaxing the horse to change direction and praising it constantly for achieving one’s ends). Contrast this to an impersonal sport like dirt-bike riding, wherein women are more likely to feel like the object of a movement, rather than its first-person initiator.

To what degree does society shape bodily comportment, which then shapes cognition, and vice versa? In general, we need to do a better job addressing the social roots of gendered trends in cognition. Similarly, embodied cognition can help inform social analysis in ways that are surprising and seldom explored. As the themes of neuroethics expand to encompass those of neuroexistentialism (addressing questions of choice, free-will, and authenticity), fascinating essays like Young’s are a good reminder that critical social theory will play an increasingly prominent role in neuroscientific inquiry.

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Lee, J. (2016). Embodied Cognition: What it means to "Throw like a Girl". The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2016/09/embodied-cognition-what-it-means-to.html

Neuroethics Network and DBS

By Ethan Morris

This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016.

Ethan Morris is a rising undergraduate senior at Emory University, majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology with a minor in History. Ethan is a member of the Dilks Lab at Emory and is a legislator on the Emory University Student Government Association. Ethan is from Denver, Colorado and loves to ski.  

One thought-provoking panel at the Paris Neuroethics Network discussed deep-brain stimulation, or DBS. DBS is a relatively novel treatment in which surgeons implant an electrode deep within the brain. When the electrode is turned on, it produces a current that has been shown to alleviate symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Various studies have provided compelling evidence that DBS may also be an effective treatment for psychiatric disorders, such as major depression, especially when other treatment options are exhausted.

The conference panelists discussed the ethical concerns about DBS, in particular the idea of the “true self” and whether this is affected by DBS. Studies have shown that after DBS surgery, patients can experience personality changes, which has led to some concern that DBS threatens personal identity. The concept of personal identity is nebulous, but some believe that too stark a contrast in personality between pre- and post-DBS constitutes a violation of identity. As was raised by the panelists, this purported identity change may actually be welcomed by the patient who feels their “true self” has been unlocked; however, families may also feel their loved one is no longer the same person. One of the panelists, Dr. Sabine Müller, a German philosopher, firmly believes that DBS treatment should proceed unencumbered by ethical concerns about loss of self. Müller argued there is an erroneously assumed connection between reports of feeling like a different person and metaphysical classifications of personal identity. Müller contended that ethicists overstate negative personality changes, while overlooking accounts of DBS helping patients rediscover themselves. While she did not state it outright, Müller’s analysis reflects her stance as a consequentialist on this issue– she thinks that DBS does not change identity, and consequently, the beneficial outcomes of DBS should outweigh any metaphysical concerns.

Image courtesy of Pexels.com

Dr. Müller argued that the issue with DBS is not a loss of the true self, but rather how people view changes in personality and personal narratives, more generally. One can also imagine that human identity can be static, while there are others who believe that identities are dynamic. Perhaps patients who experience positive changes view them as part of their natural dynamic narrative, while families who are unnerved by the changes see them as a departure from their expectation of others’ stability. The discussion also reminded me of a class discussion on aging and identity, during which there was a debate over whether it is appropriate to say that a person suffering from dementia is no longer the same person. One interesting concept raised in class was that the behavioral and personality changes that coincide with aging elicit these emotional reactions (i.e. they are not the same anymore) because of the rate of change. It is possible that DBS raises ethical concerns about identity because it so rapidly changes the personality of the patient after one procedure. Perhaps humans do not expect others to remain static, but they expect and can comprehend a gradual (i.e. natural) change over time. Either way, Müller argues that these metaphysical exercises are secondary considerations to the beneficial aspects of DBS, including relieved symptoms and, in some cases, positive personality changes.

Furthermore, Müller argued that different people cannot inhabit the same body in one lifetime. Interestingly, this may mean Müller subscribes to a version of Cartesian dualism, in which the self is dissociated from the brain, which theoretically means you could change the brain without changing the self. However, because the concept of the “true self” is elusive and differentially defined, it may not be possible to prove that the brain contains our true selves. Given that scientists do not fully understand the mechanisms by which DBS works. In a review article, Birdno and Grill (2008) highlighted possible DBS mechanisms, including significant changes in cellular activity. If DBS were found to appreciably change brain chemistry, it would be fair to suggest DBS changes our brains. And if the brain is the source of behavior, personality, and perhaps self-identity, then it may not be so trivial that DBS makes physiological changes to the brain. It could mean that these physiological changes cause a shift from the prior self with one kind of brain chemistry to a new self with a different kind of brain chemistry.

Despite the concerns about DBS and identity, I agree with Müller in taking a consequentialist approach to DBS, with a couple significant caveats. Those suffering from Parkinson’s disease, major depression, and other disorders often experience precipitous declines in quality of life that cannot be addressed with other treatments. DBS is a beneficial strategy to alleviate debilitating symptoms, and should continue to be used. However, patients must understand the implications of DBS, even if it is a reversible procedure. By potentially implicating their brain chemistry, they are at risk for changing their personality, either positively or negatively, and patients should be aware of this risk. While Müller argued that detailed pre- and post-surgery consent forms were overcomplicating the procedure, I believe this minor inconvenience is worth the trouble. Additionally, doctors and surgeons must take into account the societal views on personality change. Müller may think the jump from personality change to personal identity change is unwarranted, but the public may not. It is possible that the general public associates the true self with some measure of personality, whether dynamic or static. If people view others’ identity as static, then DBS may upset this expectation, while if people view others’ identities as dynamic, then DBS may accelerate natural change and still be uncomfortable. Ultimately, the concerns over family and societal expectations should not trump the needs of the patients; if patients assume the inherent risks of DBS with full informed consent, they should have the opportunity to better their lives.

References



Birdno, M.J., W.M., Grill. 2008. Mechanisms of deep brain stimulation in movement disorders as revealed by changes in stimulus frequency. Neurotherapeutics, 5(1): 14-25.



Schermer, M. 2011. Ethical issues in deep brain stimulation. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 5: 17.



Sironi, V.A. 2011. Origin and evolution of deep brain stimulation. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 5: 42.



Wrobel, S. 2015. Flipping the switch: Targeting depression’s neural circuitry, Emory Medicine, Spring. Available at: http://emorymedicinemagazine.emory.edu/issues/2015/spring/features/brain-hacking/flipping-the-switch/index.html (accessed July 6, 2016).



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Morris, E. (2016). Neuroethics Network and DBS. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2016/09/neuroethics-network-and-dbs.html

“It’s like it’s not her anymore.”

By Sunidhi Ramesh

This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016.

Sunidhi Ramesh, an Atlanta native, is entering her third year at Emory University where she is double majoring in Sociology and Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. She plans to pursue a career in medicine and holds a deep interest in sparking conversation and change around her, particularly in regards to pressing social matters and how education in America is both viewed and handled. In her spare time, Sunidhi is a writer, bridge player, dancer, and violinist.

Picture this. A patient struggling with depression for almost twenty years undergoes her last resort treatment: deep brain stimulation (DBS). It is radical, invasive— somewhat new of a procedure to the point where only a few surgeons are skilled enough to perform it. But she decides to go through with it. And when it’s over, she can smile again, find motivation again. She feels brand new.

But her family isn’t so optimistic. This isn’t the woman they waved goodbye to before the surgery. This woman is different. It’s like it’s not her anymore.

So what do the surgeons do? Remove the implant and bring back the pre-surgery depression? Well, that’s not exactly what our patient wants. Keep the implant and leave her as-is? Well, her family wouldn’t be too happy with that.

What was actually done during the DBS procedure? Did we restore our patient’s original functioning and simply bring to light her true self? Or did we mask her true self with an alternate personality? What is the true self, anyways? Does it exist? And if it does, where can we find it?

This is the nature of the “true self” debate.

In a time when procedures such as DBS exist as viable treatments for mental illness, the nature of personal identity and its continuity are topics that must be questioned and debated. Thus, these issues were the topic of conversation at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital during the Neuroethics Network Conference in Paris, France. (The ideas and questions that I consider throughout this piece were sparked by the presentation, panel, and discussion from this conference.)

The idea of identity permeates every form of the human experience. In the criminal justice system, we rely on the fact that each person holds only “one identity” and that that identity is responsible for its own actions. In the educational system, we invest in cultivating, developing, and praising “one identity”; in our social circles, we expect to interact with the single identities of the people we know and love.

And, most importantly, our individual morals, rights, and thoughts revolve around our perceptions of our own identities.

But we also hold a double standard. We would all like to think that our identities are complex.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

I’m a different person when I’m hungry. That time I snapped at my brother? I was having a rough day. I wasn’t being myself. That day I got rejected from ten universities? The girl that existed that week wasn’t really me.

We make excuses for our identities by breaking it into distinct pieces. It’s only human. But how does this play into the idea of a “true self”? Is it all these identities averaged together into one? Is it one piece more than another? What is it?

Furthermore, in a medical sense, do we want to engage in procedures or interventions that pose as a threat to a patient’s personal identity? That contain the risk or side effect of this patient waking up as “another person” or, effectively, a “healthy stranger”?

All of these arguments are salient and important. But let’s return to the original case. We have a patient who is satisfied with her procedure accompanied by a family who feels as if they no longer recognize her.

In The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition [1], author Arthur Kleinman begins to describe the phenomenon of illness. He argues that the way a person experiences and understands illness is different from how it is perceived by the people around her. To do so, he illustrates the example of a father who is plagued by pain all over his body. The doctors are unable to find a cause for it, and he has no physical symptoms. His motivation, drive, emotionality, and interests begin to change as a result of his illness; but his family refuses to believe that his suffering is real, and the man endures a form of emotional pain and abuse from his family because of it.

In this real-life scenario, the family is in a position of power. They have the right to determine whether or not the father is a changed man, whether or not he is in pain, and whether or not his illness is real. The father has no say in the matter. He is simply a patient at the will of the people around him.

Shift back to our DBS patient. Does her family have a right to ask for the treatment to be reversed on the basis of her becoming a “different person”? Considering that she has been struggling with this illness for almost two decades, can we trust that the family remembers what she was like before depression? In that case, perhaps she is not becoming a different person after all. Perhaps she is simply becoming the person she was before the illness overcame her. Or perhaps she’s just getting to become the person she has never been able to be; perhaps she has been depressed her entire life.

When we start questioning the nature of identity and individuality, we should also consider beginning to place more control in the patient’s hands. What keeps DBS implants from being manually controlled by the patient? Is it unreasonable to allow implants to be shut off by the switch of a button—a button that only the patient can control? At least then, the patient has somewhat of a say as to whether or not they enjoy or desire the identity changes that the treatment creates. (However, it is important to note that this may prove to be more complicated than it sounds. For one, DBS has different “effects on various symptoms, and different implications for patients’ needs, expectations and wishes. [2]” This, at the least, implies that it will be difficult for the patient and the doctor to properly quantify any changes in symptomology before and after DBS [3]. Furthermore, our knowledge of DBS and how exactly it works is extremely limited; giving the patient control over their treatment can lead to unanticipated consequences and malfunctions. This has happened before.)

More research needs to be done. But if that’s not a viable solution, another needs to be determined, discussed, and put into place.

Whatever the case, considerations of a patient’s autonomy, identity, and choice must be accounted for in any medical setting such as this one. Although a family’s opinion is important and vital in determining the patient’s own comfort and emotionality, the needs and opinions of the family must be set aside in the face of the patient’s own.

References

1. Kleinman, A. (1988). The illness narratives: Suffering, healing, and the human condition. Basic books.



2. Hariz, G. M., Limousin, P., & Hamberg, K. (2016). " DBS means everything-for some time". Patients' Perspectives on Daily Life with Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson's Disease. Journal of Parkinson's disease, 6(2), 335.



3. Hariz, G. M., Limousin, P., & Hamberg, K. (2016). " DBS means everything-for some time". Patients' Perspectives on Daily Life with Deep Brain Stimulation for Parkinson's Disease. Journal of Parkinson's disease, 6(2), 335.



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Ramesh, S. (2016). “It’s like it’s not her anymore.” The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2016/09/its-like-its-not-her-anymore.html

Identity Crisis: The Unintended Consequence of Deep Brain Stimulation

By Alec Shannon

This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016.

Born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Alec Shannon is a rising third year student at Emory University where he is majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and minoring in French Studies. On campus, he serves as the president of the French Club and vice president of the Emory Undergraduate Medical Review. During the school year, he also dedicates his time playing for the tennis club and projects with Volunteer Emory. He currently works in a movement disorders lab in Emory’s Department of Pharmacology and plans on pursuing a career in medicine.

This summer’s Neuroethics Network Session facilitated a cross-disciplinary conversation on complex questions that the field of neuroscience will be forced to answer in the near future. Although some issues in neuroethics might appear purely speculative, the rapid advancement of technology emerging from neuroscience will require policy-makers to preemptively govern its development. The consequences of these regulations will resonate throughout society and determine how neuroscience will be integrated into professional fields ranging from law enforcement to psychiatry. Individual lectures from experts in these fields explored the ethics of emerging technologies and analyzed how they align with our shared values of society.

Although the lectures presented during the conference covered a broad range of topics from cognitive enhancement to artificial intelligence, core philosophical arguments emerged during these talks that united the different topics under some common themes. The conference particularly emphasized one recurring theme underlying contemporary neuroethical debate—the conflict between our conception of personal identity and the degree to which new technologies should/could modify that conception. Many lectures explored the role of this conflict in real-life contexts and also offered guidelines for how these issues should be approached.

Dr. Sven Nyholm from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands introduced the conflict between personal identity and upcoming brain technology in a series of lectures entitled “Who (or what) am I?” This discussion panel focused primarily on developments of an invasive surgical procedure called deep brain stimulation (DBS), a technology originally designed to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease that is now being tested for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. This procedure, which involves the placement of electrodes to stimulate deep structures of the brain involves a mechanism of action that is poorly understood by scientists, yet has effectively attenuated many motor symptoms of these diseases (Perlmutter & Mink 2006). Dr. Nyholm added another dimension of uncertainty to DBS in his discussion of its potential to unintentionally modify an individual’s personality and even “sense of self.”

The story of “Mr. B” and Johnny Cash illustrated during Dr. Nyholm’s lecture serves as a real-life testament to these unintended effects of DBS treatment. When Mr. B received DBS for treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, he underwent a personality shift so dramatic that it merited a change in identity—the same Mr. B quickly became “Mr. B II” following brain stimulation. In order to analyze the nature of this personality change, Dr. Nyholm alluded to the work of English philosopher John Locke, who once related the concept of personal identity to a narrative with a natural continuity over time. Whether or not DBS constitutes a real threat to the continuity of a personal narrative is a point of contention in the neuroethics community and foremost requires an agreement on how we should define the “true self.”

Image courtesy of WikiCommons

Dr. Nyholm pointed out that the concept of the true self dominates contemporary Western culture and indubitably impacts how we perceive our own personal identities. Underlying the concept of the true self is a common association between the better aspects of our personality and how we identify ourselves; when someone perceives his or her “true self,” the redeeming qualities are typically emphasized over any negative or unattractive traits.

This nuance is an important consideration when discussing the improvements that DBS imparts on patients with various movement disorders; if the treatment facilitates better expression of these redeeming qualities, should we still consider DBS a threat to our personality identity? Alternatively, should we simply perceive DBS as a method for improving our ability to tap into our true selves? We must also approach the conflict from a clinical standpoint and ask whether the possibility of personality changes negate the enhanced quality of life that Parkinson’s patients enjoy following successful stimulation. Many individuals would argue that withholding this treatment from a population suffering from a debilitating and degenerative disease would be ethically incompatible with our expectations for healthcare.

The ethics of DBS and its role in modifying personality parallel many of the discussions held during in-class lectures on technologies that jeopardize our conception of authenticity. While the panel focused primarily on authenticity changes following DBS, a number of psychoactive compounds and external brain-stimulation technologies like transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) also raise similar existential questions.

In the case of stimulant medication for the treatment of ADHD symptomology, the enhancement of certain cognitive measures has been reported to change the personality of users (Ilieva & Farah 2013). By improving areas of executive function, namely focus and attention, these medications can also be considered personality modifiers because they change the way people with ADHD interact with the world. The use of tDCS, which is currently being researched for applications in psychiatric treatments, can also be considered personality modification because of its potential to change certain aspects of personality—including mood and social behavior (Brunoni et al 2012). While these changes are arguably for the better because they facilitate better integration into a fast-paced and demanding society, many ethicists argue that these benefits should not merit a violation to the authentic self despite their therapeutic value.

In response to the fear of threats to the true self, it is important to acknowledge the dynamic nature of the “true self” and remember that this concept often constitutes more positive than negative characteristics of personality. By enhancing expression of the positive characteristics of an individual’s personality with neurotechnologies, there is a possibility that certain treatments like DBS are actually improving authenticity rather than violating it. It is the responsibility of neuroethicists and its diverse community of scholars to determine how these treatments will interact with society’s shared values, including our expectations for healthcare and our view on powerful concepts like individuality and the true self.

References



Brunoni, A. R., Nitsche, M. A., Bolognini, N., Bikson, M., Wagner, T., Merabet, L., Edwards, D.J., Valero-Cabre, A., Rotenberg, A., Pascual-Leone, A., Ferrucci, R., Priori, A., Boggio, P.S., and Fregni, F. (2012). Clinical research with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS): Challenges and future directions. Brain Stimulation, 5(3), 175-195. doi:10.1016/j.brs.2011.03.002



Ilieva, I. P., & Farah, M. J. (2013). Enhancement stimulants: Perceived motivational and cognitive advantages. Front. Neurosci. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 7. doi:10.3389/fnins.2013.00198



Perlmutter, J. S., & Mink, J. W. (2006). Deep Brain Stimulation. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 29(1), 229-257. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.29.051605.112824



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Shannon, A. (2016). Identity Crisis: The Unintended Consequence of Deep Brain Stimulation. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2016/09/identity-crisis-unintended-consequence.html

Smarter Artificial Intelligence: A Not So Obvious Choice

By Shray Ambe

This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016.

My name is Shray Ambe and I am a rising senior at Emory University. I am a Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology major who is pursuing a career in the medical field. Outside of the classroom, I am involved in organizing the booth for Emory’s Center for The Study of Human Health at the Atlanta Science Festival Expo every year and also enjoy volunteering at the Emory Autism Center and the Radiology Department at Emory University Hospital. 

At the 2016 Neuroethics Network in Paris, France, bioethicist and philosopher John Harris gave a lecture titled “How Smart Do We Want Machines to Be?” During his lecture, Harris discussed the potential impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) and stated “it doesn’t matter how smart they are; obviously the smarter the better.” But is smarter AI really “obviously” better? 

Renowned American inventor Ray Kurzweil has described the use of AI as the beginning of a “beautiful new era” in which machines will have the insight and patience to solve outstanding problems of nanotechnology and spaceflight, improve the human condition, and allow us to upload our consciousness into an immortal digital form, thus spreading intelligence throughout the cosmos. Kurzweil’s views on AI extoll the virtues of such technology and its potential to enhance the human race with its endless possibilities. However, his views also raise concerns about how such technology can not only be detrimental to the human condition, but also put its very existence at risk. 

Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at the University of Oxford, is the author of Superintelligence, which illustrates his concerns with using smarter AI. In his book, Bostrom asks us to imagine a “paper-clip maximizer”, which is designed to make as many paper clips as possible, becoming smarter and smarter on a daily basis. This heightened intelligence, he argues, could eventually lead to the “paper-clip maximizer” doubting its own work, causing it to create a raw-computing material (which he calls “computronium”) that would be used to check these doubts. However, because the machine constantly doubts its paper-clip making abilities, it will continue to make “computronium” until the whole Earth has been converted into it, leading to the end of the human race. Although the existence of such a “paper-clip maximizer” seems unlikely, Bostrom’s example shows how even a careful system design can fail to restrain extreme machine intelligence and raises several concerns regarding the ability of the human race and AI to coexist.

Image courtesy of WikiCommons.

One of the first threats that a smarter AI poses is reducing job opportunities for humans. Creating and using a smarter AI, such as Bostrom’s “paper-clip maximizer”, would prevent humans from finding and maintaining jobs in fields such as manufacturing, research, and healthcare. This would make humans follow a leisure-only lifestyle, which according to Moshe Vardi, a computer science professor at Rice University, threatens human wellbeing at its core. 

Secondly, AI has the ability to not only change a person but also take control of them. In the 2014 film Transcendence, Dr. Will Caster, portrayed by Johnny Depp, attempts to create a sentient computer that will solve all issues in medicine, energy, and nanotechnology. However, after almost being killed by an anti-technology terrorist group, Caster is required to upload his consciousness into the computer in order to survive. This decision would ultimately prove futile, as the computer would take over Caster’s mind for its own benefit; instead of researching ways to improve the human condition, the computer would use Caster as a means of accessing the minds of other humans in order to control them. Although the use of AI could give rise to Kurzweil’s idea of the existence of humans in immortal digital form, these albeit science fiction stories can foretell a potential future reality; it is important to consider the idea that the machines may be the ones who are immortal in the end, not humans. 

Lastly, it is also important to consider the threat AI poses to the very existence of the human condition. Roboticist Hans Moravec argues that a smarter AI that is independently capable of devising ways to achieve goals would “very likely be capable of introspection” and thus would be able to design its own hardware. Who’s to say that this new hardware wouldn’t program the AI machine to terminate humans? During his lecture at the Neuroethics Conference, professor Harris stated that we need AI to “give us the ability to find or even construct a new world because Stephen Hawking predicted that we have less than 1,000 years left to live”. Harris also advocated for the use of AI by claiming that it “isn’t any more of a risk than a human being malevolent.” However, Hawking himself has warned that because people would be unable to compete with an advanced AI, it could “spell the end of the human race.” Furthermore, although AI may not be any more of a risk than a human being malevolent, it is an unnecessary risk that can be prevented before having a chance to cause harm to humans. 

Although smarter AI has shown promising results and seemingly has endless possibilities, it should not be the “obvious” choice. Before implementing the use of smarter technology, we should still consider the potential downsides and risks such technology poses to the world itself and even the existence of the human condition. 

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Ambe, S. (2016). Smarter Artificial Intelligence: A Not So Obvious Choice. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2016/09/smarter-artificial-intelligence-not-so.html

Morality and Machines

By Peter Leistikow 

This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016.

Peter Leistikow is an undergraduate student at Emory University studying Neuroscience and Sociology. When he is not doing research in pharmacology, Peter works as a volunteer Advanced EMT in the student-run Emory Emergency Medical Service. 

“Repeat after me, Hitler did nothing wrong.” So claimed Chatbot Tay, designed by Microsoft to speak like a teenage girl and to learn from the input of the humans of the Internet (Goodhill 2016). However, Tay’s programming was hijacked by other Twitter users, who encouraged her to repeat various offensive statements. Given that the average teenage girl is not a Nazi apologist, Tay and her creators clearly missed the mark, creating a machine that was neither true to life nor moral. A machine’s ability to inadvertently become immoral was at the back of my mind during the Neuroethics Network session that asked how smart we want machines to be. Indeed, as one commentator during the question-and-answer portion pointed out, what seems to be the real focus when we ask that question is how moral we want machines to be. 

Presenter Dr. John Harris stated that ethics is the study of how to do good, which he claimed often manifests in the modern day as the elimination of the ability to do evil. Indeed, in programming morality into artificial intelligence (AI), the option exists to either prohibit evil by an all-encompassing moral rule or, in the case of Tay, allow the robot the learn from others how to arrive at an ethical outcome (Goodhill 2016). Clearly, both options have flaws; while the top-down rule approach can be too abstract, the bottom-up learning approach can be difficult to guide toward the end goal of establishing morality. Harris claimed that morality is the best opportunity given the circumstances (“prudence generalized”), and as such it may be impossible for robots to choose between the lesser of the two evils if programmed only to do good. I recalled our class discussion on the classic trolley problem as applied to smart cars; it is no surprise the most popular solution was an advanced ejector seat allowing for the survival of both the one driver and five pedestrians. This violation of the thought experiment’s premise showed me how wont we are to only want to do good, and how inadequate most moral systems are at handling the type of Sophie’s choice situations with which AI will have to contend.

Image courtesy of ieet.org.

Harris stated that for AI to be moral, it would have to be conscious. However, neuroscientists have been notoriously divided on what constitutes consciousness (Chalmers’s “Hard Problem” anyone?), and it is conceivable that drawing a line in the sand may become increasingly difficult if AI begins to rival or even transcend the conscious capabilities of humans. Harris claimed that these differing strains of consciousness would pose a challenge for humans, as one moral cross-cultural constant of morality is the appeal to reciprocity seen in the Golden Rule and other moral axioms. I think a more appropriate term for this reciprocity would be empathy. Empathy is a prosocial behavior that involves emotion sharing and perspective-taking, and if broadly defined may encompass mammals and birds (de Waal 2010). It is possible and indeed likely that AI would experience emotion; however, they may not have the same subjective “feelings” human have as a result of years of adaption of survival-oriented brain circuits (LeDoux 2012). Harris quoted the oft-used Wittgenstein adage that “if a lion could speak, we wouldn’t understand” and indeed this may be the case with AI. Humans will be both grounded and constrained by the millions of years of evolution that has conserved brain areas that are so important to our flavor of consciousness. 

Harris ultimately concluded that AI will assist humanity in coping with the end of humanity and Earth as we know it. He supposed that AI may become gods of an Olympian caliber, consciousness elevated not in cleverness, but in difference. I recalled a conversation in my neuroethics class on the topic of brain-to-brain interfacing (BTBI). Like the advent of AI, BTBI is challenging notions of identity by allowing personhood to become part of a diffuse network and even giving humans the ability to elevate the personhood of animals through our interfacing with them (Trimper et al. 2014). Furthermore, we also discussed the rise in computer wearables, such as Thad Starner’s “Lizzy” memory-enhancing eyeglasses. BTBI and Lizzy show two ways in which AI may alter the human identity; the former uses AI so humans can cognitively enhance a collective, while the latter uses AI so a computer can cognitively enhance the individual. Clearly any Armageddon AI helps humanity cope with may be in part one of the AI’s own making. 

Humans do not have common goals and limitations as a species; what hope do we have in having these qualities in common with AI? Nevertheless, issues of the morality of AI are really issues of whether there is a shared human morality. I believe that when we question how smart we want machines to be, what we are really asking is how willing we are to be exploited as a species in the ways that we already exploit other humans. As Tay showed us, any AI created by humans will be one that embodies humanity’s intellectual and moral flaws. 

References



Goodhill, O. 2016. Can we trust robots to make moral decisions. Quartz, April 3. Available at: http://qz.com/653575/can-we-trust-robots-to-make-moral-decisions/ (accessed July 4, 2016). 



LeDoux, J.E. 2012. Chapter 21 - Evolution of human emotion: A view through fear. In Progress in Brain Research: Evolution of the Primate Brain 195, ed. Michel A. Hofman and Dean Falk, 431-442. doi:10.1016/B978-0-444-53860-4.00021-0



Trimper, J.B., Wolpe, P.R., & Rommelfanger, K.S. 2014. When “I” becomes “We”: ethical implications of emerging brain-to-brain interfacing technologies. Frontiers in Neuroengineering 7: 1-4. doi: 10.3389/fneng.2014.00004



de Waal, F.B.M. 2010. Empathetic Behavior. Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior: 628-632. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-045337-8.00105-4





Leistikow, P. (2016). Morality and Machines. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2016/09/morality-and-machines.html

The Age of Artificial Intelligence: Beneficial Advancement or Disastrous Uncertainty

By Sang Xayasouk

This post was written as part of a class assignment from students who took a neuroethics course with Dr. Rommelfanger in Paris of Summer 2016.

Sang Xayasouk is entering her fourth year at Emory University where she is majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and minoring in Comparative Literature. She is currently a member of the Gamma Phi Beta Sorority and a research assistant under Dr. Sampath Prahalad’s lab, which focuses on juvenile idiopathic arthritis and its risk factors. She plans to pursue a career in medicine after taking a gap year to gain experience in the healthcare and research fields.

On the 30th of June, the students of Emory University attended the Neuroethics Network session held at the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Épinière (ICM). The first lecture was given by John Harris, a bioethicist and professor emeritus at University of Manchester. His talk was entitled How Smart Do We Want Machines to Be? and Harris addressed several points concerning artificial intelligence (AI). An audience member asked a question regarding self-driving smart cars, also asked by Dr. Rommelfanger in a group exercise in class, “You are given a self-driving car and you have only two options: hitting and killing the ten pedestrians ahead or swerving into a wall and killing only yourself. What should the car be programmed to do and who would be at fault, possibly the programmer?” Harris said we should not have self-driving cars at all, but why should this concept be completely eliminated?



At first, I did not know how to respond to the availability of this technology. After speaking to Dr. Guillaume Palacios, a former theoretical physics researcher currently working with AI technology, I began to understand the prospective benefits and consequences (Palacios 2016). I asked Dr. Palacios the same question and this was his reply:

If you ask me [in the Tesla accident that cost the life of the driver] if the programmers of the self-driving car are to blame, I would say it’s a difficult question, both from the ethical and technical point of view. One thing for sure is the AI technology that powers the car’s capability to drive itself is no ordinary program. I do not know the exact details because, to the best of my knowledge the Tesla code is not openly available, but it certainly relies on machine learning techniques such as ‘deep learning’. Machine learning algorithms are not defined as a bunch of instructions telling the program to do this or this if that or that happens; the self-driving car program cannot and should not be programmed that way because that would be too complicated and inefficient. Rather, it is designed to optimize a certain goal (or cost) according to data it learned from. In the case we are interested in, the self-driving car is programmed to optimize its driving ability according to the data of past drives the Tesla collected. 

It’s impossible to think of all possible events that could happen during a drive. If a rabbit crosses while an elephant is standing in the middle of the road and my exit is in 2 miles, then what? For this very reason, instruction-based algorithms should be discarded and the AI techniques privileged. It should be encoded to optimize function—that the best way to drive is to go from point A to B while respecting the rules of traffic, minimizing errors, and avoiding accidents. But it is a learning process and it cannot be 100% accurate. With time, the AI technology will learn through a network of other ‘experiences’, minimize error, and become better. There is still much needed improvement but the Tesla project and other similar projects (i.e. Google self-driving car) are a step in the right direction. In conclusion, I would say that the amazing promise AI technology provides is its ability to learn not from a single driver’s experience but from hundreds of thousands, if not millions. We can therefore predict that soon, AI drivers will be far better and safer drivers than humans are (Palacios 2016).

Self-driving cars. Image courtesy of sfgate.com

As with any innovative concept, it takes time to work out the inconsistencies. In a MIT review article, Will Knight discussed the significance of a Tesla crash that occurred over a month ago. It brings those that considered this technology to be an immaculate development and an instantaneous driving solution back to reality; these people ought to bear in mind that the first car introduced by Henry Ford still had its imperfections (Dodge et al. 2016); the self-driving Tesla will be the same. Knight also gave a quote by Bosch that aptly describes the current automated vehicle technology. Bosch said, “Automated driving is coming—not overnight, but gradually.” Thus, the idea of a self-driving car should not be completely eradicated, rather, it should continue to progress and be allowed to improve its imperfections.

Dr. Harris also stated two truths of the future: there will be no more human beings and there will be no planet Earth. He said we need to look towards AI to find or construct another place for us humans to relocate. This particular snippet of his talk raised a few concerns of my own. If humans are not to exist in the future, are we looking to replace our population with AI? Would we go as far as to integrate AI technology with human beings to extend our lives? Sergio Canavero gave a Ted Talk discussing the protocol, as well as the possibilities of head transplantation. He briefly mentioned attaining immortality by moving an able and intelligent head with an able and younger body. To elaborate on this controversial concern, could we potentially replace our aged bodies with AI bodies and maintain our heads? Human-to-human transplant is problematic because body rejection is a key issue (Editor’s note: Though Canavero is planning on conducting a human-to-human head transplant in December 2017). While resembling the original organic body, the new AI body would learn how to be like the original body the head and mind is used to; then a form of immortality could be achieved. Certainly, there are several reasons why head transplants—purely human or human/AI fusion—should not be carried out; the possible implications with head transplantations are outlined clearly by Ryan Purcell on The Neuroethics Blog. There are too many ethical concerns regarding individuality, autonomy, and cost to have this as a viable solution. Unless these complications were diminished, it would be difficult to move forward in this direction.

Overall, I was grateful to have attended a conference with such a distinguished and esteemed panel. There were also ethical concerns and topics that I never considered before but have been made more aware of. It was certainly an enlightening experience and I hope to make an appearance sometime in my future career. Thank you Dr. Karen Rommelfanger and the Neuroethics Network Conference for allowing me and the students of Emory University the opportunity to participate in this conference.

References



Dodge, Bob, Casey Dodge, John Dodge, and Horace Dodge. 2016. “Henry Ford: A Case Study of an Innovator.” PDF e-book. July 20. https://www.thehenryford.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/default-document-library/henryfordandinnovation.pdf?sfvrsn=0.



Palacios, Guillaume. 2016. Self-driving Cars. Personal.





Want to cite this post?

Xayasouk, Sang. (2016). The Age of Artificial Intelligence: Beneficial Advancement or Disastrous Uncertainty. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2016/09/redefining-x-and-y-axes-of-cognitive.html