The Neuroethics Blog Series on Black Mirror: San Junipero

By Nathan Ahlgrim

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Humans in the 21st century have an intimate relationship with technology. Much of our lives are spent being informed and entertained by screens. Technological advancements in science and medicine have helped and healed in ways we previously couldn’t dream of. But what unanticipated consequences may be lurking behind our rapid expansion into new technological territory? This question is continually being explored in the British sci-fi TV series Black Mirror, which provides a glimpse into the not-so-distant future and warns us to be mindful of how we treat our technology and how it can affect us in return. This piece is part of a series of posts that will discuss ethical issues surrounding neuro-technologies featured in the show and will compare how similar technologies are impacting us in the real world.

*SPOILER ALERT* - The following contains plot spoilers for the episode “San Junipero” of the Netflix television series Black Mirror.

Your body, in many ways, is an extension of your identity. The coupling of the physical to the psychological can be represented by straightforward demographic details like sex, ethnicity, and age. Your body can also restrict your identity by illness, injury, and disability. The unavoidable link between body and identity only exists as long as you are stuck with what you’re born with. Science fiction, and some science fact, is working to decouple the mind and body using virtual worlds and virtual minds, casting a lure of limitless possibilities. Location, money, age, ability; all are at the user’s command. Advances in computer technology and neuroscience are making that lure more lifelike, more attractive, and (possibly) more attainable.

Image courtesy of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Technology has moved virtual worlds far beyond the days of The Sims or Second Life. The Emmy Award-Winning Black Mirror Episode “San Junipero” is hardly the first example of pop-culture waxing poetic over the narratives of downloaded minds. Movies like Tron and Avatar describe worlds beyond reality, with such advanced computing that the "virtual reality" became a second reality. Therein, of course, lies the question: how should virtual minds be treated in a virtual world? “San Junipero” describes a world in which the entirety of human consciousness can be transferred and even downloaded via Whole Brain Emulation (WBE). In a world with fantastical technology, the treatment of the disembodied minds is taken as a given. However, real-world scientists and entrepreneurs are setting their sights on their own San Junipero, and we cannot assume the ethics of WBE and the treatment of digital people will fall into place by itself. The rights of computer code are not as straightforward as they seem when the code is Grandma.

 Plot Summary and Technology Used

“San Junipero” opens with a 1980’s party town. The painfully dweebish Yorkie shuffles into a nightclub full of arcade games (and resident arcade geeks) where she meets her polar opposite in Kelly, for all accounts a carefree partier. During the couple’s first night together in San Junipero, Kelly discloses her previous and lengthy marriage. Both are young 20-somethings, and this is the first overt clue (although many subtler ones had appeared before) that the timeline is not quite normal.

The two reunite after Yorkie enters a time-bending search for Kelly through the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s. Their ensuing conversation reveals that Yorkie is getting married and that Kelly is dying. Kelly insists on meeting up in the real world. She says “the real world” because the city of San Junipero is an elaborate simulation in which living people can visit or take up permanent residence by downloading their brain as their body expires.

San Junipero sharply contrasts with the real world.

Images courtesy of Pexels and Pixabay.

In the real world, both women are elderly: Yorkie a quadriplegic since adolescence and Kelly dying from an illness. Kelly visits Yorkie in the hospital, where she meets Greg, to whom Yorkie will be married later that month. Greg is a caregiver and agreed to marry Yorkie so that his Power of Attorney would allow her to “pass over”— to be euthanized and become a permanent digital resident of San Junipero.



Here we learn the totality of San Junipero’s technology: living people are allowed five hours of virtual life per week to have a “trial run” before making the decision to have their brains completely scanned and uploaded before they die. This, of course, requires WBE: the complete digital representation of a person’s brain.

Kelly successfully cajoles Greg into giving her and Yorkie a covert five minutes in San Junipero. She proposes in the digital world, and Yorkie accepts. The following scene shows Kelly asserting her Power of Attorney back in the real world, authorizing Yorkie’s euthanasia and permanent upload to San Junipero.

The couple reunite in the virtual world, and Kelly repeats her wish to die without becoming a “local” – no brain scan and no eternal life. She is thrown back into the real world at midnight by the state-imposed limits on time in San Junipero, leaving Yorkie to think she may not return.

In a stark tonal change from the majority of Black Mirror endings, Kelly reappears at her San Junipero beach house, and the two literally drive off into the sunset; the final scene shows the two – now two placidly blinking discs of light, robotically being archived and immediately lost amongst a wall of identical lights.

Current State of Technology

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

San Junipero is a world enabled by completely comprehensive WBE. The residents have their entire consciousness scanned and transferred in digital form to an ostensibly immortal computer bank. Everyone from Cristof Koch of the Allen Brain Institute to Michio Kaku recognizes the human brain as the most complicated object in the universe, so it should come as no surprise that such technology is more of a fantasy than the city of San Junipero itself. The human brain is estimated to have a petabyte (1 quadrillion bytes) memory capacity, and researchers from the Salk Institute say that a computer simulation with similar memory and processing power would need the energy from “basically a whole nuclear power station” for just one person. For all of our supercomputers, deep neural networks, and artificial intelligence, real-life brain modelling has currently peaked at a ‘crumb’ of rat cortex (0.29 ± 0.01 mm3 containing ~31,000 neurons [1]). Even this state-of-the-art model disregards any and all glial cells, blood vessels, and capacity for plasticity. All this to say that many computer scientists and neuroscientists doubt WBE will ever be possible.

Complete WBE seems stuck in sci-fi territory, but scientists and philanthropists love a good moonshot, and all the better if success means immortality. Many projects, from the government-funded Human Brain Project and BRAIN Initiative to the startup Carboncopies, have been fueled by the dream of a San Junipero-esque human simulator. Fields from across the sciences, including engineering, quantum computing, neuroscience, and cryonics are converging on this goal; but they have yet to even find where to stake the finish line. Even Anders Sandberg, one of the most vocal WBE evangelicals, labels it a “theoretical technology” [2]. On the bright side, if we have the technology to upload human brains to a digital form, simulating a California town will be a humble afterthought.

Remembering the good old days often

has positive psychological effects.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In contrast to the potentially unreachable technology, the therapeutic purpose of San Junipero has been modelled outside of the Black Mirror universe, albeit in a decidedly analog fashion. Kelly, in describing the sales pitch for San Junipero, calls it “Immersive Nostalgia Therapy.” Nostalgia is known to encourage positive coping and psychological states, which can be brought on by old songs, familiar smells, or just by reminiscing about the good old days. Constantine Sedikides and colleagues have induced nostalgic feelings in hundreds of research participants easily and reliably, doing nothing more than letting their participants revel in those past experiences. The resulting feelings of reminiscence and bittersweet longing were sufficient to increase coping, closeness, and optimism while decreasing defensiveness [3]. Sadly, none of that research has induced feelings of nostalgia by transporting their subjects’ consciousness to an 80’s dance club.

Ethical Considerations: What Black Mirror gets right and what it misses

The narrative of “San Junipero” operates among people who all have access to the immortalizing technology, so the fair distribution of WBE technology will not be discussed here. Rather, the ethics of these incorporeal minds and the transition between the analog California and the digital San Junipero merit more consideration than was offered in the episode.

Does a computer code have rights? That question sounds flippant, but the premise is not so outlandish when you consider that corporations now have rights according to the U.S. legal system. If code deserves the same protection, will it ever be intelligent enough to deserve the same rights as flesh-and-blood humans? The debate is already swirling over artificial intelligence; the World Economic Forum now lists the rights of intelligent programs as one of the nine ethical challenges for the field. San Junipero locals, who are embodied by a single disc of information, are treated wholly differently than the visitors, with some troubling implications.

San Junipero is a paradise. It is easy to imagine people choosing paradise over real-world pain brought on by loss, illness, disability, or simply the daily grind. Realizing this, the laws of this world put up barriers to entry, as Greg described to Kelly:

“[The] state's got a triple-lock on euthanasia cases. You gotta have sign off from the doc, the patient, and a family member. Stops people passing over just 'cause they prefer San Junipero flat out.”

Compare that to the locals. When Kelly balks at the idea of "forever", Yorkie throws back:

“you can remove yourself like that”

This distinction is taken as a given. Why, though, should physical euthanasia be more controlled than a digital death? In being selectively protective, the government is treating the digital copies as less-than-human. Ironically, this distinction flies in the face of San Junipero’s purpose: to extend life after death. The distinction between biological and digital, once a person’s entire consciousness is downloaded, is seen by some to be more artificial than San Junipero itself.

The biological/digital distinction was the focal point of a convincing (but later debunked) fan theory that Kelly never actually changed her mind, and that she really, truly, permanently died. The theory posits that the simulation then made a copy of Kelly to accompany Yorkie, since its purpose is to make its residents happy. There again is the same question: if Kelly is simulated to have all the same behaviors and thoughts, how is that different than the ‘normal’ downloading of consciousness? Michael Hendricks of McGill University points out that there is no distinction between transferring and replicating consciousness, since the computer code of a person did not exist before the transfer. Therefore, even if the fan theory was true, neither Yorkie nor Kelly could tell the difference between a simulation or a “real” copy.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The conversation about digital people is, of course, theoretical. Even WBE proponents acknowledge that “brain emulation is … vulnerable to speculation, ‘handwaving’ and untestable claims.” [2]. But, science is on the brink of inflicting digital pain. Scientists, animal rights activists, and others are pushing for digital animal models, also known as in silico experiments. American and European governments are funding the development of non-animal models, especially for toxicology studies [4,5]. These experiments present precise simulations of biological systems to model new treatments and probe new questions. Currently, in silico experiments are largely performed on digital organs and not whole organisms, but the latter is in the works, which again presents that artificial distinction. If the model is complex enough to simulate the organism, then it stands to reason that it feels the same pain, and suffers just like its skin-and-bones counterpart. The goal of replacing animal models with simulations is self-limiting: the better the simulation, the more digital suffering is inflicted.

It is for this reason that some ethicists follow the “principle of assuming the most.” Doing so assumes that simulations possess the most sentience as is reasonable to believe even in the absence of empirical data. Under this principle, any virtual mouse should be given the same protections as a real mouse would, down to its virtual pain killers. In the words of Anders Sandberg, “it is better to treat a simulacrum as the real thing than to mistreat a sentient being” [6].

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

If it ever becomes sufficiently sophisticated, WBE will represent a new, practical dualism (the belief that the mind and body are distinct entities) that is completely independent from philosophical beliefs. After successfully recreating consciousness in a digital form, the physical form of the body and brain become artefactual and unnecessary to maintain thought. The question of whether the body is needed to maintain identity and personhood, though, will always remain a philosophical one. In fact, identity and personhood may need entirely new definitions in the face of WBE technology before philosophers can meaningfully debate the issue. Digital lab rats, digital family members, and digital worlds are immune from physical harm, but their complexity gives them the capacity to suffer regardless of “who” they are. As such, consistent ethical standards require the treatment of digital and physical life to be determined by that life’s complexity, not its relation to the physical world.

Conclusions

Digital versions of Grandma may never happen. Even so, the ethics of artificial intelligence and virtual worlds are pertinent to existing technologies. Virtual worlds and virtual personalities on platforms like Second Life have already spawned marriages, divorce, and even semi-official government embassies. These digital actions have real consequences even when those spaces are not populated by fully conscious computer programs. Should these avatars be held to the same moral standards and governed by the same laws that apply to flesh and blood people? “San Junipero” thinks not. It was constructed as an escape that offered wish-fulfillment and freedom from consequences. That kind of marketing pitch makes it obvious why the government put in so many controls to prevent anyone and everyone from ‘passing over’ when in perfect health, with heaven just a zap away.

Sadly, Black Mirror never addresses the most important question of them all: what happens to this heaven when the power goes out?

References

[1] Markram H et al. (2015) Reconstruction and simulation of neocortical microcircuitry. Cell 163:456-492.

[2] Sandberg A, Bostrom N (2008) Whole brain emulation: A roadmap.

[3] Sedikides C, Wildschut T (2016) Past forward: Nostalgia as a motivational force. Trends in cognitive sciences 20:319-321.

[4] Raunio H (2011) In silico toxicology – non-testing methods. Frontiers in Pharmacology 2:33.

[5] Leist M, Hasiwa N, Rovida C, Daneshian M, Basketter D, Kimber I, Clewell H, Gocht T, Goldberg A, Busquet F, Rossi A-M, Schwarz M, Stephens M, Taalman R, Knudsen TB, McKim J, Harris G, Pamies D, Hartung T (2014) Consensus report on the future of animal-free systemic toxicity testing. ALTEX 31:341-356.

[6] Sandberg A (2014) Ethics of brain emulations. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 26:439-457.

Want to cite this post?

Ahlgrim, N.S. (2017). The Neuroethics Blog Series on Black Mirror: San Junipero. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from  http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2017/10/the-neuroethics-blog-series-on-black.html.

“It is sometimes a sad life, and it is a long life:” Artificial intelligence and mind uploading in World of Tomorrow

By Jonah Queen

"The world of tomorrow" was the motto of the

1939 New York World's Fair

Image courtesy of Flickr user Joe Haupt

“One day, when you are old enough, you will be impregnated with a perfect clone of yourself. You will later upload all of your memories into this healthy new body. One day, long after that, you will repeat this process all over again. Through this cloning process, Emily, you will hope to live forever.”

These are some of the first lines of dialogue spoken in the 2015 animated short film, World of Tomorrow.* These lines provide an introduction to the technology and society that this science fiction film imagines might exist in our future. In response to a sequel, which was released last month, I am dedicating a post on this blog to discussing the film through a neuroethical lens.

Plot Summary (Note: the following contains spoilers for World of Tomorrow)

Those lines are spoken to a young girl named Emily by one of her clones (a “third generation Emily”) who is contacting her from 227 years in the future. The clone of Emily (who I will refer to as Emily) explains that in the future, those who can afford it regularly have their minds uploaded into either a clone of themselves or a cube-shaped digital storage device. Emily’s descriptions of the future are mostly lost on the young Emily (who is referred to in the film as Emily Prime), but Emily continues the conversation undeterred, as if she were speaking to an adult—a dynamic that continues throughout the film.

Emily then teleports Emily Prime to her location in the future and shows her some other technologies, including “view screens,” which allow people to view others’ memories. Emily uses a view screen to share memories of some important events in her life, including the various jobs she has held, her marriage (to a man who was also a clone), and the death of her husband.

After this tour through her memories, Emily suddenly explains that the world will be hit by a large meteor in sixty days. In the hopes of surviving, many are uploading their minds into cubes and having them launched into space. Those who cannot afford mind uploading are turning to “discount time travel,” which frequently results in deadly malfunctions. Emily then explains that the reason she contacted Emily Prime was to retrieve a memory from her that she had forgotten: a memory of her and her mother, which she says will comfort her in her final moments. After removing the memory from Emily Prime’s brain and implanting it into her own with a raygun-like device, she transports Emily Prime back to her present.

Ethical Issues 

In a mere seventeen minutes, this short touches on many of the issues discussed in contemporary bioethics and neuroethics, including human cloning, mind uploading, artificial intelligence, distributive justice, and technologically advanced escapist media. In this post, I will mostly focus on the ethics of mind uploading and artificial intelligence.

One possible method for creating a digital copy of a human brain

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

In the film, mind uploading is depicted as a way for people to attempt to achieve immortality through uploading their minds into either a machine or into the brain of a clone of themselves. While current technology is nowhere close to achieving this goal (though some say that it could happen in our lifetimes), advances in neuroscience and computer science have led many to consider this possibility, and discussions of the ethical implications are currently underway.

One potential concern that the movie touches on is the quality of life (if it could even be considered life) that a person (or disembodied mind) is subject to after such a procedure. Emily tells Emily Prime that their grandfather had his consciousness uploaded into a cube and reads one of the messages he sent to her, which consists entirely of exclamations of horror. What he might be experiencing is not specified, but it is likely that the experience of having one’s consciousness existing within a computer would be so different from our embodied life that it would be disorienting or even unpleasant. Since our brains are not the only parts of us involved in feeling and perception, what would it be like to exist without input from a body? If there is not sufficient stimulation, would the mind suffer the negative effects of sensory deprivation? Would this technology need to simulate the experience of having a body? Would the contents of the entire nervous system (including, for example, the enteric nervous system that innervates the gut) need to be uploaded? You might even ask what the requisite features of a nervous system would be to have a “meaningful life." Some have raised such issues with organoids, so-called “mini-brains.”

And the cloning method does not solve these issues either. As Emily explains, the clones have some mental and physical “defects” that people are willing to overlook in their quest for immortality. She also seems tired and saddened by the length of her life (in addition to their other technologies, the human lifespan has greatly increased in the future) as well as the stress caused by having several lifetimes’ worth of memories. The quote in the title of this post is how she describes her existence to Emily Prime, and the sequel might explore this further, as it is subtitled The Burden of Other People's Thoughts.

One of the other issues that the film raises is the question of whether mind uploading would really be extending life or just creating a separate person (or computer program) with your personality, intellect, and memory. From your perspective (the original you), wouldn’t your consciousness end? That is how it seems to me, and some philosophers and ethicists agree. A previous post on this blog explores this idea and goes even further, raising the possibility of someone having their mind uploaded into multiple entities, creating several “copies” of themselves, which would make it even more difficult to see it as a simple continuation of one’s life. The technology could even be used to copy and upload a person’s consciousness to a computer or clone while they are still alive. In this sense, mind uploading can be seen as creating a new entity—either a person with a bioengineered brain or a sentient artificial intelligence (AI) based on a human brain. A recent post on this blog discusses various technologies that could be used to create a copy of someone’s mind after their death—further blurring the lines between mind uploading and AI.

The sci-fi trope of the robot apocalypse is often

referenced in discussions about AI

Image courtesy of Flickr used Gisela Giardino

World of Tomorrow also addresses AI in a different context. While the ethics of AI is currently a popular topic in tech media, much of the coverage focuses on the risks AI could pose to humans. This can be seen in the sensationalist coverage of Facebook’s recent AI experiment (though the claims that the experiment was stopped out of fear are not entirely accurate). While prominent figures in science and computing (including Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates) have expressed concerns about the threat that sufficiently advanced AI could pose, others are focused on the more immediate concerns around programming AI to make life-and-death decisions, whether for self-driving cars or autonomous weapons.

However, the issues concerning AI in World of Tomorrow are different. Emily describes how one of her jobs involved supervising robots on the moon. She programmed the solar-powered robots to fear death so they would stay in the sun on the light side of the moon. After the operation goes out of business, Emily is relocated, but, to save money, the robots are left there, where they continue to move across the moon’s surface and transmit depressing poetry back to earth. This (along with the previous discussion of mind uploading) presents another aspect to the ethics of AI debate: if we can create an AI capable of suffering, how should we treat it? While this issue is complicated by the fact that we can never truly know the subjective feelings of another entity (that is, they could be philosophical zombies), if something can suffer, even if it is a robot or software program that we have created, it seems clear that we should treat it well (though we, unfortunately, often do not even extend that courtesy to organisms that we recognize as living and capable of feeling). And maybe we should not even create such sentient artificial beings in the first place. This is a topic in AI ethics sometimes called robot rights, with some ethicists and philosophers arguing that a conscious AI should be given the same rights as an animal or even a person, depending on its level of complexity. As sentient machines, obviously, do not yet exist, this debate is mostly theoretical, and many see it as unnecessary at this time. Though a similar issue is discussed in neuroethics when it comes to determining if (and when) a collection of cultured neurons in a lab can become complex enough to feel.

World of Tomorrow presents a vision of the future which while bleak, is still very human. The film plays off the phrase “world of tomorrow,” which has often been used to describe an optimistic and utopian vision of the future, to instead show a future where advances in technology have led to even more extreme versions of many of the same problems we have today. If we want to work towards solving these issues (without slowing technological progress) we need to learn how to use our tools wisely.

*As of publication, World of Tomorrow is available to watch on Netflix and Vimeo





Want to cite this post?



Queen, J. (2017). “It is sometimes a sad life, and it is a long life:” Artificial intelligence and mind uploading in World of Tomorrow. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2017/10/it-is-sometimes-sad-life-and-it-is-long.html

Getting Out While the Getting's Good

By Dena Davis

Dr. Davis is currently at Lehigh University. She taught at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (Cleveland State University) and Central Michigan University. She received her doctorate in religion from the University of Iowa and her J.D. from University of Virginia. Her specialty is bioethics, and her specific focus is on the ethics of genetic medicine and genetic research. Dr. Davis’ latest book is Genetic Dilemmas: Reproductive Technology, Parental Choices, and Children’s Futures (2nd Edition, University of Oxford Press, 2010). Dr. Davis has been a Fulbright scholar in India, Italy, Israel, Indonesia, and Sweden. Dr. Davis serves on the Central Institutional Review Board of the National Cancer Institute, and is a member of the NIH Embryonic Stem Cell Eligibility Working Group.

A number of times in the last two years I have been invited to speak about Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The venues have all been academic, but nonetheless have differed widely: South Carolina and New York City; bioethicists; physicians; undergraduates; hospital staff. I always begin by inviting people to participate in a thought experiment. I tell them that I am going to describe two people and then ask them which of the two they would prefer to be. (These people are actually my parents, but I don’t tell them that.) I first describe “M,” who remains cognitively intact and lives independently until his death from an aneurysm at 87. Then I describe “F,” who died at 99, after a ten year decline into Alzheimer’s disease. (I usually give a few details, such as when F was no longer able to live independently, when she became incontinent, when she no longer recognized family and friends.)



At this point, I hold my breath. I am about to ask my audience to choose whether they would prefer to be M or F, but the rest of my presentation relies on the assumption that most people will choose M. What if they don’t? At a recent conference in South Carolina, I almost funked it, made nervous by my own stereotypes about the South, and also because the previous speaker had given a heart-warming presentation of elderly people with dementia responding to music and clowns. At Emory University, my talk was preceded by a tremendously appealing presentation from a gentleman with a family history of Alzheimer’s. He spoke movingly of his aunt’s life and death with the disease; dare I suggest that most of us would prefer to die before we become symptomatic?

A portrait of a man with dementia.

(Image courtesy of Pixabay.)

However, despite the different venues, the response is always the same: virtually everyone in the room would prefer to die suddenly than to live a decade longer but with dementia. I know that there is a big gap between preferring to die before dementia, and taking that death into one’s own hands. Nonetheless, I know that I am not the only person who plans to “get out while the getting’s good,” and to attempt to end my life before dementia robs me of the ability to act. 

Achieving this goal, however, requires overcoming some daunting obstacles. One of the most difficult is how to find what I call the sweet spot, between not ending one’s life too early and missing out on some good years, and not missing the window of opportunity by putting it off too late and sliding into dementia. There are conflicting accounts of whether one is still able to make and carry out a plan while in the early stages of dementia, but that is a risk I am not willing to take. We do know that two of the earliest signs of dementia are loss of executive function, and lack of awareness of one’s own disability. In other words, one may be unaware of one’s increasing dementia, and unable to make a plan and carry it through. Here are two vignettes from the beginning years of my mother’s life with dementia, when she was still living independently, driving, paying bills, and legally capacitated:

My mother returns from an outing with another elderly woman. “I feel so sorry for Angela! She doesn’t know what’s what. She keeps repeating the same question over and over again. It’s very irritating.” My mother exhibits no awareness that she herself asks the same questions over and over again. 

My mother decides to get a cat. She mentions this to me and my brother, in fact she mentions it every time in our almost daily phone conversations. “Great idea, Mom, you should definitely get a cat. You know where the animal shelter is. Get a friend to go with you.” Next day, next week, next month, “I am going to get a cat.” Finally, I asked my son, on his next visit to his grandmother, to take the initiative to go with her to get a cat. They did and brought back Raven, who was a great success. My mother had a reasonable wish to do an easy and appropriate thing, well within her capacities, but there was a disconnect between her wish and her ability to act on it, almost like pushing down on the gas pedal and discovering that the cable has been cut. 

Image courtesy of Flickr.

Although my mother had spoken often during her life of her intention to commit suicide rather than live with dementia, she had missed the window of opportunity and had left it too late. But what would have been the right time? My mother did not begin to experience dementia until she was nearly 90, so had she arbitrarily decided to end her life at 85 (a point at which half of all Americans have some form of dementia) she would have lost some good years.



Where is the sweet spot?



This problem is brilliantly portrayed in Lisa Genova’s best-selling novel, Still Alice.¹ Alice is a successful academic, at the top of her game, when she is diagnosed with early onset AD. She knows that research and teaching will soon be beyond her, but she is hoping for a few more years of enjoying her family and the mundane pleasures of an ice cream cone or a walk in the park. On the other hand, she is protective of her dignity and is determined not to end her life with a protracted decline into dementia. She crafts a strategy in which she programs her smartphone to buzz her every week with a simple quiz; when she is no longer able to respond appropriately to questions about the date or the names of her daughters, she will be directed to open a folder on her computer in which she has left a letter, written by Alice now to her later, demented self. However, Alice fails to realize when she begins to fail the quiz, and eventually she leaves the phone in the freezer, which ruins it. But one day, aimlessly clicking through files on her computer, she finds the letter she had written to her later self. The letter opens with words of love and reassurance, and then directs Alice to go upstairs to her bedroom, find a bottle at the back of her nightstand drawer marked “Alice,” and to take all the pills in the bottle with a big glass of water, get into bed, and go to sleep. The letter warns Alice not to discuss this with anyone—just do it. Alice wants to comply, but as she walks up the stairs to her bedroom, she forgets her purpose. She goes downstairs again to read the letter, remembers her purpose, but forgets again as she climbs the stairs. She wishes she could print out the letter to bring it with her, but no longer remembers how to work the printer. Eventually, she is distracted by her husband’s voice, and forgets the whole thing.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Although I doubt we will ever see a perfect solution to the “sweet spot” problem, the last decade has seen progress in a number of areas that can help individuals assess their background risk for Alzheimer’s, and the immanence of its approach. First, it is now possible to use direct-to-consumer genetic testing, such as 23andMe, to test oneself for an important genetic variable that influences one’s risk of getting Alzheimer’s: APOE.  Although even having two APOE4 variants does not doom one to the disease, it substantially raises the likelihood. Those who inherit one copy of the e4 form have a three-fold higher risk of developing AD than those without the e4 form, while those who inherit two copies of the e4 form have an 8- to 12-fold higher risk.² People who have themselves tested and discovered a higher than average risk might wish to take further steps to monitor for any signs of the disease. Intriguingly, Alzheimer’s is now seen as a “3-stage disease,” of which the first stage occurs even before symptoms develop, perhaps decades before.³ It is increasingly possible to identify those people for whom the disease process has begun, but before they are symptomatic. Even better, it might be possible to track the disease progression, so as to end one’s life as close as possible to the last “good” moment.



Current efforts to diagnose AD in the presymptomatic stage are driven by two scientific goals. First, finding the disease at the earliest possible stage identifies appropriate patients for treatments that could slow or perhaps even reverse the course of the disease. This is crucial, because there is general consensus that the reason there are no effective medications for Alzheimer’s is that by the time the disease produces symptoms, it is way too late. Second, presymptomatic diagnosis is a crucial building block in medical research that seeks to find and test those at high risk for the disease.



Presymptomatic testing runs a gamut that includes neuroimaging to track volume loss and cerebral blood flow in the brain, concentrations of amyloid in the cerebral spinal fluid, PET scans, blood tests, and noninvasive tests of episodic memory.⁴ Other possibilities include motion sensors and “smart carpets” that diagnose impending dementia from changes in gait.⁵ These monitoring systems are part of a general movement to use technological surveillance to aid people in aging “successfully” at home, but there is no reason why a savvy and determined person could not make use of them to direct information only to herself.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The degree of certainty one needs to act is, obviously, a matter for each individual to decide. Each of us has a different balance of how we weigh more years of life against the value of not becoming demented. People have been making these kinds of judgments for years, usually in the face of uncertainty. Women, for decades, have been asked to weigh the risk of having a child with Down Syndrome, against the risk of losing a pregnancy through amniocentesis. People with cancer balance the possible benefits of various treatments (many of them experimental) against the possibility of side effects that can include cardiac damage and even secondary cancers. This is no different. Death is irreversible, but so is dementia. And once one has started down the dementia road, it is too late to turn back.





References

1. Lisa Genova. Still Alice (New York: Pocket Books, 2009).

2. Alzheimer’s Association. In Brief for Professionals. My Mother Has Alzheimer’s Disease: Am I Next? https://www.alz.org/health-care-professionals/documents/InBrief_GeneticLink.pdf Accessed August 9, 2017.

3. US Food and Drug Administration, Guidance for Industry: Alzheimer’s Disease: Developing Drugs for the Treatment of Early-Stage Disease: Draft Guidance (for comment purposes only), February 2013. http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/ GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/Guidances/UCM338287.pdf (accessed 10 August 2017).

4. Dena S Davis,“Alzheimer disease and pre-emptive suicide,” Journal of Medical Ethics 2014;40:543-549.

5. Pam Belluck, “Footprints to Cognitive Decline and Alzheimer’s Are Seen in Gait,” New York Times 16 July 2012.

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Davis, D. (2017). Getting Out While the Getting's Good. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2017/09/getting-out-while-gettings-good.html

The Neuroethics of Brainprinting

By Anna Farrell 

Anna Farrell is a rising second year undergraduate student at Emory University. Early on in her Neuroscience major she became interested in Neuroscience’s interdisciplinary nature and continued on to declare a second major in English. 

As cyber espionage and hacking are on the rise (Watson, 2016), major corporations, governments, and financial systems have pushed for using biometrics as a more secure way to guard their data. Biometrics measures unique physical characteristics as a way of ascertaining someone’s identity. A wide range of physical characteristics are currently used in biometrics, including DNA, iris, retina, face, fingerprint, finger geometry, hand geometry, odor, vein, and voice identification (Types of Biometrics). Governmental uses for biometrics span border control, customs services, and online access to critical systems. However, fingerprint and iris identification results are becoming more replicable as hacker’s abilities advance (Watson, 2016), causing researchers to begin to look beyond the typical biometric features. One of the new methods being studied is electroencephalogram (EEG)-based neurological identification. However, using brain wave biometrics as a means of identification establishes a framework which, if underestimated, could put sensitive personal data in jeopardy. 

Lawrence Farwell invented Brain Fingerprinting as a method of determining what information is contained in the brain (Ahuja, & Singh, 2012). This began in 1986 with the investigation of event related potentials. Event related potentials under the P300 response category are electrical signals that occur 300 milliseconds after the subject has been shown a stimulus that is recognized as familiar (Farwell, 2014). Over time, many Brain Fingerprinting methods developed with additional factors supplementing the analysis of the P300 brain response. One of the more prevalent approaches produces a neurological reaction named the “memory and encoding related multifaceted encoding electroencephalographic response” or MERMER (Ahuja, et al., 2012). 

This image depicts Dr. Lawrence Farwell conducting a Brain

Fingerprinting test on Terry Harrington.

(Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

In 1977, Terry Harrington was convicted of murder and 22 years later Farwell performed a MERMER test on him that was influential in the decision to release him from prison (Farwell, 2014). The crime-related stimuli did not produce a MERMER signal, while the alibi-related stimuli produced a MERMER signal, thus implying that Harrington’s brain contained information concerning the alibi and not the details of the crime. However, it was ultimately due to a Brady violation that the Iowa court overturned the case (Harrington vs State, 2003). Some researchers are suspicious about the highly acclaimed accuracy of brain fingerprinting, as the results have not been verified by researchers extending beyond Farwell’s lab (Holley, 2009). 

Now, Farwell’s brain fingerprinting is being researched so that it can be applied to neurological authentication systems. The argument for the development of neurological authentication systems is compelling because brains are physically less accessible to hackers than are fingerprints or DNA, and are thus harder to falsify. However, interference from the skin and skull can make it difficult to get a good signal from an EEG (Usakali, 2010), which may lead to inconsistencies in signal identification. More recently, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) security systems have been developed, which have a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than EEG. While EEG systems measure electrical brain activity (Spine, 2016), fNIR measures blood flow in the brain like a fMRI, allowing the method greater spatial resolution but with the mobility of the EEG system (Strait, & Scheutz, 2014). 

A sample of human EEG data.

(Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

These neural authentication systems herald a new wave of neurotechnology with heightened efficiency, demanding a greater analysis of the privacy violations that may arise. While this constant mining of brain data can offer better security, it also poses a potential threat to the individual. Texas Tech researcher Abdul Serwadda and graduate student Richard Matovu discovered that a six electrode EEG authentication system leaked personal information while verifying the identity of the user. In a study with 25 clinically diagnosed alcoholics and 25 non-alcoholics, the EEG security system recognized the alcoholics with approximately 68-75% accuracy (Matovu, & Serwadda, 2016). These results were obtained through a mutual information metric, which compared the alcoholic sample user EEG data to alcohol usage behavior (Matovu, et al., 2016). However, by only slightly compromising authentication accuracy, this private information could not be extracted from the EEG data (Matovu, et al., 2016). Another study has shown that all three beta bands, brain waves within signature frequency ranges, displayed an unmistakable amplification in EEG readings with alcohol dependent subjects (Rangaswamy et al., 2002). 

Although these technologies are not ready for commercial use, ethical complications ought to be analyzed before the hypothetical becomes reality. Serwadda states that in the wrong hands, these brain waves could be used to gain insight into employees’ possible mental health conditions, learning disabilities, substance abuse, and more (Watson, 2016). Although this is speculative, it rightly emphasizes precaution as we continue to develop authentication measures. If this sort of sensitive information could be gleaned from the EEG system, the unwarranted access that could be surrendered with the data collected by the fNIR security system should certainly not be underestimated. 

Image courtesy of Pexels.

The use of neural authentication security systems turns brain data, previously only accessible to health care professionals, into a commodity. Some companies only make raw EEG data available to the consumer in their more expensive products, turning others’ neurological data into a tool that can be easily sold for greater profit. Such brain data provides corporations and governments with a whole new database of personal data that they can access in the name of quality assurance or national security. Without dialogue to educate the public on EEG systems and the information that can be derived from an EEG signal, many of us may be unaware of the richness of personal information that can be channeled through an electrode. 

Other concerns about neural fingerprinting focus on how their implementation may infringe on our constitutional rights. Should neurological data be treated like other non-invasive physiological samples, such as blood or urine? Or does it qualify as testimony, deserving protection under privacy? As brain fingerprinting data does not fit into either realm fully, some are advocating for a new legal framework to address possible violations of constitutional rights, specifically the fourth (Farahany, 2012) and fifth (Waller, Bernstein, & Ladov, 2012) amendments. The 4th amendment protects the individual from unreasonable searches and seizure. The 5th amendment guarantees that no one should have to testify against themselves. Possible inaccuracies of the proposed methods further cloud the discussion if these technologies are ever to be called upon in a legal setting. 

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Americans have compromised on privacy (Larkin, 2011) many times, with post 9/11 airport security initiatives as an example, to better protect the general population. However, the violation of neuroprivacy is unlike previous breaches of privacy executed in the name of security, for none of the other compromises intrudes so personally and directly into the workings of the mind. Situational justification does not validate this abuse; instead, it sets a precedent, which eventually could lead to a wide and indiscriminate acceptance of brain fingerprinting. Championing efficiency, safety, and convenience to push new biometric brain authentication methods misleads the public into thinking that these methods are both harmless and guarantee protection from hackers. 

Dialogue revolving around ownership of brain data and how security systems should go about receiving consent for brain data access is essential to creating a safe and effective means of security authentication services. Research highlighting the possible compromises we may face with brain biometrics is guided by the above principles and must continue to be so guided, to ensure our autonomy over our brain data in the face of technological advances. 

References 

Ahuja, D., & Singh, B. (2012). Brain fingerprinting. Journal of Engineering and Technology Research ,4(6), 98-113. doi: 10.5897/JETR11.061 

Basulto, D. (2014, November 21). The heartbeat vs. the fingerprint in the battle for biometric authentication. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2014/11/21/the-heartbeat-vs-the-fingerprint-in-the-battle-for-biometric-authentication/?utm_term=.ad6577f7b338 

Behavioral Biometrics. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2017, from https://www.secureauth.com/products/secureauth-idp/behavioral-biometrics 

Beyond therapy: biotechnology and the pursuit of happiness. (2004). Choice Reviews Online, 42(03). doi:10.5860/choice.42-1550 

Bonaci, T., Calo, R., & Chizeck, H. J. (2015). App Stores for the Brain : Privacy and Security in Brain-Computer Interfaces. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine,34(2), 32-39. doi:10.1109/mts.2015.2425551 

Chuang, J., Nguyen, H., Wang, C., & Johnson, B. (2013). I Think, Therefore I Am: Usability and Security of Authentication Using Brainwaves. Financial Cryptography and Data Security Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1-16. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-41320-9_1 

Dalbey, B. (1999, August 17). Farwell's Brain Fingerprinting traps serial killer in Missouri. Retrieved May 18, 2017, from http://www.cutbankpioneerpress.com/news/article_a0efcd6e-a9df-57f9-bbcf-5b71f9f2f44b.html 

Farah, M. (2015). An Ethics Toolbox for Neurotechnology. Neuron, 86(1), 34-37. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.03.038

Farahany, N. A. (2012). Searching Secrets. University of Pennsylvania Law Review,160(5), 1239-1308. Retrieved August 13, 2017. 

Farwell, L. A. (2014). Brain Fingerprinting: Detection of Concealed Information. Wiley Encyclopedia of Forensic Science, 1-12. doi:10.1002/9780470061589.fsa1013

Farwell, L. A., & Makeig, T. H. (2005). 

Farwell Brain Fingerprinting in the case of Harrington v. State. Open Court X, Indiana State Bar Assoc., 7-10. Retrieved May 17, 2017. 

Goodman, M. (2015, February 24). Fingerprint and Iris Scanners Seem Secure, but They Aren’t Hack-Proof. Retrieved March 10, 2017, from
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/02/future_crimes_excerpt_how_hackers_can_steal_fingerprints_and_more.html 

Harrington v. State (February 26, 2003), FindLaw 01-0653.
Holley, B. (2009). It’s All in Your Head: Neurotechnological Lie Detection and the Fourth and Fifth Amendments . The Institute of Law, Psychiatry & Public Policy-The University of Virginia,28(1), 1-76. Retrieved April 20, 2017. 

Jimmy Ray Slaughter. (n.d.). Retrieved May 18, 2017, from http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/slaughter955.htm 

Matovu, R., & Serwadda, A. (2016). Your substance abuse disorder is an open secret! Gleaning sensitive personal information from templates in an EEG-based authentication system. 2016 IEEE 8th International Conference on Biometrics Theory, Applications and Systems (BTAS). doi:10.1109/btas.2016.7791210 

Larkin, P. (2011, December 9). How Must America Balance Security and Liberty. Retrieved March 26, 2017, from http://www.heritage.org/homeland-security/report/how-must-america-balance-security-and-liberty 

Liberatore, S. (2016, August 04). Hackers could get inside your BRAIN: Experts warn of growing threat from monitoring and controlling neural signals. Retrieved April 21, 2017, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3722558/Hackers-inside-BRAIN-Experts-warn-growing-threat-monitoring-controlling-neural-signals.html 

Purcell, R., & Rommelfanger, K. (2015). Internet-Based Brain Training Games, Citizen Scientists, and Big Data: Ethical Issues in Unprecedented Virtual Territories.Neuron,86(2), 356-359. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.03.044 

Rangaswamy, M., Porjesz, B., Chorlian, D. B., Wang, K., Jones, K. A., Bauer, L. O., . . . Begleiter, H. (2002). Beta power in the EEG of alcoholics. Biological Psychiatry, 52(8), 831-842. doi:10.1016/s0006-3223(02)01362-8 

Strait, M., & Scheutz, M. (2014). What we can and cannot (yet) do with functional near infrared spectroscopy. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 8. doi:10.3389/fnins.2014.00117
 

Strong, K. (2014). “Pass-thoughts” and non-deliberate physiological computing: When passwords and keyboards become obsolete. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on April 20, 2017, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2014/07/pass-thoughts-and-non-deliberate.html 

Spine, M. B. (2014, April). Electroencephalogram (EEG). Retrieved March 26, 2017, from http://www.mayfieldclinic.com/PE-EEG.htm 

The issues with biometric systems. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 17 from
http://www.biometricnewsportal.com/biometrics_issues.asp 

Types of Biometrics. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2017, from http://www.biometricsinstitute.org/types-of-biometrics 

Ulman , Y. I., Cakar, T., & Yildiz, G. (2015). Ethical Issues in Neuromarketing: “I Consume, Therefore I am!”,. Science and Engineering Ethics,20. doi:DOI 10.1007/s11948-014-9581-5 

Usakli, A. B. (2010). Improvement of EEG Signal Acquisition: An Electrical Aspect for State of the Art of Front End. Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience,2010, 1-7. doi:10.1155/2010/630649 

Waller, G., Bernstein, S., & Ladov, L. (Directors). (2012, March 20). Neuroimaging in the Courtroom: Video by Neuroethics Creative Team[Video file]. Retrieved August 13, 2017, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2012/03/neuroimaging-in-courtroom-video-by.html 

Watson, G. (2016, September 30). Professor Shows Brain Waves Can be Used to Detect Potentially Harmful Personal Information. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from http://today.ttu.edu/posts/2016/09/brain-waves

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Farrell, A. (2017). The Neuroethics of Brainprinting. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on
, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2017/09/the-neuroethics-of-brainprinting.html

Neuroethics as Outreach

By Adina Roskies

Adina Roskies is The Helman Family Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and chair of the Cognitive Science Program at Dartmouth College. She received a Ph.D from the University of California, San Diego in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science in 1995, a Ph.D. from MIT in philosophy in 2004, and an M.S.L. from Yale Law School in 2014. Prior to her work in philosophy she held a postdoctoral fellowship in cognitive neuroimaging at Washington University with Steven Petersen and Marcus Raichle from 1995-1997, and from 1997-1999 was Senior Editor of the neuroscience journal Neuron. Dr. Roskies’ philosophical research interests lie at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience, and include philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and ethics. She has coauthored a book with Stephen Morse, A Primer on Criminal Law and Neuroscience. 

As I write this, I am thinking more broadly about ethics and neuroscience than I usually do, pushed by political necessity. The topic of my concern is science education, construed generally. In this era in which “alternative facts” are allowed to bear that name, rather than their true name -- which is “lies and misinformation” -- and in which science is ignored, deemed irrelevant, or actively suppressed, I see a growing need for people in all the sciences and in ethics to speak out and to educate, wherever possible.

Neuroscientists and neuroethicists may actually have an easier time doing this than many scientists whose work has either been so politicized that they have no voice, such as people working on climate change or other environmental issues, or whose research is taken to be so esoteric that it is hard to get ordinary people to care (though much of it, like gravity waves, is really cool!).

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Neuroscientists, in contrast, are seen as relevant, and, at least so far, remain relatively far from the shadow of politics. Despite appearances, everybody has a brain, and most are at least somewhat concerned about it. Many people who otherwise find science “dry” or irrelevant are interested in the organ that sits between their ears.



I think neuroscientists and neuroethicists are in a better position than many scientists to try to break through the barriers that isolate scientists from large portions of our citizenry, and not just to speak truth to power, but to speak truth to those who keep those in power in power. Educating and pulling in people to the project of science and reminding them of the importance of facts, truth and the inexorable press of reality is of crucial importance. Failing to do so will have repercussions throughout society.

The Neuroethics Blog Series on Black Mirror: White Bear

By Kristie Garza

Image courtesy of  Wikimedia Commons.

Humans in the 21st century have an intimate relationship with technology. Much of our lives are spent being informed and entertained by screens. Technological advancements in science and medicine have helped and healed in ways we previously couldn’t dream of. But what unanticipated consequences of the rapid expansion into new technological territory? This question is continually being explored in the British sci-fi TV series Black Mirror, which provides a glimpse into the not-so-distant future and warns us to be mindful of how we treat our technology and how it can affect us in return. This piece is part of a series of posts that discuss ethical issues surrounding neuro-technologies featured in the show and will compare how similar technologies are impacting us in the real world. 

*SPOILER ALERT* - The following contains plot spoilers for the Netflix television series Black Mirror. 

Plot Summary

“White Bear” begins with Victoria, the episode’s main character, awakening in an unfamiliar room in front of a TV displaying an unfamiliar symbol. She has no memory of who she is or how she wound up in the room.

Afraid, Victoria begins to explore her outside surroundings, where she finds “onlookers,” individuals in a trance-like state, filming her with their phones. A masked man then appears and begins chasing Victoria. While fleeing, she meets Jem, a fellow individual not under the trance. Jem explains to Victoria that the onlookers were put in their trance due to the strange symbol on the screens and that the masked man is a “hunter,” part of an evil people not affected by the strange symbol.

Victoria and Jem escape the hunters and head toward a location called White Bear, where they plan to “kill the transmitter,” which would lead to the removal of the symbol entrancing the onlookers. Victoria is overcome by a flash of disturbing memories and a feeling of apprehension about White Bear. After hesitantly entering White Bear, Victoria helps Jem attempt to disarm the transmitter, but the duo is diverted by having to fight off two hunters. When Victoria shoots one of the hunter’s guns, confetti and sparks, rather than a bullet, fly out.

Image courtesy of pxhere

Cue lights. Pull back the curtains. Jem, Victoria, and the hunters appear on a stage. As the other characters on the stage take a bow, Jem leads Victoria to a chair and locks her wrists. The audience applauds, and we learn that everything that had happened up to this point was part of a show. An emcee then begins to narrate as Victoria’s mug shot and trial videos appear on the screen. The emcee explains that Victoria is a prisoner who was found guilty of murdering a young girl where she had recorded a video of her fiancé crucifying the young girl in the woods. After being caught, her fiancé committed suicide, but Victoria was “not allowed to get away with her crime as easily.”

Victoria is then forcefully removed from the stage, paraded through the streets, and returned to the same room she awoke in the beginning of the episode. The emcee places a headphone-shaped device on her head. As this device erases Victoria’s memories, the crew members set the stage for the show to begin again the next day.

As the episode’s credits air, images of the next day are shown from the perspective of the “White Bear Justice Center.” The White Bear staff prepare for visitors, who are told the following: 1) you can’t touch her, 2) you can’t talk to her, and 3) you can only video her. At this point, it becomes apparent that the whole episode is portraying an interactive experience, where visitors become part of a retributive justice system, playing the part of onlookers as they help stage the punishment for Victoria’s crimes.

The State of Current Technology

The main neuro-technology used in “White Bear” is the device attached to Victoria’s head at the end of the episode, which seems to erase all previous long- and short-term memories. While a device for deleting one’s memory, such as in “White Bear,” is not in the foreseeable future, there is active scientific research on the modifying specific memories.

Extinction Therapy

Unlike how memory-deleting devices are often depicted in the media, a memory is not encoded in the brain as a video-like entry that can easily be rewound and erased. Most research currently being done to extinguish memories is in the field of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the context of PTSD, an individual attaches a fearful valence to a specific, previously neutral stimulus, creating a new association or memory of this stimulus as fearful. Extinction therapy, also known as exposure therapy, works by repeatedly presenting this now feared stimulus until the individual no longer psychologically or physiologically reacts fearfully to the stimulus. For example, Emory University’s Barbara Rothbaum, PhD uses this therapy on her patients with PTSD to dissociate fear from stimuli (such as explosive noises) of traumatic memories.

While this research proves to be effective, it is important to note that extinction therapy does not erase a previous memory. Research done into extinction memory shows that the extinction process is actually creating a new memory pathway that competes with the previous memory, rather than deleting the previous memory (Falls, 1998; Quirk, 2002). As of now, it seems impossible to delete memories as was done at the White Bear facility.

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive Therapy Model

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Usually, brain cells are uniquely balanced by excitation and inhibition to allow our brains to function properly. A seizure occurs when there is a disruption to this balance, and a group of neurons fire simultaneously (Fisher et al., 2005). Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) is used while the patient is under anesthesia (not as was done at the White Bear facility to a screaming Victoria) to medically induce a seizure through electrical stimulation of the brain though the skull. ECT has been used as a last resort treatment plan for both depression and schizophrenia. Currently, it is not commonly used and remains controversial because one of its side effects is memory loss. Scientists, such as Dr. Marijn Kroes, have begun to try to utilize this side effect to target specific memories. In a 2014 Nature Neuroscience article, Dr. Kroes led a study where researchers successfully used ECT to decrease recovery of a previously stored memory in a group of human patients (Kroes et al., 2014). This study focused on a specific memory of a slideshow story with an auditory narrative that was induced and retrieved in a laboratory environment. Even with ECT showing evidence of potential memory alteration, this technology is far from producing a complete deletion of an entire person’s life memories, like what is seen in “White Bear.” Further, though the device may be effective in deleting a specific memory, scientists are unsure whether the emotions associated with a memory may persevere on some level (such as Victoria’s hunch to not enter White Bear).

Neuroethical Issues

While this episode of Black Mirror has a host of neuroethical issues, the main issue of concern is memory alteration. The way memory alteration is performed in this episode and its implications cross the boundary of cruel and unusual punishment.

Understanding the issues surrounding memory deletion requires an appreciation for the value of a memory. As humans, we are comprised of our memories, and it is argued that these memories make humans their authentic selves (Erler, 2011). For example, Francoise Baylis contends that “identities are created by relational beings mutually engaged in the never-ending project of constituting themselves in and through personal relationships and public interactions” (Baylis, 2011). If Victoria is unable to engage in these kinds of relationships to construct her identity, is memory erasure or alteration a reasonable punishment or does this enter into the domain of cruel and unusual punishment, as described by the US Constitution’s 8th amendment?

Image courtesy of Flickr user Chuck Coker

One must question the utility of the punishment used on Victoria if the device used on her head every night makes her unable to remember her crime. Is she still a criminal if she has no memory of her crime? Dr. Arthur Caplan would say yes. He has been quoted as saying, “we can change some memories without fundamentally changing who [they] are” (Delistraty, 2014). Alternatively, the American Bar Association recommends against execution for individuals who have a mental disorder or disability that impairs their capacity to “understand the nature and purpose of the punishment, or to appreciate the reason for its imposition.” In Victoria’s case, she has no memory of her crime and is repeatedly confused about her punishment. If this form of memory alteration induces Victoria into this confused mental state where she is not herself, it would be unethical to execute her for her crimes. The dilemma in White Bear, then, is that the device central for the punishment is causing the punishment to be unethical.

Or one might argue that perhaps the punishment is meant to offer justice for the victim or the victim’s family. Interestingly, retributive justice is actually found to not aid in forgiveness as much as a more prosocial form of justice (Karremans & Van Lange, 2005), making the viewer again question the utility of this method of justice at White Bear Justice Park. Further, one wonders about the morality of the public participants or onlookers and the actors of the White Bear team.

Conclusion

Current research is far from creating a memory device such as that used in “White Bear” as current neuroscience research is focused on using tools to alter specific memories. The psychological and ethical implications surrounding memory-alteration technology have the potential to completely alter an individual’s life. While this could be helpful for treating disorders such as PTSD, scholars argue that memories are essential to the development of a genuine individual (Erler, 2011).

References

Baylis, F. (2011). The self in situ: A relational account of personal identity. Relational theory and health law and policy, 109-131.

Delistraty, C. C. (2014, May 15). The Ethics of Erasing Bad Memories. Retrieved August 13, 2017, from https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/the-ethics-of-erasing-bad-memories/362110/

Erler, A. (2011). Does memory modification threaten our authenticity? Neuroethics, 4(3), 235-249.

Falls, W. A. (1998). Extinction: A review of theory and the evidence suggesting that memories are not erased with nonreinforcement. Learning and behavior therapy, 205-229.

Fisher, R. S., Boas, W. V. E., Blume, W., Elger, C., Genton, P., Lee, P., & Engel, J. (2005). Epileptic seizures and epilepsy: definitions proposed by the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) and the International Bureau for Epilepsy (IBE). Epilepsia, 46(4), 470-472.

Karremans, J. C., & Van Lange, P. A. (2005). Does activating justice help or hurt in promoting forgiveness? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41(3), 290-297.

Kolber, A. J. (2006). Therapeutic forgetting: The legal and ethical implications of memory dampening. Vand. L. Rev., 59, 1559.

Kroes, M. C., Tendolkar, I., Van Wingen, G. A., Van Waarde, J. A., Strange, B. A., & Fernández, G. (2014). An electroconvulsive therapy procedure impairs reconsolidation of episodic memories in humans. Nature Neuroscience, 17(2), 204-206.

Quirk, G. J. (2002). Memory for extinction of conditioned fear is long-lasting and persists following spontaneous recovery. Learning & memory, 9(6), 402-407.

Scharfman, H. E. (2007). The neurobiology of epilepsy. Current neurology and neuroscience reports, 7(4), 348-354.

Tanaka, K. Z., Pevzner, A., Hamidi, A. B., Nakazawa, Y., Graham, J., & Wiltgen, B. J. (2014). Cortical representations are reinstated by the hippocampus during memory retrieval. Neuron, 84(2), 347-354.

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Garza, K. (2017). The Neuroethics Blog Series on Black Mirror: White Bear. The Neuroethics Blog. Retrieved on, from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2017/09/the-neuroethics-blog-series-on-black.html