My real-life situation is about a video named “Monkey MindPong” by Neuralink, a neurotechnology company which develops implantable brain-machine interfaces. A monkey is shown using a joystick to interact with a computer. He has a neuralink chip implanted in each side of his brain that streams in real time the firing rates from his neurons to a computer which after calibration, allows him to start playing other games solely with his brain. Here, a future of symbiosis with artificial intelligence is shown to be close, making researchers call for ethical guidelines to be established now, before it matures.
The real-life situation links to human sciences, specifically neuroscience and biology, as the objective of the knowledge shown, is to use chips in humans to help treat a range of neurological disorders and in the future, change the way humans interact with each other. But, as it is currently being tested in animals, it also links to natural sciences. Because in the future it can change how we interact with each other, with the world, and with ourselves, it connects to ethics because when implemented into human brains, highly personal data could become easy to gather and used in a malicious way, so right and wrong behavior would need to be revised.
This incites me to ask the question, ‘What kind of ethical guidelines should be established to monitor and control technologies that aim to change the way we gather knowledge? Should governments intervene?’. This is extremely important as future technologies could tamper the way we view and gain knowledge forever or how people retrieve knowledge from others, impacting the world negatively. Ethical limits on how the future of knowledge is altered need establishment, and who should decide these limits and guidelines, is a real problem that is of huge significance to the future of mankind.
Multiple perspectives are entangled to this question. Scientists developing these technologies will look at this question differently than religious people and big companies looking to profit out of the situation. As one might want the ethical limits to allow curing people’s diseases or improve our ability while others might want them to allow some sort of profit. There are also differences regarding culture as in conservative and communist countries such as China, might have fewer ethical limits on scientific development than more liberal countries such as the US.
There is no definitive answer to this question, because on one hand this type of technology could be used to save countless lives and improve the way we live but we risk the technology falling on the wrong hands, leaving people's privacy, consent and free will in danger.
ToK journal by Juan Francisco. P
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