Donna M. Veraldi and Lorna Veraldi
A Paper Presented to American College of Forensic Psychology
34th Annual Symposium, San Diego, CA
Here is an excerpt:
Ethical dilemmas sometimes require making difficult choices among competing ethical principles and values. This presentation will discuss ethical dilemmas arising from the use of coercion and deception in forensic practice. In a forensic practice, the choice is not as simple as “do no harm” or “tell the truth.” What is and is not acceptable in terms of using various forms of pressure on individuals or of assisting agencies that put pressure on individuals? How much information should forensic psychologists share with individuals about evaluation techniques? What does informed consent
mean in the context of a forensic practice where many of the individuals with whom we interact are not there by choice?
The information is here.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Google's Mysterious AI Ethics Board Should Be Transparent Like Axon's
Sam Shead
Forbes.com
Originally published April 27, 2018
A new artificial intelligence ethics (AI) board was announced this week by Axon — the US company behind the taser weapon — but the AI ethics board many people still want to know about remains shrouded in mystery.
Google quietly set up an AI ethics board in 2014 following the £400 million acquisition of a London AI lab called DeepMind, which hopes to one day build machines with human-level intelligence that will have a profound impact on the society we live in. Who sits on that board, how often that board meets, or what that board discusses, has remained a closely guarded company secret, despite DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman (who lobbied for the creation of the board) saying in 2016 that Google will publicise the names of those on it.
This week, Axon, a US company that develops body cameras for police officers and weapons for the law enforcement market, demonstrated the kind of transparency that Google should aspire towards when it announced an AI ethics board to "help guide the development of Axon's AI-powered devices and services".
The information is here.
Forbes.com
Originally published April 27, 2018
A new artificial intelligence ethics (AI) board was announced this week by Axon — the US company behind the taser weapon — but the AI ethics board many people still want to know about remains shrouded in mystery.
Google quietly set up an AI ethics board in 2014 following the £400 million acquisition of a London AI lab called DeepMind, which hopes to one day build machines with human-level intelligence that will have a profound impact on the society we live in. Who sits on that board, how often that board meets, or what that board discusses, has remained a closely guarded company secret, despite DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman (who lobbied for the creation of the board) saying in 2016 that Google will publicise the names of those on it.
This week, Axon, a US company that develops body cameras for police officers and weapons for the law enforcement market, demonstrated the kind of transparency that Google should aspire towards when it announced an AI ethics board to "help guide the development of Axon's AI-powered devices and services".
The information is here.
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Ethics debate as pig brains kept alive without a body
Pallab Ghosh
BBC.com
Originally published April 27, 2018
Researchers at Yale University have restored circulation to the brains of decapitated pigs, and kept the organs alive for several hours.
Their aim is to develop a way of studying intact human brains in the lab for medical research.
Although there is no evidence that the animals were aware, there is concern that some degree of consciousness might have remained.
Details of the study were presented at a brain science ethics meeting held at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda in Maryland on 28 March.
The work, by Prof Nenad Sestan of Yale University, was discussed as part of an NIH investigation of ethical issues arising from neuroscience research in the US.
Prof Sestan explained that he and his team experimented on more than 100 pig brains.
The information is here.
BBC.com
Originally published April 27, 2018
Researchers at Yale University have restored circulation to the brains of decapitated pigs, and kept the organs alive for several hours.
Their aim is to develop a way of studying intact human brains in the lab for medical research.
Although there is no evidence that the animals were aware, there is concern that some degree of consciousness might have remained.
Details of the study were presented at a brain science ethics meeting held at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda in Maryland on 28 March.
The work, by Prof Nenad Sestan of Yale University, was discussed as part of an NIH investigation of ethical issues arising from neuroscience research in the US.
Prof Sestan explained that he and his team experimented on more than 100 pig brains.
The information is here.
Choosing partners or rivals
The Harvard Gazette
Originally published April 27, 2018
Here is the conclusion:
“The interesting observation is that natural selection always chooses either partners or rivals,” Nowak said. “If it chooses partners, the system naturally moves to cooperation. If it chooses rivals, it goes to defection, and is doomed. An approach like ‘America First’ embodies a rival strategy which guarantees the demise of cooperation.”
In addition to shedding light on how cooperation might evolve in a society, Nowak believes the study offers an instructive example of how to foster cooperation among individuals.
“With the partner strategy, I have to accept that sometimes I’m in a relationship where the other person gets more than me,” he said. “But I can nevertheless provide an incentive structure where the best thing the other person can do is to cooperate with me.
“So the best I can do in this world is to play a strategy such that the other person gets the maximum payoff if they always cooperate,” he continued. “That strategy does not prevent a situation where the other person, to some extent, exploits me. But if they exploit me, they get a lower payoff than if they fully cooperated.”
The information is here.
Originally published April 27, 2018
Here is the conclusion:
“The interesting observation is that natural selection always chooses either partners or rivals,” Nowak said. “If it chooses partners, the system naturally moves to cooperation. If it chooses rivals, it goes to defection, and is doomed. An approach like ‘America First’ embodies a rival strategy which guarantees the demise of cooperation.”
In addition to shedding light on how cooperation might evolve in a society, Nowak believes the study offers an instructive example of how to foster cooperation among individuals.
“With the partner strategy, I have to accept that sometimes I’m in a relationship where the other person gets more than me,” he said. “But I can nevertheless provide an incentive structure where the best thing the other person can do is to cooperate with me.
“So the best I can do in this world is to play a strategy such that the other person gets the maximum payoff if they always cooperate,” he continued. “That strategy does not prevent a situation where the other person, to some extent, exploits me. But if they exploit me, they get a lower payoff than if they fully cooperated.”
The information is here.
Monday, May 28, 2018
This Suicide Pod Dubbed 'the Tesla of Death' Lets You Kill Yourself Peacefully
Loukia Papadopoulos
Interesting Engineering
Originally posted April 27, 2018
A new controversial pod for ending one’s life is on the market and it is being dubbed the Tesla of death and its founder, the Elon Musk of suicide. The pod, developed by euthanasia campaigner Dr. Philip Nitschke, is called the Sarco and it seeks to revolutionize the way we die.
The Sarco's website features a thought-provoking question on its landing page. “What if we had more than mere dignity to look forward to on our last day on this planet?” reads the site.
A description of the pod goes on to explain that “the elegant design was intended to suggest a sense of occasion: of travel to a ‘new destination’, and to dispel the ‘yuk’ factor.” If this sounds like a macabre joke, rest assured it is not.
The article is here.
Interesting Engineering
Originally posted April 27, 2018
A new controversial pod for ending one’s life is on the market and it is being dubbed the Tesla of death and its founder, the Elon Musk of suicide. The pod, developed by euthanasia campaigner Dr. Philip Nitschke, is called the Sarco and it seeks to revolutionize the way we die.The Sarco's website features a thought-provoking question on its landing page. “What if we had more than mere dignity to look forward to on our last day on this planet?” reads the site.
A description of the pod goes on to explain that “the elegant design was intended to suggest a sense of occasion: of travel to a ‘new destination’, and to dispel the ‘yuk’ factor.” If this sounds like a macabre joke, rest assured it is not.
The article is here.
The ethics of experimenting with human brain tissue
Nita Farahany, and others
Nature
Originally published April 25, 2018
If researchers could create brain tissue in the laboratory that might appear to have conscious experiences or subjective phenomenal states, would that tissue deserve any of the protections routinely given to human or animal research subjects?
This question might seem outlandish. Certainly, today’s experimental models are far from having such capabilities. But various models are now being developed to better understand the human brain, including miniaturized, simplified versions of brain tissue grown in a dish from stem cells — brain organoids. And advances keep being made.
These models could provide a much more accurate representation of normal and abnormal human brain function and development than animal models can (although animal models will remain useful for many goals). In fact, the promise of brain surrogates is such that abandoning them seems itself unethical, given the vast amount of human suffering caused by neurological and psychiatric disorders, and given that most therapies for these diseases developed in animal models fail to work in people. Yet the closer the proxy gets to a functioning human brain, the more ethically problematic it becomes.
The information is here.
Nature
Originally published April 25, 2018
If researchers could create brain tissue in the laboratory that might appear to have conscious experiences or subjective phenomenal states, would that tissue deserve any of the protections routinely given to human or animal research subjects?
This question might seem outlandish. Certainly, today’s experimental models are far from having such capabilities. But various models are now being developed to better understand the human brain, including miniaturized, simplified versions of brain tissue grown in a dish from stem cells — brain organoids. And advances keep being made.
These models could provide a much more accurate representation of normal and abnormal human brain function and development than animal models can (although animal models will remain useful for many goals). In fact, the promise of brain surrogates is such that abandoning them seems itself unethical, given the vast amount of human suffering caused by neurological and psychiatric disorders, and given that most therapies for these diseases developed in animal models fail to work in people. Yet the closer the proxy gets to a functioning human brain, the more ethically problematic it becomes.
The information is here.
Sunday, May 27, 2018
The Ethics of Neuroscience - A Different Lens
New technologies are allowing us to have control over the human brain like never before. As we push the possibilities we must ask ourselves, what is neuroscience today and how far is too far?
The world’s best neurosurgeons can now provide treatments for things that were previously untreatable, such as Parkinson’s and clinical depression. Many patients are cured, while others develop side effects such as erratic behaviour and changes in their personality.
Not only do we have greater understanding of clinical psychology, forensic psychology and criminal psychology, we also have more control. Professional athletes and gamers are now using this technology – some of it untested – to improve performance. However, with these amazing possibilities come great ethical concerns.
This manipulation of the brain has far-reaching effects, impacting the law, marketing, health industries and beyond. We need to investigate the capabilities of neuroscience and ask the ethical questions that will determine how far we can push the science of mind and behaviour.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness
Keith Frankish
Theories of consciousness typically address the hard problem. They accept that phenomenal consciousness is real and aim to explain how it comes to exist. There is, however, another approach, which holds that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion and aims to explain why it seems to exist. We might call this eliminativism about phenomenal consciousness. The term is not ideal, however, suggesting as it does that belief in phenomenal consciousness is simply a theoretical error, that rejection of phenomenal realism is part of a wider rejection of folk psychology, and that there is no role at all for talk of phenomenal properties — claims that are not essential to the approach. Another label is ‘irrealism’, but that too has unwanted connotations; illusions themselves are real and may have considerable power. I propose ‘illusionism’ as a more accurate and inclusive name, and I shall refer to the problem of explaining why experiences seem to have phenomenal properties as the illusion problem.
Although it has powerful defenders — pre-eminently Daniel Dennett — illusionism remains a minority position, and it is often dismissed out of hand as failing to ‘take consciousness seriously’ (Chalmers, 1996). The aim of this article is to present the case for illusionism. It will not propose a detailed illusionist theory, but will seek to persuade the reader that the illusionist research programme is worth pursuing and that illusionists do take consciousness seriously — in some ways, more seriously than realists do.
The article/book chapter is here.
Theories of consciousness typically address the hard problem. They accept that phenomenal consciousness is real and aim to explain how it comes to exist. There is, however, another approach, which holds that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion and aims to explain why it seems to exist. We might call this eliminativism about phenomenal consciousness. The term is not ideal, however, suggesting as it does that belief in phenomenal consciousness is simply a theoretical error, that rejection of phenomenal realism is part of a wider rejection of folk psychology, and that there is no role at all for talk of phenomenal properties — claims that are not essential to the approach. Another label is ‘irrealism’, but that too has unwanted connotations; illusions themselves are real and may have considerable power. I propose ‘illusionism’ as a more accurate and inclusive name, and I shall refer to the problem of explaining why experiences seem to have phenomenal properties as the illusion problem.
Although it has powerful defenders — pre-eminently Daniel Dennett — illusionism remains a minority position, and it is often dismissed out of hand as failing to ‘take consciousness seriously’ (Chalmers, 1996). The aim of this article is to present the case for illusionism. It will not propose a detailed illusionist theory, but will seek to persuade the reader that the illusionist research programme is worth pursuing and that illusionists do take consciousness seriously — in some ways, more seriously than realists do.
The article/book chapter is here.
Friday, May 25, 2018
What does it take to be a brain disorder?
Anneli Jefferson
Synthese (2018).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1784-x
Abstract
In this paper, I address the question whether mental disorders should be understood to be brain disorders and what conditions need to be met for a disorder to be rightly described as a brain disorder. I defend the view that mental disorders are autonomous and that a condition can be a mental disorder without at the same time being a brain disorder. I then show the consequences of this view. The most important of these is that brain differences underlying mental disorders derive their status as disordered from the fact that they realize mental dysfunction and are therefore non-autonomous or dependent on the level of the mental. I defend this view of brain disorders against the objection that only conditions whose pathological character can be identified independently of the mental level of description count as brain disorders. The understanding of brain disorders I propose requires a certain amount of conceptual revision and is at odds with approaches which take the notion of brain disorder to be fundamental or look to neuroscience to provide us with a purely physiological understanding of mental illness. It also entails a pluralistic understanding of psychiatric illness, according to which a condition can be both a mental disorder and a brain disorder.
The research is here.
Synthese (2018).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1784-x
Abstract
In this paper, I address the question whether mental disorders should be understood to be brain disorders and what conditions need to be met for a disorder to be rightly described as a brain disorder. I defend the view that mental disorders are autonomous and that a condition can be a mental disorder without at the same time being a brain disorder. I then show the consequences of this view. The most important of these is that brain differences underlying mental disorders derive their status as disordered from the fact that they realize mental dysfunction and are therefore non-autonomous or dependent on the level of the mental. I defend this view of brain disorders against the objection that only conditions whose pathological character can be identified independently of the mental level of description count as brain disorders. The understanding of brain disorders I propose requires a certain amount of conceptual revision and is at odds with approaches which take the notion of brain disorder to be fundamental or look to neuroscience to provide us with a purely physiological understanding of mental illness. It also entails a pluralistic understanding of psychiatric illness, according to which a condition can be both a mental disorder and a brain disorder.
The research is here.
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