Agency and the algorithm

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 571; no. 7766; pp. S19 - S21
• Main Author: Drew, Liam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group 25.07.2019
• Subjects: Algorithms; Anorexia; Blood glucose; Brain; Computers; Consumer protection; Consumers; Convulsions & seizures; Diabetes mellitus; Eating disorders; Electric currents; Electrodes; Epilepsy; Ethics; FDA approval; Insulin; Medical equipment; Mental depression; Neurosciences; Obsessive compulsive disorder; Parkinson's disease; Regulation; Robot arms; United States > US; California
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/d41586-019-02214-2

[...]the technology has come to be used in other conditions: DBS has been approved to treat obsessive compulsive disorder and epilepsy, and is being investigated for use in mental-health conditions such as depression and anorexia. Because it is a technology that can powerfully change activity in the organ that generates our sense of personhood, DBS elicits concerns that other treatments do not. If neuroscientists could unambiguously discern a person's intentions from the chattering electrical activity that they record in the brain, and then see that it matched the robotic arm's actions, ethical concerns would be minimized. In the case of a device for monitoring blood glucose that automatically controls insulin release to treat diabetes, such decisionmaking on behalf of a patient is uncontroversial. Ienca says that neuroethicists' concerns have forced developers to attend to the security of their devices, to more diligently protect consumer data, and to cease demanding access to social-media profiles and other sources of personal information as a condition of a device's use.