The Authenticity of Machine-Augmented Human Intelligence: Therapy, Enhancement, and the Extended Mind
- PDF / 256,590 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 26 Downloads / 175 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
The Authenticity of Machine-Augmented Human Intelligence: Therapy, Enhancement, and the Extended Mind Allen Coin & Veljko Dubljević
Received: 11 May 2020 / Accepted: 19 October 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Ethical analyses of biomedical human enhancement often consider the issue of authenticity — to what degree can the accomplishments of those utilizing biomedical enhancements (including cognitive or athletic ones) be considered authentic or worthy of praise? As research into Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technology progresses, it may soon be feasible to create a BCI device that enhances or augments natural human intelligence through some invasive or noninvasive biomedical means. In this article we will (1) review currently existing BCI technologies and to what extent these can be said to enhance or augment the capabilities of the respective users, (2) describe one hypothetical type of BCI device that could augment or enhance a specific aspect of human knowledge — namely, mathematical ability, and (3) relate these concepts to the active externalism view of the extended mind as espoused by Clark and Chalmers in order to (4) argue that knowledge of mathematics derived from the usage of a BCI and the application thereof constitutes authentic knowledge and achievement.
Keywords Authenticity . Brain-computer interface . Brain-machine interface . Computer-augmented human intelligence . Extended mind . Machine-augmented human intelligence
A. Coin : V. Dubljević (*) NC State University, Raleigh, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected]
Introduction Authenticity is a prominent issue in the literature on the ethics of human enhancement (see [1]). Authenticity figures as an important premise both in antienhancement and in pro- enhancement arguments. It appears as justification in the argument that “those who enhance their performance are due no or little merit for their accomplishments because enhancers alter personal identity and thus merit accrues for these accomplishments to different people” [2]. Likewise it is part and parcel of positions which draw on reports of a “pre-medicated” state as not reflective of their “true self,” and assertions that certain medications, like antidepressants, allow people to become their authentic self [3]. As such, authenticity can be used as an argument for discounting the achievements of those utilizing an enhancement technology — or, as a justification for using medication in order to achieve what one is truly capable of.1 A number of BCI technologies currently exist that allow for full or partial biomedical restoration of impaired capacities of perceptive sense or mobility [5]. Interestingly, though the literature on the ethics of pharmacological cognitive enhancement involves grappling with the issue of authenticity, the ethical debates regarding BCI technology that deal with the issue of personal identity focus less on whether such technology causes 1 It is important to note that there are many different, and mutually excluding definitions of authent
Data Loading...
