Please watch modules 27 & 28 and comment with your responses to any of Nick’s ‘Write on the class blog’ prompts.
Human Computer Interaction
Please watch modules 27 & 28 and comment with your responses to any of Nick’s ‘Write on the class blog’ prompts.
These are some of my thoughts and responses to the prompts from modules 27&28.
What are some problems with neuroprosthetics? Unfortunately Nick covered most of the issues that I was thinking about in terms of cost, risk of infection for implants, and one that he touched on briefly that stood out to me was the change in perception of who they are as an individual. I also thought of the impact to the senses by adding one back in, albeit not in a full capacity. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate how the other senses pick up for one that is lost, how the brain can nearly fully recover from removing up to 1/2 of it, but what impact would regaining sight or sound have? Would that significantly impact they way that they interact with the world or how they move around in it?
What should be considered when designing BCI devices?
Of course the first, and perhaps biggest, consideration is cost. How much will it cost to design and build something to replace a lost sense? Given the devices that are currently in use, can we significantly move the needle to justify those costs? I sort of see this dilemma almost like curing cancer, we have ways to beat certain types, but others we have to try many different things, at HUGE costs to our body to try and beat a disease and it seems the more progress we make, the more diversity in the disease we find and the more difficult it becomes to cure it. So perhaps the more we learn about the brain and the way it connects to our bodies, the more problematic any potential solution becomes. The piece that I thought of when designing anything new or upgrading anything in existence is the size and shape of a device. Some of the wearers of these devices will be children, and there is virtually no one as mean as other children. Think about how you would have reacted to seeing a new classmate show up with some huge device attached to the side of a classmates skull.
A couple of random thoughts that I had as I was listening to the videos. When Nick was talking about the bandwidth and sheer amount of information that is potentially passed along the optic nerve and our desire to attempt to replicate that, is this an area where filaments similar to fiber optics could be a benefit? I know that regular copper line has bandwidth limitations but fiber optics can carry so much more on an infinitely smaller wire. Is that something that could be considered viable in this space?
The second thought when watching the monkey video with the arm movement, could that be adopted in a way to allow paraplegics and quadriplegics to walk, write, ride a bicycle again? It stands to reason that individuals with a pathway that has been disturbed/interrupted this would be an ideal fix.
I have not heard about any implants other than cochlear implants. So retinal implants were actually new to me.
What do we need to consider while designing BCI devices?
I think one thing to consider is the age of the patient and the complications that could be related to it. For instance, the cochlear implant for a 5 year old child would be definitely different from one who is a 50 year old adult. The complications would be different based on age. Though, it is easier to do research on adults, most devices get researched on with adults alone. So I think considering the difference in the complications attached to it, the devices should be designed based on the age of the patient. This doesn’t mean reducing the size of the equipment.
Ethics with BCI.
I feel certain researches that start for clinical trials to develop certain devices are not always successful in the first shot. Most of the times, the devices get to the usable conditions after thorough research is done. In case if the trials with developing BCI devices during research studies, ends up with lot of death of the patient as it deals will playing with the brain, I think those types of studies should not be continued. I am not saying that all clinical trials should be successful all the time. But if the death rate goes above a certain limit, I think those devices even though might end up giving good results after so many deaths, should be stopped at a certain point. We cannot loose too many lives developing these devices.
I have never heard of any implants that work with commercial technology. Every implant I have every encountered (which is admittedly a small number) has been a completely proprietary, independent solution
A problem I can imagine with neuroprosthetics is the risk that that may be “destructive” to remove. If the process to implant means that they cannot be removed without damage which may even prevent a new prosthetic from being fitted, then this is a big problem. Particularly with how fast this technology is advancing, it might not be crazy to think a person may want or need to “upgrade” when a better option is available. Removing that option is a potentially large problem.
A consideration should be whether or not the device is an improvement of a person’s way of life. This is something that needs to be determined on an objective level. If a person is blind, and get offered a chance to regain some vision, they may jump on that opportunity, regardless of any limits it may impose. But if that “vision” they regain is effectively just the ability to see vague shapes and colors, that may not be what they were expecting, and very well may not be worth the risk they underwent. But a person in that situation may not be able to make an informed decision because they are too biased, so the burden must fall somewhat to the designers to not make devices available which are not worthwhile.
Ethics: my concern here is how the technology will be [ab]used outside it’s intended use. If a device is developed that can accurately read the brain information, and that information can be used to make determinations about what a person is thinking, there are huge privacy concerns with that technology. Today, law enforcement is in battle with technology companies and privacy advocates about the ability to gain access to suspect’s cell phones. Imagine that is now whether or not they have access to a person’s thoughts. The potential abuses for technologies like these are endless.
What should be considered when designing BCI devices?
The more we learn about how the brain actually works, the better we should be able to design BCI devices that connect directly to the brain. From what I read in the literature, the ability to use as many sensory channels as possible is important. Being able to acquire information from the brain is challenging. Learning what is possible when look into a person’s brain, e.g., with physically disabled people. I also read that using of physiological factors such as heart rate, blood pressure & skin conductivity can be helpful. Neural Control Interfaces are an important area of research. Obviously, usability and functionality issues are huge in BCI. Portability and aesthetic design would also be factors too, e.g., you don’t want to users to have to deal with cumbersome or unwieldy pieces of hardware.
– What are other ethical considerations for BCI devices?
Obviously obtaining informed consent especially from individuals with locked-in syndrome (cited in the literature). But more generally, conflict of interests between research and treatment issues, e.g., the “Jane” case. Jane has ALS for 10 years and then got locked-in syndrome. Her husband wanted her to get brain surgery. She is very vulnerable because she cannot communicate. Conflict of interest may occur when close relatives legally represent a person who can’t communicate. Caregivers tend to underestimate quality of life of persons with disability. They want to communicate with their loved ones so much that they accept any intervention offered to the disabled. How should BCI investigators respond to husband’s request? Researchers want to do research on people with these disabilities. People with strokes may not be able to understand his doctor’s suggestion to do BCI neurofeedback treatment.
One potential therapy that I had heard of came to mind as an example, but it isn’t so much a device but more of a method, so I had to look it up again and see if it was actually relevant. It turns out it is part of a whole category of neuroprosthetics called “optogenetics”, so I guess I was on the right track. Optogenetics takes the principle behind retinal implants (the idea that light can be translated into electrical impulses for direct use by our neural pathways) and applies it to other types of nerves. In particular, I was thinking of an experimental therapy being developed to treat chronic pain by using light flashes to turn neurotransmitters on and off. This research involves the addition of genes that produce specific proteins which then act as switches by affecting the polarity of nerve cells. Depending on the color of light these proteins are exposed to, they flood a neuron with either positive or negative ions, which affect whether it can fire or not. I guess this involves more of a prosthetic gene than a device, but you get the idea. A second example are neuro-stim devices, which offer the promise of learning and performance enhancement by stimulating certain areas of the brain with complementary electrical frequencies. Interestingly, there are DIY versions of these devices, and they are already in use by some early adopters, despite very little knowledge about long term effects.
I do think that access and DIY applications are worth lots of consideration, because this angle really touches on a lot of other issues. One, that cost is prohibitive for most people who might benefit from a neuroprosthetic device, and this has the potential to get worse as they become more effective. With open access, open source, even 3D printable elements (yes, I built my own medical-grade EEG by 3D printing most of the parts!) will help make sure that there is access, and that the research can continue in any direction aside from those agendas which are privately funded. Additionally, concerns of access drive right to the heart of my contribution to the ethical question.
One ethical consideration that was not really mentioned yet is the potential for a new technocracy to emerge thanks to bionic enhancement. There are two paths to this: either via performance enhancements which create massive gaps in equality (see the film Gattaca; that is based on gene edits, but neuroprosthetic enhancement is parallel), or through the emergence of fascist power structures via absolute access to information, more along the lines of the movie Minority Report, if our brainwaves and thoughts cease to be private.
What should be considered when designing a BCI?
For BCI I would think that the user would be even more important than ever in the process. In researching the different uses of BCI it all seems to come down to repeatedly trying to use the system and understanding that the system functions a certain way. If it is anything more than the system moving a cursor up and down, then the BCI will need to be very user friendly and allow for the user to adept.
What are other ethical consideration for BCI devices?
If a system misinterprets a brain signal from an individual causing harm to another individual, it will obviously be a system malfunction, but how many people are going to say that it was the system and not their own thought pattern. The adverse is that if the person was thinking something monovalent but had no intentions of acting on it, but the system did not understanding that it was a passing fancy, is it the systems fault or the user?
Other than cochlear implants, I have never heard of any other publicly available BCI devices. I am curious if that is because of how few exist, or they are just not marketed to me.
I think the largest things to consider for design of BCI devices would be invasiveness, safety, and cost. Anything that can be done to reduce any of the negative parts of these should be done, even if it effects the technical performance of the device. A device that most people can afford that restores hearing by 50% of normal, and that has a very low medical issue rate for installation is much more valuable than one that restores 100% but can only be afforded by a few, needs invasive surgery, or has high risks.
An interesting ethical issue is choice, and also availability. Currently that is slightly more simplified than it will be in the future, as these devices are generally meant to restore as much normal functionality as possible. Eventually we will develop technology that can make a human much more effective, such as more senses (adding IR sensing to retinas, magnetic field detection) or even as far fetched as direct radio communications. Assuming these had very low downsides, then many parents may want to “install” these in children at birth, without giving the child the choice for if they want to be “upgraded”. Also, these technologies could give significant advantages to people, so if they are only available to the wealthiest of people, then they could have huge advantages that would cause significant segregation of population.