Increasingly big data & the pressing need for international data governance of neuroscience
Understanding the brain requires great effort and the scale of neuroscience research projects is increasing to scale. This means crossing borders in big international research initiatives, and as a result being subject to national and international laws, regulations and policies in both data collection and transfer. While neuroscience data transcends borders, data governance typically stays…
Digital twins & virtual brains: the importance of conceptual clarity and transparency
Researchers are trying to develop digital twins of the human brain by building so-called ‘virtual brains’. Trying to create virtual copies of such a complex organ, that we know increasingly yet still very little about is a great challenge. In a recent publication, Kathinka Evers and Arleen Salles explore philosophical and neuroethical challenges associated with…
The value of neuroethics and philosophical reflection in the Human Brain Project
The Human Brain Project is committed to implementing responsibility in research and innovation practices. But implementing responsibility means more than setting standards or enforcing compliance. It also means changing mindsets and promoting an ethical culture: A culture where scientific excellence also includes ethical excellence. In the Human Brain Project, we are integrating neuroethics and philosophy…
Engage with citizens about the future of neuroscience!
From November 2021 to February 2022, the Danish Board of Technology are organising citizen engagement workshops about international research collaboration and sharing of health data in neuroscience on site in 6 European countries (Denmark, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Germany & the UK). They are now inviting experts in neuroscience, neuromedicine, health data and data sharing to…
Neuroimages, artificial intelligence & re-identification of research subjects
Taking images of the brain using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI for short, also captures the face. For a long time, techniques that remove facial features from neuroimages have allowed for open sharing of anonymised neuroimages. But new developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning have made it possible to re-create the removed facial features…
Designing a responsible neuroscience research infrastructure
Over the past 8 years, the Human Brain Project (HBP) has tested the strengths and limitations of responsible research & innovation, also known as RRI. To mark the ten-year anniversary of RRI, a group of HBP researchers now share what can be learned from implementing this concept in a large multi-disciplinary research project. This includes…
Can you be cloned?
Why can we feel metaphysical nausea at the thought of cloned humans? I guess it has to do with how we, without giving ourselves sufficient time to reflect, are captivated by a simple image of individuality and cloning. The image then controls our thinking. We may imagine that cloning consists in multiplying our unique individuality in the…
Ethically responsible robot development
Development of new technologies sometimes draws inspiration from nature. How do plants and animals solve the problem? An example is robotics, where one wants to develop better robots based on what neuroscience knows about the brain. How does the brain solve the problem? Neuroscience, in turn, sees new opportunities to test hypotheses about the brain…
What is required of an ethics of artificial intelligence?
I recently highlighted criticism of the ethics that often figures in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). An ethics that can handle the challenges that AI presents us with requires more than just beautifully formulated ethical principles, values and guidelines. What exactly is required of an ethics of artificial intelligence? Michele Farisco, Kathinka Evers and Arleen Salles address the issue…
Ethics as renewed clarity about new situations
An article in the journal Big Data & Society criticizes the form of ethics that has come to dominate research and innovation in artificial intelligence (AI). The authors question the same “framework interpretation” of ethics that you could read about on the Ethics Blog last week. However, with one disquieting difference. Rather than functioning as a…
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