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Tag: neuroprosthetics

Who Will Be the Members of Society 5.0? Towards an Anthropology of Technologically Posthumanized Future Societies

Toward Society 5.0: The Dynamics of Posthumanization

Social Sciences 8, no. 5 (2019)

ABSTRACT: The Japanese Government’s “Society 5.0” initiative aims to create a cyber-physical society in which (among other things) citizens’ daily lives will be enhanced through increasingly close collaboration with artificially intelligent systems. However, an apparent paradox lies at the heart of efforts to create a more “human-centered” society in which human beings will live alongside a proliferating array of increasingly autonomous social robots and embodied AI. This study seeks to investigate the presumed human-centeredness of Society 5.0 by comparing its makeup with that of earlier societies. By distinguishing “technological” and “non-technological” processes of posthumanization and applying a phenomenological anthropological model, the study demonstrates: (1) how the diverse types of human and non-human members expected to participate in Society 5.0 differ qualitatively from one another; (2) how the dynamics that will shape the membership of Society 5.0 can be conceptualized; and (3) how the anticipated membership of Society 5.0 differs from that of Societies 1.0 through 4.0. The study describes six categories of prospective human and non-human members of Society 5.0 and shows that all six have analogues in earlier societies – which suggests that social scientific analysis of past societies may shed unexpected light on the nature of Society 5.0.

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Istoty inaczej-ludzkie, quasi-ludzkie i nie-ludzkie jako członkowie przyszłych społeczeństw: Analiza dynamiki posthumanizacji technologicznej

Świat sposthumanizowany

The International Conference on Humans in a Technological World: The Anthropology of Technics • Jagiellonian University, Kraków • May 10, 2019

ABSTRACT: Procesy „posthumanizacji” mogą być rozumiane jako dynamika, za pomocą której społeczeństwo ludzkie włącza do siebie poza „naturalnymi” biologicznymi istotami ludzkimi innych członków, którzy przyczyniają się do struktury, działalności albo znaczenia tego społeczeństwa.
Dzisiaj posthumanizacja identyfikowana jest głównie z włączeniem w ludzkie społeczeństwo zaawansowanej sztucznej inteligencji i robotów społecznych, które ludzie zapraszają do swoich domów i miejsc pracy jako asystentów, współpracowników i towarzyszy. Rozmaite projekty badawcze stwierdzają sposoby, w jakie takie łączenie nie-ludzkiej sprawczości do ludzkiego społeczeństwa stwarza nowe wymiary społecznej rzeczywistości. W niniejszej prezentacji natomiast twierdzimy, że chociaż taka „posthumanizacja technologiczna” faktycznie jest fenomenem dość nowym, może być ona porównana z procesami „posthumanizacji nietechnologicznej,” które od dawna poszerzały społeczeństwa ludzkie o wiele typów nie-ludzkiej sprawczości. Na przykład, wszystkie społeczeństwa, w których ludzie zamieszkiwali i pracowali z zwierzętami domowymi; wierzyli w aniołów, demony albo potwory; albo starali się rozmawiać z zmarłymi krewnymi mogą być rozumiane jako społeczeństwa (nietechnologicznie) posthumanizowane. Starożytne formy posthumanizacji nietechnologicznej i rozwijające się formy posthumanizacji technologicznej będą zidentyfikowane, zanalizowane, i porównane przy zastosowaniu podejścia fenomenologicznego. Prezentacja pokaże, jak społeczeństwa posthumanizowane zarówno technologicznie jak i nietechnologicznie włączają różnych członków, których można klasyfikować jako „naturalne” biologiczne istoty ludzkie, sztucznie rozszerzone istoty ludzkie lub meta-ludzkie, epi-ludzkie, para-ludzkie, albo nie-ludzkie istoty.

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Neuromarketing Applications of Neuroprosthetic Devices: An Assessment of Neural Implants’ Capacities for Gathering Data and Influencing Behavior

In Business Models for Strategic Innovation: Cross-Functional Perspectives, edited by S.M. Riad Shams, Demetris Vrontis, Yaakov Weber, and Evangelos Tsoukatos, pp. 11-24 • London: Routledge, 2018

ABSTRACT: Neuromarketing utilizes innovative technologies to accomplish two key tasks: 1) gathering data about the ways in which human beings’ cognitive processes can be influenced by particular stimuli; and 2) creating and delivering stimuli to influence the behavior of potential consumers. In this text, we argue that rather than utilizing specialized systems such as EEG and fMRI equipment (for data gathering) and web-based microtargeting platforms (for influencing behavior), it will increasingly be possible for neuromarketing practitioners to perform both tasks by accessing and exploiting neuroprosthetic devices already possessed by members of society.

We first present an overview of neuromarketing and neuroprosthetic devices. A two-dimensional conceptual framework is then developed that can be used to identify the technological and biocybernetic capacities of different types of neuroprosthetic devices for performing neuromarketing-related functions. One axis of the framework delineates the main functional types of sensory, motor, and cognitive neural implants; the other describes the key neuromarketing activities of gathering data on consumers’ cognitive activity and influencing their behavior. This framework is then utilized to identify potential neuromarketing applications for a diverse range of existing and anticipated neuroprosthetic technologies.

It is hoped that this analysis of the capacities of neuroprosthetic devices to be utilized in neuromarketing-related roles can: 1) lay a foundation for subsequent analyses of whether such potential applications are desirable or inappropriate from ethical, legal, and operational perspectives; and 2) help information security professionals develop effective mechanisms for protecting neuroprosthetic devices against inappropriate or undesired neuromarketing techniques while safeguarding legitimate neuromarketing activities.

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An Axiology of Information Security for Futuristic Neuroprostheses: Upholding Human Values in the Context of Technological Posthumanization

Frontiers in Neuroscience 11, 605 (2017); MNiSW 2016 List A: 30 points; 2017 Impact Factor: 3.566

ABSTRACT: Previous works exploring the challenges of ensuring information security for neuroprosthetic devices and their users have typically built on the traditional InfoSec concept of the “CIA Triad” of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. However, we argue that the CIA Triad provides an increasingly inadequate foundation for envisioning information security for neuroprostheses, insofar as it presumes that (1) any computational systems to be secured are merely instruments for expressing their human users’ agency, and (2) computing devices are conceptually and practically separable from their users. Drawing on contemporary philosophy of technology and philosophical and critical posthumanist analysis, we contend that futuristic neuroprostheses could conceivably violate these basic InfoSec presumptions, insofar as (1) they may alter or supplant their users’ biological agency rather than simply supporting it, and (2) they may structurally and functionally fuse with their users to create qualitatively novel “posthumanized” human-machine systems that cannot be secured as though they were conventional computing devices. Simultaneously, it is noted that many of the goals that have been proposed for future neuroprostheses by InfoSec researchers (e.g., relating to aesthetics, human dignity, authenticity, free will, and cultural sensitivity) fall outside the scope of InfoSec as it has historically been understood and touch on a wide range of ethical, aesthetic, physical, metaphysical, psychological, economic, and social values. We suggest that the field of axiology can provide useful frameworks for more effectively identifying, analyzing, and prioritizing such diverse types of values and goods that can (and should) be pursued through InfoSec practices for futuristic neuroprostheses.

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Cyborgization and Virtual Worlds: Portals to Altered Reality

Volume 02 in the Posthuman Cyberware Sourcebook series • ISBN 978-1-944373-20-7 • Mnemoclave, 2017 • 36 pages

SUMMARY: Whether it’s adding a night-vision cybereye or acquiring a full cyborg body, the process of cyborgization reshapes the way in which an individual relates to the physical environment around her. But how does it transform her ability to dive – or to be pulled – into virtual worlds?

Cyborgization and Virtual Worlds: Portals to Altered Reality is a resource for designing campaigns grounded in near-future hard-SF settings in which synthetic bodies and VR cyberware offer characters entirely new ways of perceiving, interpreting, and manipulating the analog and digital worlds…

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Posthuman Cyberware: Blurring the Boundaries of Mind, Body, and Computer

Volume 01 in the Posthuman Cyberware Sourcebook series • ISBN 978-1-944373-18-4. Indianapolis: Mnemoclave, 2017 • 40 pages

SUMMARY: What realities lie behind the glimmering advertisements for designer cyberlimbs, combat neuroaugmentations, prosthetic eyes with squalor-suppression filters, and downloadable charisma?

Posthuman Cyberware: Blurring the Boundaries of Mind, Body, and Computer is a resource for designing campaigns set in near-future hard-SF worlds where sensory, cognitive, and motor neuroprostheses are being increasingly employed for human enhancement – and society is tilting ever further toward the dystopian.

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Neuroprosthetic Supersystems Architecture: Considerations for the Design and Management of Neurocybernetically Augmented Organizations

ISBN 978-1-944373-07-8 • Synthypnion Academic, 2017 • 312 pages

This volume serves a resource for the design and analysis of neuroprosthetic supersystems, which can be defined as organizations – either small or large, simple or complex – whose human members have been neuroprosthetically augmented. While numerous other texts focus on the biomedical engineering of neuroprostheses as technological devices or on the biocybernetic engineering of the host-device system comprising a neuroprosthesis and its human host, this volume presents a unique investigation of the intentional creation of higher-order supersystems that allow multiple neuroprosthetically augmented human beings to interact with one another and with external information systems in order to accomplish some shared task. In essence, this can be understood as the work of designing and managing neuroprosthetically enhanced organizations.

Individual chapters present an ontology of the neuroprosthesis as a computing device; a biocybernetic ontology of the host-device system; an ontology of the neuroprosthesis as an instrument of ‘cyborgization’; motivating and inhibiting factors for the organizational deployment of posthumanizing neuroprostheses by military organizations and other early adopters; an introduction to enterprise architecture in the context of technological posthumanization; an exploration of the implications of neuroprosthetic augmentation for enterprise architecture; and considerations for the development of effective network topologies for neuroprosthetically augmented organizations.

The conceptual frameworks formulated within this book offer a wide range of tools that can be of use to policymakers, ethicists, neuroprosthetic device manufacturers, organizational decision-makers, and others who must analyze or manage the complex legal, ethical, and managerial implications that result from the use of emerging neuroprosthetic technologies within an organizational context.

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The Handbook of Information Security for Advanced Neuroprosthetics

ISBN 978-1-944373-09-2 • Second edition • Synthypnion Academic, 2017 • 324 pages

How does one ensure information security for a computer that is entangled with the structures and processes of a human brain – and for the human mind that is interconnected with such a device? The need to provide information security for neuroprosthetic devices grows more pressing as increasing numbers of people utilize therapeutic technologies such as cochlear implants, retinal prostheses, robotic prosthetic limbs, and deep brain stimulation devices. Moreover, emerging neuroprosthetic technologies for human enhancement are expected to increasingly transform their human users’ sensory, motor, and cognitive capacities in ways that generate new ‘posthumanized’ sociotechnological realities. In this context, it is essential not only to ensure the information security of such neuroprostheses themselves but – more importantly – to ensure the psychological and physical health, autonomy, and personal identity of the human beings whose cognitive processes are inextricably linked with such devices. InfoSec practitioners must not only guard against threats to the confidentiality and integrity of data stored within a neuroprosthetic device’s internal memory; they must also guard against threats to the confidentiality and integrity of thoughts, memories, and desires existing within the mind the of the device’s human host.

This second edition of The Handbook of Information Security for Advanced Neuroprosthetics updates the previous edition’s comprehensive investigation of these issues from both theoretical and practical perspectives. It provides an introduction to the current state of neuroprosthetics and expected future trends in the field, along with an introduction to fundamental principles of information security and an analysis of how they must be re-envisioned to address the unique challenges posed by advanced neuroprosthetics. A two-dimensional cognitional security framework is presented whose security goals are designed to protect a device’s human host in his or her roles as a sapient metavolitional agent, embodied embedded organism, and social and economic actor. Practical consideration is given to information security responsibilities and roles within an organizational context and to the application of preventive, detective, and corrective or compensating security controls to neuroprosthetic devices, their host-device systems, and the larger supersystems in which they operate. Finally, it is shown that while implantable neuroprostheses create new kinds of security vulnerabilities and risks, they may also serve to enhance the information security of some types of human hosts (such as those experiencing certain neurological conditions).

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Managing the Ethical Dimensions of Brain-Computer Interfaces in eHealth: An SDLC-based Approach

In 9th Annual EMAB Conference: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Digital Ecosystems (EUROMED 2016) Book of Proceedings, edited by Demetris Vrontis, Yaakov Weber, and Evangelos Tsoukatos, pp. 876-90 • Engomi: EuroMed Press, 2016

ABSTRACT: A growing range of brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies is being employed for purposes of therapy and human augmentation. While much thought has been given to the ethical implications of such technologies at the ‘macro’ level of social policy and ‘micro’ level of individual users, little attention has been given to the unique ethical issues that arise during the process of incorporating BCIs into eHealth ecosystems. In this text a conceptual framework is developed that enables the operators of eHealth ecosystems to manage the ethical components of such processes in a more comprehensive and systematic way than has previously been possible. The framework’s first axis defines five ethical dimensions that must be successfully addressed by eHealth ecosystems: 1) beneficence; 2) consent; 3) privacy; 4) equity; and 5) liability. The second axis describes five stages of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) process whereby new technology is incorporated into an eHealth ecosystem: 1) analysis and planning; 2) design, development, and acquisition; 3) integration and activation; 4) operation and maintenance; and 5) disposal. Known ethical issues relating to the deployment of BCIs are mapped onto this matrix in order to demonstrate how it can be employed by the managers of eHealth ecosystems as a tool for fulfilling ethical requirements established by regulatory standards or stakeholders’ expectations. Beyond its immediate application in the case of BCIs, we suggest that this framework may also be utilized beneficially when incorporating other innovative forms of information and communications technology (ICT) into eHealth ecosystems.

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Information Security Concerns as a Catalyst for the Development of Implantable Cognitive Neuroprostheses

In 9th Annual EMAB Conference: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Digital Ecosystems (EUROMED 2016) Book of Proceedings, edited by Demetris Vrontis, Yaakov Weber, and Evangelos Tsoukatos, pp. 891-904 • Engomi: EuroMed Press, 2016

ABSTRACT: Standards like the ISO 27000 series, IEC/TR 80001, NIST SP 1800, and FDA guidance on medical device cybersecurity define the responsibilities that manufacturers and operators bear for ensuring the information security of implantable medical devices. In the case of implantable cognitive neuroprostheses (ICNs) that are integrated with the neural circuitry of their human hosts, there is a widespread presumption that InfoSec concerns serve only as limiting factors that can complicate, impede, or preclude the development and deployment of such devices. However, we argue that when appropriately conceptualized, InfoSec concerns may also serve as drivers that can spur the creation and adoption of such technologies. A framework is formulated that describes seven types of actors whose participation is required in order for ICNs to be adopted; namely, their 1) producers, 2) regulators, 3) funders, 4) installers, 5) human hosts, 6) operators, and 7) maintainers. By mapping onto this framework InfoSec issues raised in industry standards and other literature, it is shown that for each actor in the process, concerns about information security can either disincentivize or incentivize the actor to advance the development and deployment of ICNs for purposes of therapy or human enhancement. For example, it is shown that ICNs can strengthen the integrity, availability, and utility of information stored in the memories of persons suffering from certain neurological conditions and may enhance information security for society as a whole by providing new tools for military, law enforcement, medical, or corporate personnel who provide critical InfoSec services.

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Posthuman Management: Creating Effective Organizations in an Age of Social Robotics, Ubiquitous AI, Human Augmentation, and Virtual Worlds

ISBN 978-1-944373-05-4 • Second edition • Defragmenter Media, 2016 • 442 pages

What are the best practices for leading a workforce in which human employees have merged cognitively and physically with electronic information systems and work alongside social robots, artificial life-forms, and self-aware networks that are ‘colleagues’ rather than simply ‘tools’? How does one manage organizational structures and activities that span both actual and virtual worlds? How are the forces of technological posthumanization transforming the theory and practice of management?

This volume explores the reality that an organization’s workers, managers, customers, and other stakeholders increasingly comprise a complex network of human agents, artificial agents, and hybrid human-synthetic entities. The first part of the book develops the theoretical foundations of an emerging ‘organizational posthumanism’ and presents conceptual frameworks for understanding and managing the evolving workplace relationship between human and synthetic beings. Subsequent chapters investigate concrete management topics such as the likelihood that social robots might utilize charismatic authority to inspire and lead human workers; potential roles of AIs as managers of cross-cultural virtual teams; the ethics and legality of entrusting organizational decision-making to spatially diffuse robots that have no discernible identity or physical form; quantitative approaches to comparing the managerial capabilities of human and artificial agents; the creation of artificial life-forms that function as autonomous enterprises which evolve by competing against human businesses; neural implants as gateways that allow their human users to participate in new forms of organizational life; and the implications of advanced neuroprosthetics for information security and business model design.

As the first comprehensive application of posthumanist methodologies to the field of management, this volume will be of use to scholars and students of contemporary management and to management practitioners who must increasingly understand and guide the forces of technologization that are rapidly reshaping organizations’ form, dynamics, and societal roles.

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Neural Implants as Gateways to Digital-Physical Ecosystems and Posthuman Socioeconomic Interaction

In Digital Ecosystems: Society in the Digital Age, edited by Łukasz Jonak, Natalia Juchniewicz, and Renata Włoch, pp. 85-98 • Warsaw: Digital Economy Lab, University of Warsaw, 2016

ABSTRACT: For many employees, ‘work’ is no longer something performed while sitting at a computer in an office. Employees in a growing number of industries are expected to carry mobile devices and be available for work-related interactions even when beyond the workplace and outside of normal business hours. In this article it is argued that a future step will increasingly be to move work-related information and communication technology (ICT) inside the human body through the use of neuroprosthetics, to create employees who are always ‘online’ and connected to their workplace’s digital ecosystems. At present, neural implants are used primarily to restore abilities lost through injury or illness, however their use for augmentative purposes is expected to grow, resulting in populations of human beings who possess technologically altered capacities for perception, memory, imagination, and the manipulation of physical environments and virtual cyberspace. Such workers may exchange thoughts and share knowledge within posthuman cybernetic networks that are inaccessible to unaugmented human beings. Scholars note that despite their potential benefits, such neuroprosthetic devices may create numerous problems for their users, including a sense of alienation, the threat of computer viruses and hacking, financial burdens, and legal questions surrounding ownership of intellectual property produced while using such implants. Moreover, different populations of human beings may eventually come to occupy irreconcilable digital ecosystems as some persons embrace neuroprosthetic technology, others feel coerced into augmenting their brains to compete within the economy, others might reject such technology, and still others will simply be unable to afford it.

In this text we propose a model for analyzing how particular neuroprosthetic devices will either facilitate human beings’ participation in new forms of socioeconomic interaction and digital workplace ecosystems – or undermine their mental and physical health, privacy, autonomy, and authenticity. We then show how such a model can be used to create device ontologies and typologies that help us classify and understand different kinds of advanced neuroprosthetic devices according to the impact that they will have on individual human beings.

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Utopias and Dystopias as Cybernetic Information Systems: Envisioning the Posthuman Neuropolity

Creatio Fantastica no. 3(50) (2015)

ABSTRACT: While it is possible to understand utopias and dystopias as particular kinds of sociopolitical systems, in this text we argue that utopias and dystopias can also be understood as particular kinds of information systems in which data is received, stored, generated, processed, and transmitted by the minds of human beings that constitute the system’s ‘nodes’ and which are connected according to specific network topologies. We begin by formulating a model of cybernetic information-processing properties that characterize utopias and dystopias. It is then shown that the growing use of neuroprosthetic technologies for human enhancement is expected to radically reshape the ways in which human minds access, manipulate, and share information with one another; for example, such technologies may give rise to posthuman ‘neuropolities’ in which human minds can interact with their environment using new sensorimotor capacities, dwell within shared virtual cyberworlds, and link with one another to form new kinds of social organizations , including hive minds that utilize communal memory and decision-making. Drawing on our model, we argue that the dynamics of such neuropolities will allow (or perhaps even impel) the creation of new kinds of utopias and dystopias that were previously impossible to realize. Finally, we suggest that it is important that humanity begin thoughtfully exploring the ethical, social, and political implications of realizing such technologically enabled societies by studying neuropolities in a place where they have already been ‘pre-engineered’ and provisionally exist: in works of audiovisual science fiction such as films, television series, and role-playing games.

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Tachikomatic Domains: Utopian Cyberspace as a ‘Contingent Heaven’ for Humans, Robots, and Hybrid Intelligences

Tachikomatic Domains

His Master’s Voice: Utopias and Dystopias in Audiovisual Culture • Facta Ficta Research Centre, Kraków • March 24, 2015

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