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A review by apurpleyuan
The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology by Nita Farahany
reflective
4.0
It was interesting to dig into the nuances of cognitive enhancements: her thoughts align much along my own, which is to say that enhancers such as ritalin or other ADHD drugs shouldn't necessarily be banned given other side effects are acceptable. There's little difference between using ADHD drugs or caffeine, for example (medical side effects properly managed, of course). There's quite a bit of sci-fi where cognitive enhancements are a norm and not necessarily a bad thing.
However Farahany provided very few answers on what point psychological exploitation derived from neuroscientific study interferes with free will. I agree there needs to be caution around interfering with personal autonomy, but Farahany seems to suggest social media designing their sites to be addictive crosses the line whereas "however begrudgingly, we must admit that neuromarketing per se does not violate cognitive liberty, so long as the research is conducted ethically and the findings are not used to intentionally cause us harm." It seems that she believes that one causes more harm that the other, and that is where the line needs to be drawn. However, defining what is considered harmful is... extremely complicated. Is McDonald's and Coca-Cola advertising considered harmful, given its effects on societal health? How can we say that infinite scrolls via social media is worse? Because of the impossibility of distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable manipulation, there's zero opportunity for regulation.
It's a great read to demonstrate how our free will is not our own. But I think it may be more important to think beyond the technology and neuroscience to really consider what kind of society we want to build. Without defining our values and how we as humans want to interact with technology, without determining what an "existential threat" to our humanity and free will actually is, we can't move forward. And unfortunately our technology and power to shape those things mindlessly is moving faster than we can handle.
However Farahany provided very few answers on what point psychological exploitation derived from neuroscientific study interferes with free will. I agree there needs to be caution around interfering with personal autonomy, but Farahany seems to suggest social media designing their sites to be addictive crosses the line whereas "however begrudgingly, we must admit that neuromarketing per se does not violate cognitive liberty, so long as the research is conducted ethically and the findings are not used to intentionally cause us harm." It seems that she believes that one causes more harm that the other, and that is where the line needs to be drawn. However, defining what is considered harmful is... extremely complicated. Is McDonald's and Coca-Cola advertising considered harmful, given its effects on societal health? How can we say that infinite scrolls via social media is worse? Because of the impossibility of distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable manipulation, there's zero opportunity for regulation.
It's a great read to demonstrate how our free will is not our own. But I think it may be more important to think beyond the technology and neuroscience to really consider what kind of society we want to build. Without defining our values and how we as humans want to interact with technology, without determining what an "existential threat" to our humanity and free will actually is, we can't move forward. And unfortunately our technology and power to shape those things mindlessly is moving faster than we can handle.