Brain-computer-interface (BCI) devices are among the most promising medical innovations today. Individuals who are paralyzed or speechless due to injury or disease are able to learn to control motion and/or speech by means of a brain-computer-interface device. This can enable significant independence. However, brain chip devices might also be developed that would enable programs for mind control. Lukas Meier offers a comprehensive perspective –including technology, history and ethics—for ethical controls on BCI innovations.
Lukas J. Meier, Ph.D. is a Fellow-in-Residence at the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. He specializes in artificial intelligence, medical ethics, and neurophilosophy. Before joining the Safra Center, Lukas was a Junior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Dr.Meier studied philosophy at the University of Oxford and political science at the University of Göttingen. As part of a team developing an algorithm for ethical decision-making in the clinic, he also spent a year at the Technical University of Munich. His current research focuses on the interrelation between brain-computer interfaces, machine intelligence, and consciousness. He teaches in ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and medical ethics.
