Being human in the time of neuroscience and artificial intelligence involve carefully exploring the nexuses of complexity where valid ideas are nevertheless in tension, manifesting subtleties and challenges that must not be overlooked. Each page expresses the existing tension(s) between ideas and within each theme, which emerged in the collective discussions, and are then complemented by insights from NHNAI network researchers.
Complexity on Health #1: Distinguishing between care, legitimate improvement and dehumanizing practices
Some participants in the discussions pointed out that it is in the nature of humans to constantly seek to progress and improve. Advances in AI and neuroscience in the healthcare field may enable us to increase our physical and mental capacities (notably with neurological prostheses or implanted brain-machine interfaces). These technologies could also prevent the loss of capacity associated with aging. Similar practices (with hip or articular prostheses) are already widely accepted in society. We can therefore imagine that more recent possibilities linked to AI and neuroscience (such as brain implants) could also eventually become acceptable.
Nevertheless, the discussions also reveal a concern about the motivations and significance of such augmentation practices. While it seems acceptable to many participants to use health technologies in a curative context (to combat disabilities or degenerative diseases), practices aimed at unlimited increases in longevity or brain capacity, or even military applications, are viewed with more caution, and are even often criticized.
Emphasis is also placed on the risk of overvaluing performance, efficiency and productivity, with an excessive focus on measurable and quantifiable aspects alone, to the detriment of taking into account questions of meaning and values, people’s feelings and life experiences.
So, for example, it’s not clear that the right response to severe fatigue or a feeling of weariness is to increase resistance through health technologies (such as drugs or brain implants). We need to consider the possibility that such fatigue or weariness may also signal deeper problems in a person’s life. Similarly, the discussions lead us to question the very idea of augmentation by technology, which could in some cases degenerate into dependence on technology and loss of competence (do I really become more “powerful” if a brain implant makes me capable of greater cognitive performance? What happens if I no longer have access to this technology, or if it malfunctions?)
On a more global level, some contributions criticize the idea of a systematic desire to surpass and reject all forms of limit, a desire that could go so far as to threaten our very humanity. Certain limits and vulnerabilities (such as being affectable and therefore susceptible to suffering and death) are at the heart of what it means to be human.
Insights from NHNAI academic network:
A. On human enhancement
Unprecedented means of human enhancement (cognitive amplifiers, neuroprosthetics, emotional regulation technologies, etc.) seem to be on the horizon. Their potential for improving quality of life and extending human capabilities beyond natural limits has long been highlighted.[1] Nevertheless, the development of these technologies is accompanied by legitimate concerns. In particular, their widespread availability could create unrealistic expectations, or foster a culture in which individuals are under constant “pressure to improve” to keep up with societal norms. In the long term, this could exacerbate inequalities between those to whom these technologies are financially accessible and those who are not, paving the way for a new form of “biological elitism.”[2] (Sandel, 2007). It is also to be feared that important societal values, such as the acceptance of human vulnerability and imperfection, which are often seen as important aspects of our common humanity, could be undermined by the constant quest for technological improvements. It is therefore imperative that demanding ethical frameworks are put in place to encourage the responsible use of technologies, and to ensure that the potential enhancement of individuals remains strictly a matter of choice, offered sometimes as a reasonnable opportunity, but never becomes an obligation.
B. Additional insights on Vulnerability and Humanness
Better understanding vulnerability with David Doat, associate professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of Lille, holder of the ETH+ Chair in Ethics, Technology and Humanities:[3]
Vulnerability is not weakness or poverty. Nor can it be reduced to old age, disability or illness. The origin of the word comes from the Latin vulnus, meaning “wound”. But here again, we need to distinguish between “vulnerability” and “vulneration”. The former refers to the possibility of being affected in one’s physical or psychological structure; the latter refers to the state following an injury. It’s important to make the difference. During a romantic encounter, for example, the lovers are in a state of vulnerability as they expose themselves to each other, each allowing themselves to be affected by the beloved, but both are not injured. Vulnerability can be an opportunity. But we forget this. Very often, vulnerable people are associated with the elderly, the dependent, the disabled… From an anthropological point of view, we are all vulnerable and exposed to more or less significant risks, but there are singular vulnerabilities of a social, economic, cultural or health nature. An elderly person in a retirement home is more vulnerable to Covid-19 than a young person. This does not mean, however, that they will catch it and die of it. The challenge of education and support is not just to look at the disaster pole. We also need to consider the situations in which some people find themselves, and which can be positively converted. We have something to do with and within our vulnerabilities.
Deconstructing the modern ideal of an all-powerful, completely autonomous human, with Chiara Pesaresi, associate professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of Lyon, scientific director of the Vulnerabilities University Chair:[4]
It’s true that the semantic field of vulnerability traditionally refers to devaluing representations, evoking ideas of lesser resistance and failure. Recognizing oneself as vulnerable means challenging modern and post-modern social imaginations centered on the ideas of progress, mastery and performance, and rethinking our individual and collective logic of action in light of the fragility of our lives, our institutions and even our environment.
Basically, it’s a question of deconstructing the modern ideal of a completely autonomous human being, freed from limits and also from dependence on others. This vision of man as capable of absolute self-determination has led to a reduction of vulnerability and its manifestations to contingent defects, which must be corrected, repaired or overcome at all costs (the expression “design yourself”, motto of the cyborg movement, illustrates this principle well).”
“However, this is not to glorify vulnerability or deny its testing, critical and even tragic nature: on the contrary, recognizing our own vulnerability is always part of a dialectic of consent and resistance, of acceptance and creative adaptation. It also reveals that we are never isolated beings, perfectly independent and autonomous. Emmanuel Levinas was convinced that subjectivity can grow only in the encounter with the other, where vulnerability presents itself as our common trait: for it is in his face that I recognize both his nakedness, his extreme vulnerability, and my own.
[1] Bostrom, N., & Roache, R. (2007). Ethical Issues in Human Enhancement. In J. Ryberg, T. Petersen, & C. Wolf (Eds.), New Waves in Applied Ethics, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 120-152.
[2] Sandel, M. J. (2007). The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
[3] Extract from David Doat, 2021, « La vulnérabilité peut être une chance. Mais on l’oublie », Interview by Brigitte Bègue in Actualités sociales hebdomadaires (N.3199 5 mars 2021), pp.38-39 (our transaltion), https://www.ash.tm.fr/hebdo/3199/entretien/la-vulnerabilite-peut-etre-une-chance-mais-on-loublie-634607.php
[4] Extract from the opinion piece “Il est urgent de reconnaître la vulnérabilité dans nos vies”, from Chiara Pesaresi, published in La Vie on May 10, 2022, https://www.lavie.fr/ma-vie/sante-bien-etre/il-est-urgent-de-reconnaitre-la-vulnerabilite-dans-nos-vies-82292.php
