{"id":4843,"date":"2017-04-20T00:43:50","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T00:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/facebook-plans-ethics-board-to-monitor-its-brain-computer-interface-work.html"},"modified":"2017-04-20T00:43:50","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T00:43:50","slug":"facebook-plans-ethics-board-to-monitor-its-brain-computer-interface-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-plans-ethics-board-to-monitor-its-brain-computer-interface-work.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook plans ethics board to monitor its brain-computer interface work"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Facebook will assemble an independent Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) panel to oversee its development of a direct brain-to-computer typing interface<\/a> it previewed today at its F8 conference. Facebook\u2019s RD department Building 8\u2019s head Regina Dugan tells TechCrunch, \u201cIt\u2019s early days . . . we\u2019re in the process of forming it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, much of the work on the brain interface is being conducted by Facebook\u2019s university research partners like\u00a0UC Berkeley and Johns Hopkins. Facebook\u2019s technical lead on the project, Mark Chevillet, says, \u201cThey\u2019re all held to the same standards as the NIH or other government bodies funding their work, so they already are working with institutional review boards at these universities that are ensuring that those standards are met.\u201d Institutional review boards ensure test subjects aren\u2019t being abused and research is being done as safely as possible.<\/p>\n

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Regina Dugan presents at F8<\/p>\n

Facebook hopes to use optical neural imaging technology to scan the brain 100 times per second to detect thoughts and turn them into text. Meanwhile, it\u2019s working on \u201cskin-hearing\u201d that could translate sounds into haptic feedback that people can learn to understand like braille. Dugan insists, \u201cNone of the work that we do that is related to this will be absent of these kinds of institutional review boards.\u201d<\/p>\n

So at least there will be independent ethicists working to minimize the potential for malicious use of Facebook\u2019s brain-reading technology to steal or police people\u2019s thoughts.<\/p>\n

During our interview, Dugan showed her cognizance of people\u2019s concerns, repeating the start of her keynote speech today saying, \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a technology that you developed with great impact that didn\u2019t have unintended consequences that needed to be guardrailed or managed. In any new technology you see a lot of hype talk, some apocalyptic talk and then there\u2019s serious work which is really focused on bringing successful outcomes to bear in a responsible way.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past, she says the safeguards have been able to keep up with the pace of invention. \u201cIn the early days of the Human Genome Project there was a lot of conversation about whether we\u2019d build a super race or whether people would be discriminated against for their genetic conditions and so on,\u201d Dugan explains. \u201cPeople took that very seriously and were responsible about it, so they formed what was called a ELSI panel . . . By the time that we got the technology available to us, that framework, that contractual, ethical framework had already been built, so that work will be done here too. That work will have to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Building 8 RD division head Regina Dugan at Facebook\u2019s Area 404 lab<\/p>\n

In just the span of a week, Facebook went from being criticized for not innovating and just copying Snapchat, to merely using its social network monopoly to squash the innovation of others<\/a>, to innovating so far into the future that it scares us and conjures dystopic thoughts.<\/p>\n

Worryingly, Dugan eventually appeared frustrated in response to my inquiries about how her team thinks about safety precautions for brain interfaces, saying, \u201cThe flip side of the question that you\u2019re asking is \u2018why invent it at all?\u2019 and I just believe that the optimistic perspective\u00a0<\/span>is that on balance, technological advances have really meant good things for the world if they\u2019re handled responsibly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s domination of social networking and advertising give it billions in profit per quarter to pour into RD. But its old \u201cMove fast and break things\u201d philosophy is a lot more frightening when it\u2019s building brain scanners.\u00a0Hopefully Facebook will prioritize the assembly of the ELSI ethics board Dugan promised and be as transparent as possible about the development of this exciting-yet-unnerving technology.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/lQzaeUrK_7Y\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook will assemble an independent Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) panel to oversee its development of a direct brain-to-computer typing interface it previewed today at its F8 conference. Facebook\u2019s <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-4843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t