Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) are a type of direct communication between the human brain and its functions and a computer that allow the human to control an external object, such as an artificial limb, or allow a digital device to control the human brain—for instance, to detect and stop epileptic seizures. A new form of BCI combined with AI is already being used experimentally for emotional therapy in psychiatric patients. I will outline this case and then discuss the ethical problems and possible resolutions that a corporation that makes AI-based appliances might consider in order to enhance the device’s ethicality, marketability, and the company’s reputation.

1. Brain-Computer Interface Projects:
Literature, Reality, and Cultural Implications
Brain-Computer Interface Projects:
Literature, Reality, and Cultural Implications
Brain-Computer Interface Projects:
Literature, Reality, and Cultural Implications
Kevin LaGrandeur, Ph.D.
Director of Research, Global AI Ethics
Institute;
President, LaGrandeur AI Ethics
Consulting;
Fellow, Institute for Ethics and Emerging
Technology
Brain-Computer
Interfaces:
Ethical issues
and resolutions

2. Newer Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) include AI:

3. Neuromodulation: BCI for epilepsy control using
DBS (Neuropace company)1

4. How it works
• (Aimed at drug-resistant epilepsy, alternative to
surgery)
• Built-in EEG detects brain activity
• AI determines if activity is pre-seizure or normal
• If pre-seizure, electro-stimulation of brain is started
and modulated by AI

5. Advantages of using AI (instead of scheduled
stimulation or surgery)1
• Quicker control of seizures
• Fewer side effects than other modes
• Reduction of tissue damage
• Better battery life for the mechanism

6. Another type of BCI = neuromodulation of
psychiatric disorders, like depression, OCD

8. Advantages
• KEY: Works well when other treatments fail: 90% success rate
• Timing of therapeutic stimulation is much better with AI modulation

9. 9 key ethical
values for
making AI:
(consensus from
36 AI ethics
reports from
various
countries)
(Harvard’s
Berkman-Klein
Center)

10. Chief problems reported by patients
•human autonomy (whose feelings, control of
thoughts)?
•Human agency (who’s doing what)?
•Identity (AI-human fusion) = both positive and
negative:
• “it became me, […] with this device I found myself…I could do anything”2 but also
• How much of what I think/do is me anymore? Estrangement leads to self-harm
•Privacy (how safe is patients’ brain data)?

12. Possible solutions
• Make sure patients understand possible changes in sense of self,
make sure they can handle that
• Avoid using with patients in periods of identity formation (eg.
Adolescence)
• Set up very secure data storage for brain data
• Do not share patient neurological data
• Find way to integrate rules about brain data into current regulations
• Problem: 12 privacy laws already stalled in US Congress

13. But be careful of complications of new AI
regulations
• There might be tensions between these design principles
• In that case, the EU regulations indicate that the company “must
establish methods of accountable deliberation”
• This means companies can’t just use checklists
• Might need consultants’ help to:
• Establish methods for deliberation that are accountable
• Help gather skilled people to decide tradeoffs to make
• tradeoffs must be documented so compliance officer has a record of
deliberations

14. Dr. Kevin LaGrandeur, (LaGrandeur AI Ethics
Consultancy)
• My work is on Academia.edu:
https://nyit.academia.edu/KevinLaGrandeur
• And on ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin-
Lagrandeur/research
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-lagrandeur-299a1b3/
• EMAIL: kevin.lagrandeur@gmail.com

15. References
1 ”Closed-loop brain-computer interfaces,” From the interface, 27 Sept
2020, accessed 2 Nov 2023. https://www.from-the-
interface.com/closed-loop-BCIs/
2 L. Huang and G. van Luijtelaar, “Brain computer interface for epilepsy
treatment,” in Brain-computer interface systems, ed. Reza Fazel-Rezai
(IntechOpen, 2013) ch.12. DOI: 10.5772/55800
3 F. Gilbert, et al. “Embodiment and Estrangement: Results from a First-
in-Human 'Intelligent BCI’ Trial,” Science and Engineering Ethics, 83–96
(2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-017-0001-5