Andrea Lavazza

As we write this research paper, we notice an explosion in popularity of machine learning in numerous fields (ranging from governance, education, and management to criminal justice, fraud detection, and internet of things). In this contribution, rather than focusing on any of those fields, which have been well-reviewed already, we decided to concentrate on a series of more recent applications of deep learning models and technologies that have only recently gained significant track in the relevant literature. These applications are concerned with artistic production (Sect. 2.1), the writing process (Sect. 2.2), music production (Sect. 2.3), text recognition and attribution (Sect. 2.4). After reviewing and analyzing the positive contributions as well as some of the major limitations of these technologies in each of those fields, we critically reflect (Sect. 3) on how their widespread implementation may affect humans and their creativity. In Sect. 4, we notice that deep learning models are here to stay; so, rather than embracing a negative or pessimistic stance with respect to their future applications in creative domains, we suggest a balanced approach for their assessment and beneficial usage. Finally (Sect. 5), we conclude by summarising what we have achieved and by pointing out possible future research directions.

Human cerebral organoids are three-dimensional biological cultures grown in the laboratory to mimic as closely as possible the cellular composition, structure, and function of the corresponding organ, the brain. For now, cerebral organoids lack blood vessels and other characteristics of the human brain, but are also capable of having coordinated electrical activity. They have been usefully employed for the study of several diseases and the development of the nervous system in unprecedented ways. Research on human cerebral organoids is proceeding at a very fast pace and their complexity is bound to improve. This raises the question of whether cerebral organoids will also be able to develop the unique feature of the human brain, consciousness. If this is the case, some ethical issues would arise. In this article, we discuss the necessary neural correlates and constraints for the emergence of consciousness according to some of the most debated neuroscientific theories. Based on this, we consider what the moral status of a potentially conscious brain organoid might be, in light of ethical and ontological arguments. We conclude by proposing a precautionary principle and some leads for further investigation. In particular, we consider the outcomes of some very recent experiments as entities of a potential new kind.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling triggered a global debate about access to abortion and the legislative models governing it. In the United States, there was a sudden reversal of federal guidance about pregnancy termination that is unprecedented in Western and high-income countries. The strong polarization on the issue of abortion and the difficulty of finding a point of compromise lead one to consider the experiences of countries that have had different paths. Italy stands as a candidate for being a partially alternative model because it allows abortion up to 12 weeks, but without considering it a subjective right. The legislation in place since 1978 aims to balance the interests of the fetus and those of the woman. An issue often raised concerning Italian law is that of conscientious objection granted to doctors. Many gynecologists declare themselves objectors, and this makes access to abortion more difficult in some regions of Italy. After discussing this issue and envisaging different ways to deal with it, the article concludes by highlighting new dilemmas about a possible divorce between the law and medical ethics in different directions and offers some avenues to begin setting up a response.

It is often contended that certain enhancement technologies are acceptable, because they simply update traditional ways of pursuing the improvement of human capacities. This is not true with reference to moral bioenhancement, because of the radical difference between traditional and biotechnological ways of producing moral progress. These latter risk having serious negative effects on our moral agency, by causing a substantial loss of freedom and capacity of authentic moral behaviour, by affecting our moral identity and by imposing a standard conception of moral personality.

Human brain organoids (HBOs) are three-dimensional biological entities grown in the laboratory in order to recapitulate the structure and functions of the adult human brain. They can be taken to be novel living entities for their specific features and uses. As a contribution to the ongoing discussion on the use of HBOs, the authors identify three sets of reasons for moral concern. The first set of reasons regards the potential emergence of sentience/consciousness in HBOs that would endow them with a moral status whose perimeter should be established. The second set of moral concerns has to do with an analogy with artificial womb technology. The technical realization of processes that are typically connected to the physiology of the human body can create a manipulatory and instrumental attitude that can undermine the protection of what is human. The third set concerns the new frontiers of biocomputing and the creation of chimeras. As far as the new frontier of organoid intelligence is concerned, it is the close relationship of humans with new interfaces having biological components capable of mimicking memory and cognition that raises ethical issues. As far as chimeras are concerned, it is the humanization of nonhuman animals that is worthy of close moral scrutiny. A detailed description of these ethical issues is provided to contribute to the construction of a regulative framework that can guide decisions when considering research in the field of HBOs.

Organoids and specifically human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are one of the most relevant novelties in the field of biomedical research. Grown either from embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells, HCOs can be used as in vitro three-dimensional models, mimicking the developmental process and organization of the developing human brain. Based on that, and despite their current limitations, it cannot be assumed that they will never at any stage of development manifest some rudimentary form of consciousness. In the absence of behavioral indicators of consciousness, the theoretical neurobiology of consciousness being applied to unresponsive brain-injured patients can be considered with respect to HCOs. In clinical neurology, it is difficult to discern a capacity for consciousness in unresponsive brain-injured patients who provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness. In such scenarios, a validated neurobiological theory of consciousness, which tells us what the neural mechanisms of consciousness are, could be used to identify a capacity for consciousness. Like the unresponsive patients that provide a diagnostic difficulty for neurologists, HCOs provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness. Therefore, this article discusses how three prominent neurobiological theories of consciousness apply to human cerebral organoids. From the perspective of the Temporal Circuit Hypothesis, the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, and the Integrated Information Theory, we discuss what neuronal structures and functions might indicate that cerebral organoids have a neurobiological capacity to be conscious.

In his interesting commentary, Joshua Shepherd raises two points—one related to epistemology, the other to ethics—about our article on human cerebral organoids.1 2 From the epistemological standpoint, he calls into question the need for a theory of consciousness. A theory of consciousness, for him, is not necessary because of the lack of consensus about the very nature of consciousness. Shepherd suggests that ‘given widespread disagreement, applying a theory of consciousness may not be helpful when attempting to diagnose the presence of consciousness in cerebral organoids’. In Shepherd’s view, it would be better to transfer ‘concepts already under development in work on the presence and structure of consciousness in difficult marginal cases involving traumatic brain injury’.2 We could not agree more on this last point; detecting a minimal capacity for consciousness in the brain of comatose patients is a very similar challenge to inferring the presence of consciousness in cerebral organoids. Every day, as a by-product of saving many lives, intensive care medicine artificially produces thousands of brains that may remain isolated, split or fragmented; in the worst case, cortical islands, or an archipelago of islands, may survive while being disconnected from the outside world. Can these islands host some form of consciousness? That is, does it feel like anything to be a large piece of human cortex? Addressing this difficult question requires the development of general, objective brain-based indices of consciousness that are independent of sensory processing, executive functions and motor outputs.3 Consider, for example, a patient showing reflexive spontaneous behaviour, no response to command and no ability to communicate. In her brain, afferent pathways are damaged, thereby impairing the recruitment of cortical areas in response to sensory stimulation; basal ganglia, as well as other frontal structures supporting executive functions, are impaired. However, resting metabolism and significant electroencephalography …

Organoids are three-dimensional biological structures grown in vitro from different kinds of stem cells that self-organise mimicking real organs with organ-specific cell types. Recently, researchers have managed to produce human organoids which have structural and functional properties very similar to those of different organs, such as the retina, the intestines, the kidneys, the pancreas, the liver and the inner ear. Organoids are considered a great resource for biomedical research, as they allow for a detailed study of the development and pathologies of human cells; they also make it possible to test new molecules on human tissue. Furthermore, organoids have helped research take a step forward in the field of personalised medicine and transplants. However, some ethical issues have arisen concerning the origin of the cells that are used to produce organoids and their properties. In particular, there are new, relevant and so-far overlooked ethical questions concerning cerebral organoids. Scientists have created so-called mini-brains as developed as a few-months-old fetus, albeit smaller and with many structural and functional differences. However, cerebral organoids exhibit neural connections and electrical activity, raising the question whether they are or will one day be somewhat sentient. In principle, this can be measured with some techniques that are already available, which are used for brain-injured non-communicating patients. If brain organoids were to show a glimpse of sensibility, an ethical discussion on their use in clinical research and practice would be necessary.

What is the goal of creativity? Is it just a symbolic reshuffling or a moment of semantic extension? Similar to the contrast between syntax and semantics, creativity has an internal and an external aspect. Contrary to the widespread view that emphasises the problem-solving role of creativity, here we consider whether creativity represents an authentic moment of ontological discovery and semantic openness like Schopenhauer and Picasso suggested. To address the semantic aspect of creativity, we take advantage of recent externalist models of the mind suggesting that the mind is more than symbol recombination.

Many governments have seen digital health technologies as promising tools to tackle the current COVID-19 pandemic. A much-talked example in this context involves the recent deluge of digital contact tracing apps aimed at detecting Covid-19 exposure. In this short contribution we look at the bio-political justification of this phenomenon and reflect on whether DCT apps constitute, as it is often argued, a serious potential breach of our right to privacy. Despite praising efforts attempting to develop legal and ethical frameworks for DCT apps’ usage; we argue that such endeavours are not sufficient to tackle the more fundamental problem of mass surveillance, which will remain largely unaddressed unless we deal with the biopolitical arguments presented and resort to a technical and structural defence.

The rise of neurotechnologies, especially in combination with artificial intelligence (AI)-based methods for brain data analytics, has given rise to concerns around the protection of mental privacy, mental integrity and cognitive liberty – often framed as “neurorights” in ethical, legal, and policy discussions. Several states are now looking at including neurorights into their constitutional legal frameworks, and international institutions and organizations, such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe, are taking an active interest in developing international policy and governance guidelines on this issue. However, in many discussions of neurorights the philosophical assumptions, ethical frames of reference and legal interpretation are either not made explicit or conflict with each other. The aim of this multidisciplinary work is to provide conceptual, ethical, and legal foundations that allow for facilitating a common minimalist conceptual understanding of mental privacy, mental integrity, and cognitive liberty to facilitate scholarly, legal, and policy discussions.

A recent interpretation of artificial intelligence (AI) (Floridi 2013, 2022) suggests that the implementation of AI demands the investigation of the binding conditions that make it possible to build and integrate artifacts into our lived world. Such artifacts can successfully interact with the world because our environment has been designed to be compatible with intelligent machines (such as robots). As the use of AI becomes ubiquitous in society, possibly leading to the formation of increasingly intelligent bio-technological unions, there will likely be a coexistence of a plethora of micro-environments wrapped and tailored around humans and basic robots. The key element of this pervasive process will be the capacity to integrate biological realms in an infosphere suitable for the implementation of AI technologies. This process will require extensive datafication. This is because data is the basis of the logical-mathematical codes and models that drive and guide AI. This process will have huge consequences on workplaces, on workers, as well as on the decision-making processes required for the functioning of future societies. In this paper we will offer a comprehensive reflection on the moral and social implications of datafication as well as a set of considerations about its desirability, which will be informed by the following insights: (1) full protection of privacy may become structurally impossible, thus leading to undesirable forms of political and social control; (2) worker’s freedom may be reduced; (3) human creativity, imagination, and even divergence from AI logic might be channeled and possibly discouraged; (4) there will likely be a push towards efficiency and instrumental reason, which will become preeminent in production lines as well as in society.

Neurotechnologies broadly understood are tools that have the capability to read, record and modify our mental activity by acting on its brain correlates. The emergence of increasingly powerful and sophisticated techniques has given rise to the proposal to introduce new rights specifically directed to protect mental privacy, freedom of thought, and mental integrity. These rights, also proposed as basic human rights, are conceived in direct relation to tools that threaten mental privacy, freedom of thought, mental integrity, and personal identity. In this paper, our goal is to give a philosophical foundation to a specific right that we will call right to mental integrity. It encapsulates both the classical concepts of privacy and non-interference in our mind/brain. Such a philosophical foundation refers to certain features of the mind that hitherto could not be reached directly from the outside: intentionality, first-person perspective, personal autonomy in moral choices and in the construction of one's narrative, and relational identity. A variety of neurotechnologies or other tools, including artificial intelligence, alone or in combination can, by their very availability, threaten our mental integrity. Therefore, it is necessary to posit a specific right and provide it with a theoretical foundation and justification. It will be up to a subsequent treatment to define the moral and legal boundaries of such a right and its application.

Following a trend in bioethical/applied ethics approaches, one of the frustrating features of studies on technological human enhancement is their dichotomous tendency. Often, benefits and risks of technological human enhancement are stated in theoretically and empirically vague, polarized, unweighted ways. This has blocked the debate in the problematic ‘pros vs. cons’ stage, leading to the adoption of extremist positions. In this paper, we will address one side of the problem: the focus on risks and the imprecise approach to them. What motivates our approach is the identification of the weaknesses of the anti-enhancement criticism, which stem from its use of the concept of risk, as well as the heuristic of fear and the precautionary principle. Thus, ‘taking a step back’ to move forward in the debate, our purpose is to establish some theoretical foundations concerning the concept of risk, recognizing, at the same time, its complexity and importance for the debate. Besides the concept of risk, we emphasize the concept of existential risk, and we make some considerations about epistemic challenges. Finally, we highlight central features of more promising approaches to move the debate forward. Keywords: Human enhancement technologies, risk, uncertainty, conceptual problem, epistemic challenges.

The goal of this paper is to encourage participants in the debate about the locus of cognition (e.g., extended mind vs embedded mind) to turn their attention to noteworthy anthropological and sociological considerations typically (but not uniquely) arising from transhumanist and posthumanist research. Such considerations, we claim, promise to potentially give us a way out of the stalemate in which such a debate has fallen. A secondary goal of this paper is to impress trans and post-humanistically inclined readers to embrace (or at least seriously reflect on) the extended mind thesis as a potential gamechanger to the state of play in their own debates. We start off (Sect. 1) by reviewing two crucial ideas (homo faber and plasticity of the body schema) that are instrumental in setting up the dispute between extended and embedded. We then summarise (Sect. 2), the stalemate between these two competing accounts of cognition, and review some of the dialectics underlying it. In Sect. 3, to get out of the stalemate, we propose to focus on a series of important anthropological and sociological considerations derived from and related to trans and posthumanist research. In doing so, we claim (Sect. 4) that an extended approach to cognition becomes anthropologically preferable and morally as well as socially more desirable than an embedded one.

Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics stand to change many aspects of our lives, including our values. If trends continue as expected, many industries will undergo automation in the near future, calling into question whether we can still value the sense of identity and security our occupations once provided us with. Likewise, the advent of social robots driven by AI, appears to be shifting the meaning of numerous, long-standing values associated with interpersonal relationships, like friendship. Furthermore, powerful actors’ and institutions’ increasing reliance on AI to make decisions that may affect how people live their lives may have a significant impact on privacy while also raising issues about algorithmic transparency and human control. In this paper, building and expanding on previous works, we will look at how the deployment of Artificial Intelligence technology may lead to changes in identity, security, and other crucial values (such as friendship, fairness, and privacy). We will discuss what challenges we may face in the process, while critically reflecting on whether such changes may be desirable. Finally, drawing on a series of considerations underlying virtue ethics, we will formulate a set of preliminary suggestions, which—we hope—can be used to more carefully guide the future roll out of AI technologies for human flourishing; that is, for social and moral good.

In a recent paper, Cassinadri (2022) raised substantial criticism about the possibility of using moral reasons to endorse the hypothesis of extended cognition (EXT) over its most popular alternative, the embedded view (EMB). In particular, Cassinadri criticized 4 of the arguments we formulated to defend EXT and argued that our claim that EXT might be preferable to EMB (on the grounds of its progressiveness and inclusiveness) does not stand close scrutiny. In this short reply, we point out—contra Cassinadri—why we still believe that there are moral reasons to prefer EXT over EMB, hence why we think that the former is more inclusive and more progressive than the latter.

We start by introducing the idea of echo chambers. Echo chambers are social and epistemic structures in which opinions, leanings, or beliefs about certain topics are amplified and reinforced due to repeated interactions within a closed system; that is, within a system that has a rather homogeneous sample of sources or people, which all share the same attitudes towards the topics in question. Echo chambers are a particularly dangerous phenomena because they prevent the critical assessment of sources and contents, thus leading the people living within them to deliberately ignore or exclude opposing views. In the second part of this paper, we argue that the reason for the appearance of echo chambers lies in the adoption of what we call ‘epistemic vices’. We examine which vices might be responsible for their emergence, and in doing so, we focus on a specific one; ‘epistemic violence’. In assessing and evaluating the role of this epistemic vice, we note that it can be triggered by epistemic contexts characterized by high stakes that may turn ordinary intellectual virtues (such as skepticism) into vices (such as denialism). In the third part of this contribution, we suggest a way to deal with echo chambers. The solution focuses on advocating a responsibilist pedagogy of virtues and vices that -we claim- might be capable of preventing their emergence.

While research to improve memory or counter decay caused by neurodegenerative diseases has a fairly long history, scientific attempts to erase memories are very recent. The use of non-invasive brain stimulation for memory modulation represents a new and promising application for the treatment of certain disorders [such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ]. However, numerous ethical issues are related to memory intervention. In particular, the possibility of using forms of non-invasive brain stimulation requires to distinguish treatment interventions from the enhancement of the healthy. Furthermore, a range of important societal and legal concerns arise when manipulating memories. In this short contribution, we address some of the most significant ethical, social, and legal implications surrounding the application of memory-modulation techniques and offer a series of reflections and considerations, which we hope can be of use to guide -and perhaps regulate- their potential, future implementation in society.

BackgroundThe Covid-19 pandemic caused situations where, in some hospitals, there were more patients in need of urgent treatment in intensive care units (ICU) than were available. In particular, there were not sufficient ventilators or critical care resources for all patients in danger of dying from respiratory failure or other organ failures.DiscussionAs the “first come, first served” criterion was not considered adequate, more nuanced and fairer clinical criteria were proposed to assess whom to treat first. One type of patients that has not been considered in the literature so far is that of “important patients”, individuals that many people might consider worthy of priority treatment for the contribution they made or might make to society as a whole.SummaryIn this article, we discuss the moral insights behind the possible treatment of “important patients” and suggest a supererogatory solution of voluntary renunciation/withdrawal. Details of the proposal are explained, and potential objections are addressed.

Background The 2020-2021 coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is just the latest epidemic event that requires us to rethink and change our understanding of health. Health should no longer be conceived only in relation to human beings, but in unitary terms, as a dimension that connects humans, animals, plants, and the environment (holistic view, One Health). In general, alterations occurring in this articulated chain of life trigger a domino effect. Methodology In this paper, we review the One Health paradigm in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic and distinguish two approaches within it that might be dubbed the Prudent one and the Radical one. Each approach is structured in three levels – epistemological, medical, and ethical. Results In this way, we show how we humans can better address the pandemic today and how, in the future, we can treat the whole living system better, by renouncing our anthropocentric perspective on health. Conclusion We hold that the Prudent approach can be very helpful, and we discuss the medical and ethical issues related to it. We also consider the Radical view and the epistemological turn it requires compared to the Prudent one.

We begin by introducing our readers to the Extended Mind Thesis and briefly discuss a series of arguments in its favour. We continue by showing of such a theory can be resisted and go on to demonstrate that a more conservative account of cognition can be developed. We acknowledge a stalemate between these two different accounts of cognition and notice a couple of issues that we argue have prevented further progress in the field. To overcome the stalemate, we propose to focus on the ethical implications of these theories. We link work conducted on the Extended Mind Thesis with contemporary transhumanist research and claim that extended may be ethically preferred over embedded because it is a more progressive and inclusive theory.