IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2017 - 68

This is a hopeful, if as yet experientially unjustified virtue ethics response
to brain jacking in all its forms -
especially military.
The additional ethical complexity
presented by brain implants (direct
or effectively direct) is that it arguably
makes these enhanced warfighters
into weapons - and thus subject
to the moral and legal requirements
of Article 36 of the Geneva Convention on War [4], [12] - in addition
to the ethical dilemmas of reduced
autonomy of potential remote control undermining or removing the
decision making of the warfighters
themselves, as already raised.
Although the ethos of the military
is "be all you can be," the problematic situation of being unable to refuse
enhancements requires attention.
Any enhancements that involve
brain jacking present significant personal control and autonomy issues.
These issues relate not to the initial
intrusiveness of the enhancement,
but also to the lack of full transparency as to exactly what inserted
chips or communications might do
to the person or how such enhancements could affect behavior - and
how these aspects could readily
be changed without a person's full
informed concurrence [18].
A further dimension is raised
by the growing gender aspects of
warfighters, as women increasingly
appear on the front lines [14].
Until we can address all these questions clearly and in a widely understood and acceptable form, the term
"brain implants" offers an immediate
cyborg shock to the audience, in order
to stimulate and permit a series of
badly needed contextually - dependent ethical discussions to begin in
a wider sphere, beyond the military.
These questions ares about what we
are, and what we can permit ourselves
to be made to become.
Singer [20] asserted more broadly about killer applications of tech-

Progress, 2011 https://scienceprogress.org/
2011/01/the-rise-and-decline-of-militaryhuman-enhancement/

nology that we are "ethical infants"
on this subject. He pointed out the
anticipation of these issues in science fiction (as we have done here
from a different angle):

[7] J.J. Fins, "Mind wars: Brain research and
national defense Moreno 2006," JAMA, vol.
297, no. 12, pp. 1379-1383, 2007.
[8] K. Ford and C. Glymour, "The enhanced
warfighter," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 70, no. 1, pp. 43-53, 2014.

We had better act soon. For
the thread that runs through
all of this is how fast - moving pace of technology and
change is making it harder for
our all too human institutions,
including those of ethics and
law, to keep pace [20].

[9] A. Howell, "Resilience, war, and austerity: The ethics of military human enhancement and the politics of data," Security
Dialogue, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 15-31, 2015.
[10] R. Jenkins, "Is StuxNet physical? Does
it matter?," J. Military Ethics, vol. 12, no. 1,
pp. 69-79, 2013.
[11] J.P. Lanodolt, "Human research ethics
considerations: A precursor for ethically
implementing advanced technologies into
NATO military operations," Canadian Military J., vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 14-21, 2011.

The next level of science fiction speculation on direct brain-software interfaces focuses on weaponization
aspects [22] complementing the
same authors technical contribution
[23]: More will follow.
Singer made his statement six
years ago: We clearly should make a
really serious start now.

[12] P. Lin, "Could human enhancement turn
soldiers into weapons that violate international law? Yes," Atlantic, Jan. 4, 2013.
[13] P. Lin, M.J. Mehlman, and K. Abney,
Enhanced Warfighters: Risk, Ethics, and
Policy. Calpoly.edu, 2013.
[14] M. Manijikian, "Not all soldiers: Hegemonic masculinity and the problems of
soliders' agency in an age of technological
intervention," in Handbook on Gender and
War, S. Sharoni, J. Welland, L. Stainer, and
J. Peteren, Eds. 2016, pp. 105-126.

Author Information
Marcus Wigan is an honorary professor with the School of Computing
and Information Technology, University of Wollongong, Australia.

[15] M. Michaud-Shields, "Personal augmentation - The ethics and operational
considerations of personal augmentation
in military operations," Canadian Military
J., vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 24-33, 2014.

References

[16] J.D. Moreno, Mind Wars: Brain Science and the Military in the 21st Century. Bellevue, 2012.

[1] F. Allhoff, P. Lin, J. Moor, and J. Weckert,
Ethics of Human Enhancement: 25 Questions & Answers. 2010; digitalcommons
.calpoly.edu/phil_fac/4/.

[17] F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and
Evil - The Complete Works of Friedrich
Nietzsche. Edinburgh, U.K.: Foulis, 1909.
[18] L. Robbins, "Refusing to be all you
can be: regulating against forced cognitive
enhancement in the military," in Military
Ethics for the 21st Century (Military and
Defence Ethics), M. Gross and D. Carrick,
Eds. London. U.K.: Routledge, 2016.

[2] Technology Horizons: A Vision for Air Force
Science and Technology 2010-30, Office of
the U.S. Air Force Chief Scientist, AF/ST-TR10-01-PR, 2010; http://www.defenseinnovation
marketplace.mil/resources/AF_Technology
Horizons2010-2030.pdf.

[19] D.S. Shunk, "Ethics and the Enhanced
Soldier of the Near Future," Military Rev.
pp. 91-97, Jan.-Feb. 2015.

[3] I. Azimov and A.C. Clarke, "Edited highlights of a lecture to British Mensa at the
Commonwealth Hall London WC2 given by
Isaac Azimov," Introduced by Arthur C Clarke
[Audio Cassette Tape]. London, U.K.: GravDav
Tape Productions, 1974.

[20] P.W. Singer, "The ethics of killer applications: Why is it so hard to talk about
morality when it comes to new military
technology," J. Military Ethics, vol. 9, no. 4,
pp. 299-212, 2010.

[4] M. Beard, J. Galliott, and S. Lynch, "Soldier
enhancement: Ethical risks and opportunities,"
Australian Army J., vol. 13, no. 1, p. 20, 2016.

[21] T. Zahn, Cobra. Arrow, 1985.
[22] R. Naam, "NeXus: Mankind gets an
upgrade," Angry Robot. Nottingham, U.K., 2013.

[5] F.E. Bloom, R.A. Anderson, R. Blanck,
E.N. Brown, et al., Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications,
Washington D.C., 2009.

[23] R. Naan, More than Human: Embracing
the Promise of Biological Enhancement.
New York, NY: Broadway Books, 2005.

[6] M. Burnham-Fink, "The rise and decline
of military human enhancement," Science

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

∕

march 2017

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2017