The medium of XR (VR/AR/MR) is dependent and progressively enhanced by an interplay of various tracking technologies.
I am observing the XR device industry taking a path towards controller free input. Eye, facial and hand/body gesture tracking are becoming built-in, mainstream features. This means these devices are becoming intimately connected to our human bodies, able to capture intentional and unintentional motion and behavioral metrics.
When all barriers between human and machine disappear, we will ultimately lose the decision power to “put down the controller” and switch off – We, our bodies, turn into input devices and the software will read us from the moment we put on our XR headset.
EEG sensors and brain-computer interface (BCI) technology may accelerate the exposure of trackable data from our bodies. A thought or an intention may easily become synonymous with action. This raises many ethical questions regarding the blurring of intent and action through technology, what tracking methods deserve the user’s consent, what layers of control should be owned by the user, and where we see XR technology going.
This collection of research papers, books, articles, podcasts, and videos are resources that talk about XR Engineering Ethics & Neuroethics.
Ethics in XR content creation and the ethical codes that engineers/makers of XR enabling technology have subscribed to.
Please feel free to send suggestions of content that I am missing to contact@rolanddubois.com
Studies & Research Papers
- Constituting ‘Visual Attention’: On the Mediating Role of Brain Stimulation and Brain Imaging Technologies in Neuroscientific Practice
- Quantitative Review Finds No Evidence of Cognitive Effects in Healthy Populations From Single-session Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)
- Mind-Reading or Misleading? Assessing Direct-to-Consumer Electroencephalography (EEG) Devices Marketed for Wellness and Their Ethical and Regulatory Implications
- Who Uses Direct-to-Consumer Brain Stimulation Products, and Why? A Study of Home Users of tDCS Devices
- The digital placebo effect: Mobile mental health meets clinical psychiatry
- Owning Ethical Innovation: Claims about Commercial Wearable Brain Technologies
- Brain-Computer Interfaces and Personhood: Interdisciplinary Deliberations on Neural Technology
- Help, hope, and hype: Ethical dimensions of neuroprosthetics
- Ethics in HCI
Books
- Neuroethics – An Introduction with Readings (The MIT Press)
- Ethics for a Digital Age Vol.I Vol.II
- Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives in Neuroethics
- Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics (Oxford Library of Psychology)
Codes of Ethics
- NSPE (National Society of Professional Engineers) Code of Ethics for Engineers
- ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) Code of Ethics
- IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
- The Innovator’s Guide to Ethics
- Center for Responsible Brainwave Technologies -The Ethics of Brainwave Technology
Articles
- To-Do Is to Be: Foucault, Levinas, and Technologically Mediated Subjectivation
- What is it like to use a BCI? – insights from an interview study with brain-computer interface users
- Oversight of direct-to-consumer neurotechnologies
- Do “Brain-Training” Programs Work?
- The ethics of brain–computer interfaces
- Who Is Responsible If a Brain-Controlled Robot Drops a Baby?
- Neurotechnology, Elon Musk and the goal of human enhancement
- Facebook is funding brain experiments to create a device that reads your mind
- Future and ethics of neurotechnology and brain-computer interfaces
- Avoiding brain hacking – Challenges of cybersecurity and privacy in Brain Computer Interfaces
- Experts lay out their concerns about the ethics of brain implants and ‘brainjacking’
- The Unbelievable Future of Habit-Forming Technology
Events
- https://www.medien.ifi.lmu.de/ethicsofmr/
- Gesture Interaction with Devices and Systems: Is it Really Natural?
Podcasts
- https://voicesofvr.com/786-xr-safety-initiative-security-privacy-ethics-in-xr/
- Episode 64 – Weekly Weinersmith Soonish Series: Dr. Judy Illes on Neuroethics