A new technology for generating descriptions of mental images (mind-captioning) has been the subject of an extensive article on CNN. Among the experts invited to comment on the study was Dr Łukasz Szoszkiewicz from the Department of Constitutional Law at the AMU Faculty of Law and Administration.
In the article ‘Scientist turns people's mental images into text using "mind-captioning” technology,' Dr Szoszkiewicz comments on the consequences of such solutions for human rights: he emphasises that technologies capable of decoding our thoughts and speech from brain activity are emerging as one of the most serious challenges to the right to privacy and freedom of thought. He draws attention to the fact that the law must keep pace with the possibilities of decoding brain activity, before such tools begin to be used more widely outside of scientific research.
Dr Łukasz Szoszkiewicz is conducting research in this area within the framework of an NCN grant. “I am conducting an interdisciplinary research project that combines international law, neuroscience and neuroethics. Its central question is: do we need new 'neuro-laws', or do existing human rights treaties sufficiently protect individuals from the potential threats posed by neurotechnology?", the researcher explains.
"We are particularly interested in the so-called ‘neuro effect’: the seductive power of scientific research that references the brain or neural activity. Understanding whether and how this effect influences professionals' perceptions of neurotechnology is crucial for law-making processes. If experts are captivated by experiments involving 'mind reading,’ it can lead to excessive regulatory restrictions on the development of neurotechnology," explains Dr Szoszkiewicz.
The following stages of the project focus on analysing the obligations arising from international human rights treaties. The researcher plans to pay particular attention to the rights of persons with disabilities, who may be both the primary beneficiaries of neurotechnology (e.g., brain-computer interfaces) and a group particularly vulnerable to potential abuse, e.g., in a situation where neural data falls into the hands of criminals. The research will also cover the obligations of private entities that are increasingly investing in neurotechnology, such as Neuralink, Synchron and Emotiv.
Dr Szoszkiewicz also refers to these issues in his article ‘Mental privacy: navigating risks, rights and regulation’, published in EMBO Reports, in which he and Prof. Rafael Yuste analyse how contemporary law responds to the risks associated with the development of neurotechnology. We warmly recommend reading this article.