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The Battle for Your Brain, with Nita Farahany

Art &
Culture

Navigating the complex legal and ethical dilemmas that will fundamentally impact our freedom

Imagine a world where people who suffer from epilepsy receive alerts moments before a seizure, where the average person can peer into their own mind to eliminate painful memories and we can easily cure addictions. This is also a world where your brain could be interrogated to learn your political beliefs, your thoughts can be used as evidence of a crime, and your own feelings can be held against you. 

Neuroscience has already made all of this possible today, and neurotechnology will soon become the ‘universal controller’ for all of our interactions with technology. That’s the claim made by Professor Nita Farahany who came to Intelligence Squared to share her insights in May 2023. According to her, the growth of commercial neurotechnology could be of immense benefit to humanity, but without safeguards, it could seriously threaten our fundamental human rights to privacy, freedom of thought and self-determination. 

Hear one of the world’s foremost experts on the ethics of neuroscience offer a path forward to navigate the complex legal and ethical dilemmas that will fundamentally impact our freedom to understand and define ourselves.

 

Event Name

The Battle for Your Brain, with Nita Farahany

Intelligence Squared+
Online Event
WATCH ON DEMAND
Speakers for the motion

  • Nita A. Farahany

    Professor of Law and Philosophy at Duke University and author of The Battle for Your Brain

Chair

  • Carl Miller

    Research Director at Demos and author of The Death of The Gods: The New Global Power Grab

Speakers

Speaker

Nita A. Farahany

Professor of Law and Philosophy at Duke University and author of The Battle for Your Brain

Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law and Philosophy at Duke University, and Founding Director of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society. She is a frequent commentator for national media and radio and keynote speaker at events including TED, the Aspen Ideas Festival, the World Economic Forum, and judicial conferences worldwide. From 2010-2017, she served as a Commissioner on the U.S. Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She is also co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Law and the Biosciences and on the Board of Advisors for Scientific American. Her new book is The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology.   
Chair

Carl Miller

Research Director at Demos and author of The Death of The Gods: The New Global Power Grab

Research Director and co-founder of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media (CASM) at the think tank Demos. He presented the BBC's flagship technology programme 'Click' and is author of The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power Grab which examines how new technologies change power dynamics in our societies. He was recently appointed to Chatham House's taskforce on Responsible AI.