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Document type:
Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Author(s):
Knopf, Sophia; Frahm, Nina; Pfotenhauer, Sebastian M.
Non-TUM Co-author(s):
nein
Cooperation:
-
Title:
How Neurotech Start-Ups Envision Ethical Futures: Demarcation, Deferral, Delegation
Abstract:
Like many ethics debates surrounding emerging technologies, neuroethics is increasingly concerned with the private sector. Here, entrepreneurial visions and claims of how neurotechnology innovation will revolutionize society—from brain-computer-interfaces to neural enhancement and cognitive phenotyping—are confronted with public and policy concerns about the risks and ethical challenges related to such innovations. But while neuroethics frameworks have a longer track record in public sector research such as the U.S. BRAIN Initiative, much less is known about how businesses—and especially start-ups—address ethics in tech development. In this paper, we investigate how actors in the field frame and enact ethics as part of their innovative R&D processes and business models. Drawing on an empirical case study on direct-to-consumer (DTC) neurotechnology start-ups, we find that actors engage in careful boundary-work to anticipate and address public critique of their technologies, which allows them to delineate a manageable scope of their ethics integration. In particular, boundaries are drawn around four areas: the technology’s actual capability, purpose, safety and evidence-base. By drawing such lines of demarcation, we suggest that start-ups make their visions of ethical neurotechnology in society more acceptable, plausible and desirable, favoring their innovations while at the same time assigning discrete responsibilities for ethics. These visions establish a link from the present into the future, mobilizing the latter as promissory place where a technology’s benefits will materialize and to which certain ethical issues can be deferred. In turn, the present is constructed as a moment in which ethical engagement could be delegated to permissive regulatory standards and scientific authority. Our empirical tracing of the construction of ‘ethical realities’ in and by start-ups offers new inroads for ethics research and governance in tech industries beyond neurotechnology.
Keywords:
Neuroethics; Responsible innovation; Direct-to-consumer neurotechnology; Vanguard visions; Knowledge-control regimes ; STS
Intellectual Contribution:
Discipline-based Research
Journal title:
Science and Engineering Ethics
Journal listet in FT50 ranking:
nein
Year:
2023
Journal volume:
29
Journal issue:
1
Pages contribution:
4
Covered by:
Web of Science
Fulltext / DOI:
doi:10.1007/s11948-022-00421-1
WWW:
https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11948-022-00421-1
Print-ISSN:
1353-3452, 1471-5546
Judgement review:
0
Key publication:
Ja
Peer reviewed:
Ja
Commissioned:
not commissioned
Technology:
Nein
Interdisciplinarity:
Ja
Mission statement:
;
Ethics and Sustainability:
Ja
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