How Neurotech Start-Ups Envision Ethical Futures: Demarcation, Deferral, Delegation.
Direct-to-consumer neurotechnology
Knowledge-control regimes
Neuroethics
Responsible innovation
STS
Vanguard visions
Journal
Science and engineering ethics
ISSN: 1471-5546
Titre abrégé: Sci Eng Ethics
Pays: England
ID NLM: 9516228
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
02 02 2023
02 02 2023
Historique:
received:
06
04
2021
accepted:
15
11
2022
entrez:
2
2
2023
pubmed:
3
2
2023
medline:
7
2
2023
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
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.
Identifiants
pubmed: 36729246
doi: 10.1007/s11948-022-00421-1
pii: 10.1007/s11948-022-00421-1
pmc: PMC9894989
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
4Informations de copyright
© 2023. The Author(s).
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