temp_copy

By Elisabeth Hildt Image courtesy of  Pixabay . Research is not an isolated activity. It takes place in a social context, sometimes influenced by value assumptions and sometimes accompanied by social and ethical implications. A recent example of this complex interplay is an article, “ Deep neural networks can detect sexual orientation from faces ” by Yilun Wang and Michal Kosinski, accepted in 2017 for publication in the J ournal of Personality and Social Psychology. In this study on face recognition, the researchers used deep neural networks to classify the sexual orientations of persons depicted in facial images uploaded on a dating website. While the discriminatory power of the system was limited, the algorithm was reported to have achieved higher accuracy in the setting than human subjects. The study can be seen in the context of the “prenatal hormone theory of sexual orientation,” which claims that gay men and women tend to have gender-atypical facial morphology. The abstract ...

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons . The Neuroethics Blog hosted a special series on Black Mirror over the past year, originally coinciding with the release of its third season on Netflix . Black Mirror is noted for its telling of profoundly human stories in worlds shaped by current or future technologies. Somnath Das, now a medical student at Thomas Jefferson University, founded the Blog’s series on Black Mirror. Previous posts covered "Be Right Back" , "The Entire History of You" ,  "Playtest" , "San Junipero" , "Men Against Fire" , "White Bear" , and "White Christmas" . With Season 4 released at the end of December 2017, Somnath reconvened with contributing authors Nathan Ahlgrim, Sunidhi Ramesh, Hale Soloff, and Yunmiao Wang to review the new episodes and discuss the common neuroethical threads that pervade Black Mirror. The discussion has been edited for clarity and conciseness.  *SPOILER ALERT* - The followin...

By Sunidhi Ramesh The main dome of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). (Image courtesy of Wikimedia .) The morning of February 1, 2018, MIT President L. Rafael Reif sent an email addressed to the entire institute community. In it was an announcement introducing the world to a new era of innovation—the MIT Intelligence Quest , or MIT IQ. Formulated to “advance the science and engineering of both human and machine intelligence,” the project aims “to discover the foundations of human intelligence and drive the development of technological tools that can positively influence virtually every aspect of society.” The kicker? MIT IQ not only exists to develop these futuristic technologies, but it also seeks to “investigate the social and ethical implications of advanced analytical and predictive tools.” In other words, one of the most famous and highly ranked universities in the world has dedicated itself to preemptively consider the consequences of the future of technology ...