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It is our pleasure to present you with  The Neuroethics Blog  Reader:  Black Mirror  Edition! This reader features the seven contributions from the blog's  Black Mirror  series, in which six different student writers explored the technology and neuroethical considerations presented in various  episodes of the British science fiction anthology television series.  As Dr. Karen Rommelfanger puts it:  T his reader "... features critical reflections on the intriguing, exciting and sometimes frightful imagined futures for neurotechnology. Every day, in real life, we move closer to unraveling the secrets of the brain and in so doing become closer to understanding how to intervene with the brain in ways previously unimaginable. Neuroscience findings and the accompanying neurotechnologies created from these findings promise to transform the landscape of every aspect of our lives. As neuroethicists, we facilitate discussions on the aspirations of neu...

By Karola Kreitmair  Karola Kreitmair , PhD, is a Clinical Ethics Fellow at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics . She received her PhD in philosophy from Stanford University in 2013 and was a postdoctoral fellow in Stanford’s Thinking Matters program from 2013-2016. Her research interests include neuroethics, especially new technologies, deep brain stimulation, and the minimally-conscious state, as well as ethical issues associated with wearable technology and citizen science.   Brain-computer interfaces, neurostimulation devices, virtual reality systems, wearables, and smart phone apps are increasingly available as consumer technologies intended to promote health and wellness, entertainment, productivity, enhancement, communication, and education. At the same time, a growing body of literature addresses ethical considerations with respect to these neurotechnologies (Wexler 2016; Ienca & Adorno 2017; Kreitmair & Cho 2017). The ultimate goal of ethical consum...

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...