Ethical Concerns About Personhood, Responsibility, and Privacy in Active and Passive Brain-Computer Interfaces

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are intelligent systems that enable direct communication between the human brain and machines. While BCI systems are promising for future medical and non-medical applications, studies concerning their ethical considerations are growing. However, no previous study has examined how the public’s ethical perception of the BCI technology is affected by the particular BCI type in question. This study thus considered whether the public experienced active and passive BCIs differently in the prominent ethical domains of personhood, responsibility and privacy. Results suggest that active BCIs induce a higher ethical concern regarding personhood, and that women experienced privacy to be more concerning in passive BCIs. There were no other significant differences between the two BCI types in the examined ethical domains. A regression analysis also indicated that a person’s general ethical concern for BCIs was unaffected by their demographical information. This study provides preliminary insights for the development of ethically informed BCI systems.