Criminals could be tracked and controlled via brain chip monitoring in the future, according to neurotechnology law experts.
Legal theorists are preparing for a future with widespread use of brain chips and augmented humans.
Neurotechnology is the field of outfitting electronic devices for integration with the nervous system.
While war-gaming the possibilities of neurotechnology impacting the law, Dr Allan McCay theorized that the courts could force criminals to adopt microchips for monitoring or controlling behavior in a report for The Law Society.
“The political conditions might emerge for seeing neurotechnology as a broader solution to crime might come into place,” McCay wrote.
On the contrary, a criminal could use brain-chip implantation as a means of avoiding sentencing.
“An offender, with expert witness support, might argue in their plea in mitigation that they have satisfactorily dealt with a mental condition that had a role in their offending by way of neurotechnological intervention,” Dr McCay wrote.
Dr McCay also speculates on the risk of neurotechnology hacking by threat actors and claims of hacking by defendants.
“In that eventuality the law would have to consider how this form of hacking did or did not fit into the scope of defences,” Dr McCay wrote.
Preparing legal experts for the potential eruption of artificial intelligence and neurotechnologies is a necessary exercise.
But Nick Bostrom, author of the premiere book on AI, argues that brain-computer interfaces are a long way off because of the inherent danger of implantation.
“There are significant risks of medial complications – including infections, electrode displacement, hemorrhage, and cognitive decline – when implanting electrodes in the brain,” Bostrom writes in his book Superintelligence.
“For healthy subjects to volunteer themselves for neurosurgery, there would have to be some very substantial enhancement of normal functionality to be gained.”
Lawyers for the defense might one day argue that forcibly subjecting criminals to brain chip surgeries while these risks are present constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Source: the-su
