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In this technique, biomass is used to generate bioenergy, and carbon capture and storage prevents emissions resulting from this process from reaching the atmosphere.

This technique combines chemical processes that capture CO2 from ambient air and underground storage. Storing CO2 in geological reservoirs or in mineral forms would remove CO2 for up to 1000 years.

Rocks containing silicate and carbonate naturally absorb CO2, yet over very slow (geological) timescales. By spreading more of these particles onto soils, coasts and oceans, EW increases the total surface area of the planet that experiences this weathering effect, removing more atmospheric CO2.

Afforestation refers to planting forests upon land where forests have not historically occurred, while Reforestation refers to restoring forests upon deforested land.

This technique involves the injection of gas in the stratosphere, which converts into aerosols that block incoming solar radiation.

By spraying sea salt or similar particles into marine clouds, this technique increases their reflectivity and blocks some incoming solar radiation.

This technique aims to increase the reflectivity of land surfaces, in order to deflect incoming solar radiation. Examples includes whitening roofs, land management practices, covering deserts or glaciers with reflective sheeting, and increasing the reflectivity of the ocean.

Moral hazard: does climate engineering undermine climate mitigration?

This core dilemma asks if meaningful climate change mitigration is still possible if artificial changes are promised as solutions to the climate crises. This can take two distinct forms. Firstly, when mitigation is modelled over longer periods of time, the use of cheaper climate engineering later in the century might be preferred over more expensive mitigation costs at present or in the near future. Secondly, this choice of waiting until later to mitigate climate change can be particularly attractive at a political level, slowing down policy makers’ near-term efforts. Moreover, with some techniques that promise to mask the effects of climate change, mitigation risks to be abandoned altogether, despite not being sure empirically if CDR or SRM are possible at a large scale.

Moral corruption: Does climate engineering reflect a self-serving interest in avoiding politically difficult transitions away from fossil fuels?

This dilemma is closely related to that of moral hazard: the availability of climate engineering may be used as an argument by current generations to believe that they do not need to mitigate more rapidly now, thus passing the burden onto the next generation.

Hubris: Can climate engineering be justified by limited human foresight?

This dilemma emerges in context of the relationship between humanity and nature. Climate engineering seems to reflect an attitude of control or dominance over nature, to make it serve human beings. Researchers and ethicists consider that our current knowledge does not support some of the assumptions made about the possibility of achiving control over e.g., the global carbon cycle, while underestimating the harmful effects this could have.

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In line with our key aim to enhance and adjust ethical guidance (in the form of codes, guidelines and frameworks) in the area of Climate Engineering, our team scanned the literature to identify already existing guidance that specifically addresses Climate Engineering or which is considered relevant in this area.

Existing ethical codes, if any, are largely considered insufficient and relatively unknown among private entities engaging in Climate Engineering research. The literature argues for the responsibility of researchers themselves but also that of funders regarding compliance with ethical codes. The inter-governmental Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries is mentioned as a potential example upon which to develop a Climate Engineering code that is flexible enough to account for changing needs.

Researchers have called on the international community to engage in a dialogue regarding the social benefits and risks of Climate Engineering research given the lack of a generally-accepted ethical framework. From their perspective, frameworks should be clearly defined and delimited and acknowledge the systemic impact of such technology families. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Earth System Governance (ESG) Research Framework, and the Precautionary Decision-Making Framework (PDMF) are mentioned as potentially relevant in this endeavour.

Ethical guidelines for Climate Engineering per se are lacking, according to the literature, especially given the scale of intervention of such technologies. Some researchers are calling on the use of guidelines from the broader literature on ethics for research on human and animal subjects while such guidelines are being developed for Climate Engineering.

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Climate engineering has the potential to impact human rights in many ways, both positive and negative. There is a growing awareness that the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are devastating for the enjoyment of human rights (e.g., the right to life, food security, health) for people today and in future generations. Therefore, the use of climate engineering to mitigate harms associated with climate change could enhance enjoyment of human rights. On the other hand, manipulating Earth’s climate through climate engineering may cause unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences that would further threaten human rights.

States have an obligation under human rights law to ensure that climate engineering activities respect and promote human rights. Furthermore, the Paris Agreement recognised that the actions to address climate change, which may include climate engineering, must be guided by human rights.

TechEthos has looked at three clusters of rights that encompass the main issues related to human rights and climate engineering: human rights pertaining to scientific research, procedural human rights, and substantive human rights.

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Under international law, States could be held liable for harm caused to another State from a climate engineering activity.

TechEthos has looked in detail at applicable international and EU laws and policies, and in particular at the prohibition of transboundary environmental harm, or the ‘no-harm rule’. This ensures that activities within a state’s jurisdiction and control respect the environment of other states.

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Climate engineering has the potential to impact environmental law in many ways, both positive and negative. The use of climate engineering technologies to mitigate harms associated with climate change could enhance the protection of the environment. On the other hand, however, manipulating Earth’s climate through climate engineering may redistribute environmental risks and cause unforeseen consequences to the environment and human health.

States have an obligation under international environmental law to ensure to protect the environment and human health when deploying climate engineering activities and to take steps to prevent transboundary environmental harm as much as possible.

TechEthos has looked in detail at the main environmental law regimes applicable to climate engineering technologies: environmental impact assessments; corporate disclosure; public participation; sustainable development; pollution prevention; environmental management of waste and chemicals; and environmental protection and liability for harm.

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Climate engineering activities may help States meet their climate obligations within climate law regimes. While not required, some specific types of climate engineering activities, such as Carbon Capture and Storage, Carbon Capture and Usage, and nature-based solutions, are explicitly referenced in law as potential options available to States.

TechEthos has looked in detail at international and EU law and policies, emission reduction goals, carbon emissions trading and geological storage of CO2.

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Some proposals for solar climate engineering would involve activities in outer space.

As international space law predates climate engineering, there is no international space treaty dedicated to climate engineering, nor do any existing space law treaties explicitly refer to climate technologies. However, it is likely that specific aspects of space-based climate engineering activities would be governed by existing international space law treaties, and States’ responsibilities in outer space law would likely extend to climate engineering activities, though the extent and specifics of those obligations are unclear.

TechEthos has considered specifically the relevance of international and EU laws and policies, state responsibilities in outerspace, environmental protection and liability from environmental harm in space, and the exploitation and mining of space resources.

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Some proposals for climate engineering would involve activities in the marine environment or result in impacts to the marine environment; examples include ocean fertilisation, enhanced kelp farming, and marine cloud brightening.

While there is no comprehensive law of the seas treaty addressing climate engineering, associated activities that impact marine environments would be governed by existing international and EU law. Furthermore, there are dedicated – though non-binding – rules on ocean fertilisation and transboundary seabed CO2 storage, which were developed in response to concerns about proposed climate engineering projects.

TechEthos has looked explicitly at EU and international laws and policies, and the following legal issues: states’ obligations: assessment, permitting and monitoring; marine pollution and dumping; the non-binding international ban on ocean iron fertilisation; and deep seabed drilling and carbon storage.

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In addition to analyzing the obligations of States under international law and/or the European Union, the project conducted a comparative analysis of the national legislation of three countries: Australia, Austria, and the United Kingdom.

The three case studies specifically examined the current status of climate engineering, ongoing legal and policy developments, human rights law, environmental law, and climate change law.

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We complemented this analysis with a further exploration of overarching and technology-specific regulatory challenges. We also presented options for enhancing legal frameworks for the governance of climate engineering at the international and national level.

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TechEthos asked researchers, innovators, as well as technology, ethical, legal and economic experts, to consider several future scenarios for our selected technologies and provide their feedback regarding attitudes, proposals and solutions.

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From June 2022 until January 2023, the six TechEthos science engagement organisations conducted a total of 15 science cafés involving 449 participants. These science cafes were conducted in: Vienna (Austria), Liberec (Czech Republic), Bucharest (Romania), Belgrade (Serbia), Granada (Spain), and Stockholm (Sweden). 

Science Cafés had a two-fold objective: build knowledge (e.g., ethics, technological applications, etc.) about the selected families of technologies: climate engineering, neurotechnologies and digital extended reality as well as recruit participants for multi-stakeholder events.

Seven out of 15 science cafés were dedicated to the Climate Engineering technology family and addressed topics ranging from climate change and energy sources to technologies like carbon capture and storage (CSS), bio energy carbon capture and storage (bio-CCS) and solar radiation management (SRM). 

Discover TechEthos ‘science café’ series in our news article:

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An important perspective the TechEthos project wanted to highlight alongside expert opinions was the citizen perspective. To encourage participation and facilitate conversation, an interactive game (TechEthos game: Ages of Technology Impact) was developed to discuss the ethical issues related to climate engineering, digital extended reality (XR), neurotechnologies (NT), and natural language processing (NLP). The goal of this exercise was to understand citizens awareness and attitudes towards these emerging technologies to provide insight into what the general public finds important.

The six TechEthos science engagement organisations conducted a total of 20 scenario game workshops engaging a wide audience from varied backgrounds. 

From the workshop comments the citizen value categories were extracted through qualitative coding, allowing for comparisons across all workshops. Each technology family exhibits distinct prominent values.

CE highlights ecosystem health, followed by safety, reliability, effectiveness, efficiency, and justice, given its focus on manipulating natural systems. Safety and reliability are important across all three families. Responsible use and accountability are vital in NT, NLP, and XR. Ecosystem health is a shared concern across all families. 

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Media discourse on technologies both reflects and shapes public perceptions. As such, it is a powerful indicator of societal awareness and acceptance of these technologies. TechEthos carried out an analysis of the news stories published in 2020 and 2021 on our three technology families in 13 EU and non-EU countries (Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, UK, and USA). This used state-of-the-art computational tools to collect, clean and analyse the data.

For climate engineering, the media discussion on technologies to tackle issues of climate change is heavily dominated by green hydrogen. This is a technology aimed at tacking climate change, but which does not strictly fall within the climate engineering family of technologies as defined by TechEthos, an aspect that TechEthos has to remain aware of.

Furthermore, we could observe that solar engineering techniques are rather rarely discussed in new stories collected for this family of technologies. Technologies such as solar radiation management or cloud modification or whitening appeared rarely in the media scanned, while afforestation, reforestation, carbon capture, sequestration and storage are among the most discussed topics. Hence, the media discourse as captured by this study indicates there might be less public awareness of solar radiation techniques, compared to other climate engineering techniques such as afforestation or carbon capture, usage, and storage techniques.

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This policy brief sets out recommendations based on the regulatory challenges related to CDR that were identified in our analysis of EU laws and policies. We address them to EU policymakers and officials involved in the preparation of legislative or policy initiatives related to climate action, climate technologies, climate engineering, geoengineering, carbon removal, and CDR specifically.

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This policy brief sets out recommendations based on the regulatory challenges related to SRM that were identified in our analysis of EU laws and policies. We address them to EU policymakers and officials involved in the preparation of legislative or policy initiatives related to climate action, climate technologies, climate engineering, geoengineering, and SRM specifically.

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This policy brief explores the regulatory challenges within EU laws and policies surrounding CDR. Addressed to European Union (EU) policymakers and officials engaged in climate-related initiatives, the recommendations are crafted to ensure ethical, rights-based, and sustainable development of CDR.

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This policy brief emphasizes ethical governance, international collaboration, and public engagement to ensure responsible, just and sustainable SRM research.

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Digital
Extended
Reality

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A virtual reality (VR) environment is completely simulated by digital means for its user. Currently, simulating VR focuses on visual aspects, but other senses are also being incorporated into these experiences.

Augmented Reality (AR) combines elements of real and virtual environments instead of trying to achieve complete immersion in virtual reality. Users can see the real world, with virtual objects superimposed upon or combined with the real environment.

A metaverse emphasizes the social element of XR: multiple users can interact in one virtual or augmented enviroment. Avatars usually represent real people (or at least an animated version of them) and can be customised to some extent according to users’ preferences.

These are digital replicas of physical objects that can possess dynamic features like the synchronisation of data between the physical twin and the digital twin to monitor, simulate, and optimize the physical object.

Learning procedures applied on big datasets of original text have allowed large language models (LLMs) to generate text at a level close to humans. In addition, techniques can analyse language content for its sentiments or opinions, understanding how the general public or a specific group feel about issues, events or topics.

Conversational agents, or chatbots, use NLP to interact with users, orally or in writing. They already provide a wide array of services in customer support or with voice assistants.

Through subtle psychological strategies in dialogue, such as prioritising certain topics or directing the conversation in a direction, a chatbot can influence what another person thinks or believes. Ultimately, this can nudge the user to change their behaviour without forcing them, which is known as nudging.

In there a preference for material reality?

The emergence of virtual reality prompts the question of whether virtual experiences mediated via XR are equivalent to experiences gained in the real world: do they evoke similar emotions, behaviours or judgements?

Mode of being of virtual objects

Digital objects are the types of things we experience in the digital world, like “an image” or “a video”. However, it is not clear how they can be individual objects if all they consist of is digital data. The philosophy of digital objecthood features several position. A moderate one is that digital objects exist insofar as they are experienced and conceptualised by a digital mind. A more radical position claims that virtual objects and environments are of the same nature as material objects and environments.

Value of virtual objects

If a distinction between virtual objects and material objects is kept, consequences of actions in material reality certainly do not equal the consequences of actions in virtual reality. For example, driving fast in virtual reality does not imply the same risk as driving fast on a material road.

Nevertheless, some scholars have argued that virtual objects do retain some ethical value, not because of the equivalent consequences involved, but because values or behaviour patterns formed in XR can influence behaviours in the real world, for example in speeding on a road in one’s actual car, with negative consequences.

More core ethical dilemmas are tackled in the ‘Analysis of Ethical Issues’ report.

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Training: knowledge transfer and qualia

One of the most established applications of XR is in training skills. The areas in which XR training applications are the most impactful usually include high-risk or costly material training conditions, such as traing for pilots and surgeons. Are skills acquired via virtual experiences equivalent or transferable to material conditions?

Remote work: long-term effects on workers and the job market

XR work environments are available on the market and allow coworkers to host meetings and interact at a distance, sometimes using avatars. The ethical challenges associated with its use include the potential overuse of this always-accessible mode of work, impact on local job markets, and the collection of workers’ data, among others.

More applications and use cases are tackled in the ‘Analysis of Ethical Issues’ report.

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NLP systems lack human reasoning

Today most chatbots are deterministic models without machine learning. They take the user down a decision tree in a predetermined way. However, the most advanced NLP techniques, capable of varied conversation on many topics with nearly human-level outputs, rely on statistical linguistic analysis. They do not involve any understanding of meaning or semantics. Void of intention and disconnected from action and responsibility, they cannot be considered on a par with language produced by human speakers. However, humans might take the chatbot’s language to be meaningful and react to its semantic content.

Artificial emotions influence human users

Some applications use conversational agents to influence their users through the architecture or language of the dialogue. Manipulation by a conversational agent can be direct (including inaccurate or skewed information) or indirect, using the “nudging” strategies.

More core ethical dilemmas are tacked in the ‘Analysis of Ethical Issues’ report.

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Human resources: gender bias, data protection and labour market

Chatbots are used by human resources managers for recruitment as well as for career follow-up and employee training. The training data used have been found to be biased, especially against margionalised populations. This can tlead to different types of harm, in terms of how these populations are represented and what resources or opportunities, such as jobs, are allocated to them.

Creativity: authenticity

NLP can be used to generate seemingly creative or poetic text that has no human creative input or that relies on prior creative work. If such applications were used at scale, it might reduce the profitability of creative or innovative work.

More applications and use cases are tackled in the ‘Analysis of Ethical Issues’ report.

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XR has the potential to impact human rights in many ways, both positive and negative. In relation to some rights in particular context, XR has the potential to enhance enjoyment of rights, such as when XR provides safer workplace training modules that help support the right to just and favourable conditions of work. Yet in other ways, the use of XR interferes with and may even violate human rights.

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XR technologies collect and process a variety of different data to create an interactive and/or immersive experience for users. The gathering of such data, however, raises concerns relating to privacy and data protection. On this, it has been suggested that there are three factors in relation to XR technologies generally and VR/AR devices specifically which, in combination, present potentially serious privacy and data protection challenges. These factors are: (i) the range of different information gathering technologies utilised in XR, each presenting specific privacy risks; (ii) the extensive gathering of data which is sensitive in nature, as distinct from the majority of other consumer technologies; and (iii) the comprehensive gathering of such data being an essential aspect of the core functions of XR technologies.

Collectively, these factors highlight the ongoing tension between the necessity of collecting intimate data to enable the optimal immersive or interactive experience in XR, balanced against the requirement to uphold rights to privacy and data protection under international and EU law. While these legal frameworks do not specifically address or explicitly refer to XR technologies, many of the relevant provisions are directly applicable.

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Consumer rights and consumer protection law are designed to hold sellers of goods and services accountable when they seek to profit, for example by taking advantage of a consumer’s lack of information or bargaining power. Some conduct addressed by consumer rights laws is simply unfair, while other conduct might be fraudulent, deceptive, and/or misleading.

Consumer rights are particularly important in the XR context, as the AR/VR market share is expected to increase by USD 162.71 billion from 2020 to 2025, and the market’s growth momentum to accelerate at a CAGR of 46% (with growth being driven by increasing demand).

The use of XR is already transforming diverse industries (healthcare, manufacturing) and at the same time changing culture, travel, retail/ecommerce, education, training, gaming and entertainment (the latter two being the most significant).

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As many XR applications integrate AI systems, any laws governing AI would apply to those XR applications. While there are no international laws governing AI specifically, the EU has proposed a regulatory framework dedicated to AI governance.

This framework, which includes a proposed AI Act, does not mention XR, but would apply (if adopted as written) to any XR technology using AI. It should be also noted that not all XR technologies utilise AI technologies and would, therefore, not be subject to any proposed AI regulation. For example, chatbots can be developed using AI-based NLP approaches or using an extensive word database (not AI-based).

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Since many XR applications provide services in the online environment, any laws governing the provision of digital services would apply to those XR systems. While there are no international laws governing digital services specifically, the EU has proposed a regulatory framework dedicated to the governance of digital services. This framework, which includes a proposed Digital Services Act, does not mention XR explicitly but would apply (if adopted as written) to providers of XR offering services in the digital environment.

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In addition to analyzing the obligations of States under international law and/or the European Union, the project conducted a comparative analysis of the national legislation of three countries: Italy, France, and the United Kingdom.

While laws explicitly governing the use of XR is limited, France and Italy are particularly influenced by the EU law in relation to XR and ongoing legal developments – including the proposed AI Act, Digital Services Act (DSA), Digital Markets Act (DMA). Despite leaving the EU, the UK has retained various EU laws. In the long-term, however, the UK law relevant for XR technologies might diverge from the EU law.

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We complemented this analysis with a further exploration of overarching and technology-specific regulatory challenges. We also presented options for enhancing legal frameworks for the governance of XR at the international and national level.

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TechEthos asked researchers, innovators, as well as technology, ethical, legal and economic experts, to consider several future scenarios for our selected technologies and provide their feedback regarding attitudes, proposals and solutions.

Read the policy note

From June 2022 until January 2023, the six TechEthos science engagement organisations conducted a total of 15 science cafés involving 449 participants. These science cafes were conducted in: Vienna (Austria), Liberec (Czech Republic), Bucharest (Romania), Belgrade (Serbia), Granada (Spain), and Stockholm (Sweden). 

Science Cafés had a two-fold objective: build knowledge (e.g., ethics, technological applications, etc.) about the selected families of technologies: climate engineering, neurotechnologies and digital extended reality as well as recruit participants for multi-stakeholder events.

Seven out of 15 science cafés were dedicated to the Extended Reality technology family.

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An important perspective the TechEthos project wanted to highlight alongside expert opinions was the citizen perspective. To encourage participation and facilitate conversation, an interactive game (TechEthos game: Ages of Technology Impact) was developed to discuss the ethical issues related to digital extended reality. The goal of this exercise was to understand citizens awareness and attitudes towards these emerging technologiesTechnologies whose development and application are not completely realised or finished, and whose potential lies in the future. […] to provide insight into what the general public finds important.

The six TechEthos science engagement organisations conducted a total of 20 scenario game workshops engaging a wide audience from varied backgrounds. 

From the workshop comments the citizen value categories were extracted through qualitative coding, allowing for comparisons across all workshops. Each technology family exhibits distinct prominent values.

NLP and XR highlight authentic human connection, experience, and responsible use, considering their aim to simulate human interaction. Safety and reliability are important across all three families. Ecosystem health is a shared concern across all families. In particular, NLP might pose ecological challenges as it might lead to an exponential increase in the required server capacity, causing additional CO2 emissions and increasing the depletion of rare earths, fossil fuels and other limited resources.

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Media discourse on technologies both reflects and shapes public perceptions. As such, it is a powerful indicator of societal awareness and acceptance of these technologies. TechEthos carried out an analysis of the news stories published in 2020 and 2021 on our three technology families in 13 EU and non-EU countries (Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, UK, and USA). This used state-of-the-art computational tools to collect, clean and analyse the data.

A noteworthy finding related to digital extended reality is that this family of technologies is primarily discussed with reference to virtual reality. Indeed, the term is mentioned in almost 42% of the stories collected for this family of technologies. On the contrary, natural language processing (NLP) is rarely mentioned. This suggests that the general public might have more awareness of virtual reality than with NLP techniques. This finding is also of interest to TechEthos public engagement activities, stressing the need for more effort to raise public awareness of NLP. Keywords related to Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (ELSI) were mentioned in 35% of the overall news stories collected for digital extended reality, with terms ‘society’, ‘security’ and ‘privacy’ being the most frequently mentioned ELSI topics.

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This policy brief explores the ethical challenges of XR and NLP within the expansive realm of General Purpose AI.

This brief delves into human-machine dynamics, ethical data usage, and the urgent need for operational norms and standards in the AI domain.

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We addressed the ethical challenges of XR and NLP. These topics belong to the larger area of General Purpose Artificial Intelligence.

This policy brief lists new and emerging issues to supplement, enhance and update the Assessment List for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (ALTAI) developed by the High-Level Expert Group on AI. Based on our analysis, we formulate specific recommendations for AI regulation.

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Neuro-
technologies

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This technique involves placing electrodes in specific areas of the brain with the aim to regulate abnormal impulses or influence certain cells and chemicals in the brain. Addressing this can treat movement disorders, such as those associated with Parkinson’s disease, but it’s also being tested for behavioural or psychiatric conditions such as depression and schizophrenia.

Optogenetics can help identify neural circuits and networks by revealing the interconnections between parts of the neuron networks. Optogenetics can also be used to intervene in the neuron circuits by inhibition or excitation, thus manipulating neurological activity. Currently optogenetics is mostly used in animal research.

Various neuroimaging techniques, for example functional magnetic resonance (fMRI), and machine learning (ML) creates new avenues for breaches of mental privacy. fMRI is used to collect data about the brain activity of a subject, and ML can be used to train on that data, provide predictions about brain activity or infer mental contents from brain activity.

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are a branch of neurotechnology that seeks to translate brain processes that relate to thought and action into desired outcomes such as moving a prosthetic limb.

Functional near infrared signal (fNIRS) is a method of measuring brain activity by detecting changes in blood oxygenation. This can allow researchers to measure brain activity in real-time and is non-invasive, meaning it does not require surgery or the use of contrast agents. fNIRS is also portable, meaning it can be used in a variety of settings, including in the home or in the workplace.

Neurodeterminism, free will, human autonomy and responsibility

Neurotechnologies open up questions about the concept of free will and, therefore, of autonomy and responsibility. Neuroscience and the resulting neurotechnologies have contributed experimental arguments to the discussion of free will, leading some authors to argue that free will is an illusion and that a radical change to our legal system based on free will is necessary.

Should neurotechnologies be used to enhance cognitive abilities?

Some applications of neurotechnologies can be used to enhance cognitive abilities of humans, triggering a host of arguments in favour of and against neurological enhancement.

These core ethical dilemmas are tackled in depth in the ‘Analysis of Ethical Issues’ report.

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Predictive diagnostics: future selves and agency

Part of medical applications of neurotechnologies involve prediction techniques, which can be used for preventive or therapeutic reasons, such as using biomarker techniques to detect early Alzheimer’s. Similar diagnostics might become possible for other neurological diseases due to neurotechnologies. The ethical question is how such diagnosis should be addressed with as long as 20 years ahead of first symptoms and with no present or foreseeable treatment.

Entertainment: addiction and personal development

Neurotechnologies offer a way to personalize marketing strategies to consumer brain activity, which can be effective but can also lead to addictive behaviours. For example, neuromarketing might look to identify brain profiles that respond to certain marketing strategies or are predisposed to addiction.

More applications and use cases are tackled in the ‘Analysis of Ethical Issues’ report.

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At this stage of the project, TechEthos partners have completed a scan of ethical guidance (in the form of codes, guidelines and frameworks) that already exist specifically for Neurotechnologies or which are considered relevant in ethical discussions on this technology family. The following is a short summary of the findings of the ‘Methodology for ethical analysis, scan results of existing ethical codes and guidelines’ report, which can be accessed in full via the button below.

Ethical codes are referenced by several academic and research organisations as well as one intergovernmental organisation. The diversity of approaches is notable, from inviting companies to self-regulate to a set of clearly articulated principles to founding a new set of codes (such as the NeuroRights Initiative proposed by the Data Science Institute at Columbia University).

Ethical frameworks for Neurotechnologies were one of the most prolific areas investigated for the report, with several references from academia and other research organisations. Some authors focus on identifying gaps in existing frameworks and recommending further extensions. Others call upon neurotechnology ethical frameworks to be cross-fertilised with those from related fields, while some believe this might not be sufficient or appropriate, and some novel approaches are also available for consideration.

Ethical guidelines found in the literature span a range of different levels, from the efforts of specific research teams, to national efforts such as those of the Australian Brain Alliance, to regional and international efforts such as those of the European Union’s ethics guidelines for AI. Whether or not the current guidelines in place for medical devices are a good source of inspiration and principles for neuro-devices is an ongoing debate in the literature.

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Neurotechnologies have the potential to impact human rights in many ways, both positive and negative. In relation to some rights in particular context, neurotechnologies have the potential to enhance enjoyment of rights, such as when neurotechnologies provide innovative treatment options that improve health and positively impact the right to health. But in other situations, such as the use of neurotechnologies in courtroom in ways that violate the right to fair trial and the prohibition on self-incrimination, neurotechnologies interferes and may even violate human rights.

Our report looked at the international and EU laws and policies relevant for specific human rights, considering key issues, gaps and challenges. It also considers the trend in human rights law towards the realisation of new human rights to explicitly address emerging challenges posed by neurotechnologies. Collectively known as ‘neurorights’, these proposed new rights are cognitive liberty, mental privacy, mental integrity, and psychological continuity.

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Neurotechnologies offer the opportunity to gain unique insights into the workings of the human brain. Whilst initially intended for clinical and research purposes, increased commercialisation had led to various market-led efforts to develop brain-computer interfaces available for consumers. Moreover, such consumer-based neurotechnologies are use in conjunction with big data and advanced machine learning techniques for greater effectiveness and prediction and analysis. This can imply the collection and storage of personal brain data on a vast scale, thereby potentially exacerbating the risk of interference with rights to privacy and data protection of users.

Against this background, our work analyses the key issue of the status of brain data obtained through the use of neurotechnologies, specifically assessing whether, and if so how, such data is protected under the relevant international and EU law.

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In addition to analyzing the obligations of States under international law and/or the European Union, the project conducted a comparative analysis of the national legislation of three countries: Germany, Ireland, and the United States of America.

The three case studiesA case study is a research approach that is used to generate an in-depth […] More specifically examined the current status of climate engineering, ongoing legal and policy developments, human rights law and privacy and data protection law.

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We complemented this analysis with a further exploration of overarching and technology-specific regulatory challenges. We also presented options for enhancing legal frameworks for the governance of climate engineering at the international and national level.

Read the report

TechEthos asked researchers, innovators, as well as technology, ethical, legal and economic experts, to consider several future scenarios for our selected technologies and provide their feedback regarding attitudes, proposals and solutions.

Read the policy note

From June 2022 until January 2023, the six TechEthos science engagementPublic engagement describes the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public […] organisations conducted a total of 15 science cafés involving 449 participants. These science cafes were conducted in: Vienna (Austria), Liberec (Czech Republic), Bucharest (Romania), Belgrade (Serbia), Granada (Spain), and Stockholm (Sweden). 

Science Cafés had a two-fold objective: build knowledge (e.g., ethics, technological applications, etc.) about the selected families of technologies: climate engineering, neurotechnologies and digital extended reality as well as recruit participants for multi-stakeholder events.

Seven out of 15 science cafés were dedicated to the Climate Engineering technology family and addressed topics ranging from climate change and energy sources to technologies like carbon capture and storage (CSS), bio energy carbon capture and storage (bio-CCS) and solar radiation management (SRM). 

Discover TechEthos ‘science café’ series in our news article:

Read the article

An important perspective the TechEthos project wanted to highlight alongside expert opinions was the citizen perspective. To encourage participation and facilitate conversation, an interactive game (TechEthos game: Ages of Technology Impact) was developed to discuss the ethical issues related to climate engineering, digital extended reality (XR), neurotechnologies (NT), and natural language processing (NLP). The goal of this exercise was to understand citizens awareness and attitudes towards these emerging technologiesTechnologies whose development and application are not completely realised or finished, and whose potential lies in the future. […] to provide insight into what the general public finds important.

The six TechEthos science engagement organisations conducted a total of 20 scenario game workshops engaging a wide audience from varied backgrounds. 

From the workshop comments the citizen value categories were extracted through qualitative coding, allowing for comparisons across all workshops. Each technology family exhibits distinct prominent values.

NT highlight human health, safety, and responsibility, given its focus on the brain and nervous system. Safety and reliability are important across all three families. Responsible use and accountability are vital in NT, NLP, and XR. Ecosystem health is a shared concern across all families. 

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Media discourse on technologies both reflects and shapes public perceptions. As such, it is a powerful indicator of societal awareness and acceptance of these technologies. TechEthos carried out an analysis of the news stories published in 2020 and 2021 on our three technology families in 13 EU and non-EU countries (Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, UK, and USA). This used state-of-the-art computational tools to collect, clean and analyse the data.

For neurotechnologies, we could observe that the most frequently mentioned keyword is “cyborg”, appearing in more than 21% of the stories collected for this family of technologies. This indicates that public awareness of this technology, as reflected in the media discourse, is highly dominated by this notion.

Another interesting finding is the frequent appearance in the news stories related to neurotechnologies of Elon Musk and/or Neuralink, i.e., the neurotechnology company that Musk co-founded (they are mentioned in almost 35% of the stories collected). This suggests that discussions on this technology are highly dominated by Musk and his activities in the area or, to put it differently, that neurotechnology is often discussed in the media in relation to what Musk does in the area. Here as well, such a strong presence in the media discourse indicates a great role of the businessman in the public awareness and perception of neurotechnologies.

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This policy brief sets out recommendations based on the regulatory priorities related to neurotechnologies that were identified in our analysis of EU laws and policies. We address them to EU policymakers and officials involved in the preparation of legislative or policy initiatives related to neurotechnologies, medical devices, dual-use items, privacy and data protection, and AI systems.

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To ensure ethical, legal, and fundamental rights in neurotechnology development, this brief details the need to recognize and define neurorights, and the necessity to address justice, equality, and discrimination gaps. The brief also advocates for monitoring and evaluating the relevant regulatory frameworks in existence and considering more effective and appropriate legal instruments to regulate the technology family in the EU. Finally, the paper underlines the need to clarify the regulation of AI-based neurotechnologies, specifically addressing use cases under the proposed AI Act.

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