J. Hughes Quoted in Article on Wired Website

IEET Executive Director was featured in an article on brain-machine interfaces on the Wired website.

One potentially troubling aspect of cognition-enhancing drugs is coercion: If people take drugs to get a performance boost, others need to take them just to keep pace.

According to James Hughes, director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, that’s not a big deal. “It’s exactly the same question we face with literacy, or wearing a tie,” he said. “In Japan, for the last 20 or 30 years, you had to go out with all your workmates after work and drink if you wanted to get ahead. Otherwise, you were considered weird. That’s putting something in your head.”

By allowing people to perceive what they now can’t, or activate parts of their brain at will, Hughes said that brain-machine implants could challenge people’s sense of themselves.

“The questions that I think do matter involve permanent changes in self-image and preferences,” he said. “People with a notion of authentic self are troubled by notions of brain-machine interfaces and pharmaceuticals. And we will begin to trample the notion of authentic self.”

Hughes said the same question is raised by mood-altering drugs and chemicals that can change — or even eliminate — sex drives.