Recording memories, reading thoughts, and manipulating what another person sees through a device in their brain may seem like science fiction plots about a distant and troubled future. But a team of multi-disciplinary researchers say the first steps to inventing these technologies have already arrived. Through a concept called "neuro rights," they want to put in place safeguards for our most precious biological possessions: our mind. Headlining this growing effort today is the NeuroRights Initiative, formed by Columbia University neuroscientist Rafael Yuste. Their proposition is to stay ahead of the tech by convincing governments across the world to create "neuro rights" legal protections, in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document announced by the United Nations in 1948 as the standard for rights that should be universally protected for all people. Neuro rights advocates propose five additions to this standard: the rights to personal identity, free will, mental privacy, equal access to mental augmentation, and protection from algorithmic bias. "This is a new frontier of privacy rights, in that the things that are inside of our heads are ours. They're intimate; we share them when we want to share them. And we don't want that to be made into a data field for experience," said Sara Goering, professor of philosophy and co-lead for the Neuroethics Group for the Center of Neurotechnology at University of Washington.
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