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Neuro-technology has long been a favourite of science-fiction writers. In “Neuromancer”, a wildly inventive book by William Gibson written in 1984, people can use neural(神经的) implants to get into the sensory experiences of others. Iain M. Banks came up with the idea of a neural lace, a mesh (网格) that grows into the brain, in his “Culture” series of novels. “The Terminal Man” by Michael Crichton, published in 1972, imagines the effects of a brain implant on someone who is convinced that machines are taking over from humans.

Where the sci-fi led, philosophers are now starting to follow. In Howard Chizeck’s lab at the University of Washington, researchers are working on an implanted device to administer deep-brain stimulation (DBS) in order to treat a common movement disorder called essential tremor. Traditionally, DBS stimulation is always on, wasting energy and robbing the patient of a sense of control. The lab’s ethicist (伦理学家), Tim Brown, a doctoral student of philosophy, says that some DBS patients suffer a sense of isolation and complain of feeling like a robot.

To change that, the team at the University of Washington is using neuronal activity associated with intentional movements to turn the device on. But the researchers also want to enable patients to use a conscious thought process to override these settings. That is more useful than it might sound: stimulation currents for essential tremor can cause side-effects like distorted (失真的) speech, so someone about to give a presentation, say, might wish to shake rather than make his words unclear. Giving humans more options of this sort will be essential if some of the more advanced visions for brain-computer interfaces are to be realized. Hannah Maslen from the University of Oxford is another ethicist who works on a BCI project. One of her jobs is to think through the distinctions between inner speech and public speech: people need a dependable mechanism for separating what they want to say from what they think.

That is only one of many ethical questions that the sci-fi versions of brain-computer interfaces bring up. What protection will BCIs offer against neural hacking? Who owns neural data, including information that is gathered for research purposes now but may be understandable in detail at some point in the future? Where does accountability lie if a user does something wrong? And if brain implants are performed not for treatment but to improve people’s abilities, will that make the world an even more unequal place?