What kinds of ethics should nanorobotic cognitive aids have? Cognitive nanorobots, an analog to medical nanorobots, could have applications in cognitive enhancement and perceptual aid such as bias reduction, memory management (access, suppression), and personalized ethics optimization. It is important to consider what kinds of ethics modules may be appropriate for inclusion in cognitive nanorobots. A number of core philosophical questions arise such as the possibility and desirability of knowing a true and objective reality, and selecting different realities. The philosophy of Bergson and Deleuze is used to investigate and propose an ethics of perception.

1. Ethics of Perception in
Nanocognition
(Nanorobot-aided
Cognition)
Melanie Swan
Futurist Philosopher
MS Futures Group
+1-650-681-9482
m@MelanieSwan.com
9th Annual Workshop on Geoethical
Nanotechnology - July 20, 2013
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga

2. 2
Melanie Swan
• Hedge fund manager, futurist, startup
entrepreneur (DIYgenomics), philosopher
• Singularity University Instructor, IEET
Affiliate Scholar, EDGE contributor
• Work experience: Fidelity, JP Morgan,
Arthur Andersen, iPass, RHK/Ovum
• Education: MBA Finance, Wharton; BA
French/Economics, Georgetown Univ.
• Sample publications: MelanieSwan.com
– Swan, M. The Quantified Self: Fundamental Disruption in Big Data Science and
Biological Discovery. Big Data 2013, 1(2): 85-99.
– Swan, M. Crowdsourced Health Research Studies: An Important Complement to
Clinical Trials. J Med Internet Res 2012, Mar;14(2):e46.
– Swan, M. Multigenic Condition Risk Assessment in Direct-to-Consumer Genomic
Services. Genet. Med. 2010, May;12(5):279-88.
– Swan, M. Translational antiaging research. Rejuvenation Research 2010,
Feb;13(1):115-7.
– Swan, M. Engineering Life into Technology: the Application of Complexity Theory to
a Potential Phase Transition of Intelligence. Symmetry 2010, 2, 150:183.
Source: http://melanieswan.com/publications.htm

3. Agenda
3
• What are Cognitive Nanorobots?
• Geoethics of Cognitive Nanorobots
• Cognition: Perception and Memory
• Models of Ethics
• Killer Apps of Cognitive Nanorobots
• Ethics of Cognitive Nanorobots

4. What are Cognitive Nanorobots?
4
• Analog to Medical Nanorobots
• Cognition is just another…
– Biological function
– ‘Pathology’ to ameliorate
• Biocompatibility of medical
nanorobots with neural cells1
– Mechanical
– Physiological
– Immunological
– Cytological
– Biochemical
1Freitas, R Jr. Nanomedicine, Volume IIA: Biocompatibility. 15.3.6.5 Biocompatibility with Neural Cells.
http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMIIA/15.3.6.5.htm
Images: corporeality.net, fineartamerica.com

5. Geoethics of Cognitive Nanorobots
5
• Level I Geoethical Concerns
– Manufacturing and disposal
– Neural prosthesis
– Functionality
– Accessibility (digital divide)
– Security and mind viruses
– Authentication
• Level II Geoethical Concerns
– Transformation, editing of human
cognitive processes
– Edits could include environmental
axiology (re-valorization)

6. Cognition: Perception and Memory
6
• Henri Bergson (1859-1941)
– Mathematician
– Quantum mechanics predictor
– Science and psychology scholar
• Doubling (quantitative and
qualitative (overlapping))
– Time, intensity, state, memory
– Self, consciousness
• Time: clock time and the inner
experience of time (duration)
• Free will over determinism
– Spontaneity

7. Perception and Memory
7
• Topic: mind/body dualism
• Perception and memory are
an interactive process of the
body and mind
• Time and movement
• Privilege time as space,
how/when (not where)
memory is stored
• Exercise: memory retrieval

8. 8
• Act-based (right act with right motive)
– Categorical Imperative (always right/wrong) (Kant)
– Utilitarianism (outcome maximization) and
Consequentialism (end justifies means) (Bentham, Mill)
• Agent-based
– Virtue ethics: role of character (Aristotle, Aquinas)
– Dispositionism: individual traits predict behavior
• Situation, context, and ecosystem-based (1968)
– Situationism: social context produces behavior
– Ethics of Care (Gilligan): morality arises from interaction
Models of Ethics

9. 9
• Bergson (Free Will and Time; Matter and Memory)
– Direct contact with the real, true duration
• Heidegger (Being and Time; Building, Dwelling, Thinking)
– A conscious authentic life
– Dwell meaningfully as human
implacement, being ‘in’ place, as an
extension of identity
• Foucault (Discipline and Punish)
– Power: omnipresent micropower relations,
biopower and self-disciplinary power
• Deleuze (Anti-Oedipus, A Thousand Plateaus)
– Thinking and life, plane of immanence
– Non-fascist life, desiring-production
Process Philosopher Ethics

10. 10
Connecting Perception to Ethics:
Machine Ethics Interfaces
• Possibility of ‘objective’
reality as an input?
• Many-tiered existing biases
– Biology
– Society/culture
– Individual/group
• Ethics of Reality
• UX issues

11. 11
• Bias reduction
• Memory management
• Value system elicitation and
optimization
• Perceptual enhancement
– Different ‘objective’ realities
– See time, see movement in
time and space
– Notice subjective experience
• Desire elicitation and
modification
Killer Apps of Cognitive Nanorobotics

12. 12
• Trend of self-awareness, disclosure,
destigmatization, taboo removal
• Group ethics models
– Old: okay unless harms others, ‘do unto others’
– New: Negotiation per disclosure, automated
mediation through anonymous disclosure
Individual / Group Ethics
Medicine (genomics), behavior
(QS), personal/professional life
blending, sexual orientation,
gender identification
Neurodiversity:
mental health, mental
performance
Desires
Time now

13. 13
• Overt consideration of
machine ethics modules
• Subjective experience
enhancement
• Ethics/values/desires
elicitation and optimization
• Progression and
transformation in ethics
paradigms
Geoethics of Cognitive Nanorobots

14. Ethics of Perception
and Nanocognition
(Nanorobot-aided
Cognition)
Melanie Swan
Futurist Philosopher
MS Futures Group
+1-650-681-9482
m@MelanieSwan.com
9th Annual Workshop on Geoethical
Nanotechnology - July 20, 2013
Slides: http://slideshare.net/LaBlogga
Thank you!