Brain Data: Scanning, Scraping and Sculpting the Plastic Learning Brain Through Neurotechnology

Abstract

Neurotechnology is an advancing field of research and development with significant implications for education. As 'postdigital' hybrids of biological and informational codes, novel neurotechnologies combine neuroscience insights into the human brain with advanced technical development in brain imaging, brain-computer interfaces, neurofeedback platforms, brain stimulation and other neuroenhancement applications. Merging neurobiological knowledge about human life with computational technologies, neurotechnology exemplifies how postdigital science will play a significant role in societies and education in decades to come. As neurotechnology developments are being extended to education, they present potential for businesses and governments to enact new techniques of 'neurogovernance' by 'scanning' the brain, 'scraping' it for data and then 'sculpting' the brain toward particular capacities. The aim of this article is to critically review neurotechnology developments and implications for education. It examines the purposes to which neurotechnology development is being put in education, interrogating the commercial and governmental objectives associated with it and the neuroscientific concepts and expertise that underpin it. Finally, the article raises significant ethical and governance issues related to neurotechnology development and postdigital science that require concerted attention from education researchers.The human brain has become the focus of concerted attention among policymakers, the media and the public as neuroscientific understandings have left the laboratory to shape how societies understand human life and social affairs (Rose and Abi-Rached 2013). Technical innovations in computing software and data analytics now appear to promise to make human neurology amenable to inspection without the need for complex clinical or medical apparatuses, making the generation of digital 'brain data' possible in 'real time'

Responsible Research and Innovation as a Novel Approach to Guide Educational Impact of Mind, Brain, and Education Research

“…New scientific and technological developments, such as research on the implementation of neurotechnology in classrooms, are commonly praised for their potential to generate numerous benefits, but at the same time accompanied by issues concerning the distribution of benefits and risks, and potential impacts on the lives of people and society (see for a critical review Williamson, ). The question is how to deal with these issues.…”

“…However, as the “plasticity message” may have negative effects in addition to benefits, and our intervention introduces a novel use of neurotechnology (Williamson, ), it is important to explore potential negative impacts and risks (e.g., of miscommunication) from the outset of the study. From our researcher's perspective, we mainly foresee potential negative impacts of an emphasis on brain plasticity and ownership of neural learning processes, that is, the plasticity message.…”

Posthumanism, open ontologies and bio-digital becoming: Response to Luciano Floridi’sOnlife Manifesto

“…Merging neurobiological knowledge about human life with computational technologies, neurotechnology exemplifies how postdigital science will play a significant role in societies and education in decades to come. (Williamson, 2018) In the context of today's 'bio-informationalism capitalism', challenges from early days of digital technologies become even larger and more important. For instance, there is no doubt that the struggle between the ethos of free sharing characteristic for early days of computing, and its later appropriation by large capital which created some of the richest corporations in the world, has profound consequences to development of informational capitalism.…”

The social value of anonymity on campus: a study of the decline of Yik Yak

“…As the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018 revealed, the dominant business models of the new capitalism are highly dependent on data extraction, data profiling and still largely unregulated trading in the personal data of individually-identifiable users (Srnicek 2017;Zuboff 2015). Newer technologies currently touted as becoming mainstream in education (facial recognition, internet of things, neurotechnology) only promise an acute intensification and amplification of this lack of unreachability (Williamson 2018;D'Mello, Dieterle, and Duckworth 2017), and a growth in the sophistication of the architectures of surveillance we are subject to on campus (Ross and Macleod 2018;Hyslop-Margison and Rochester 2016). In this context, we might see the simplistic moral panic evident in media responses to anonymous social media like Yik Yak working not only as a refusal to engage with these more intractable issues, but as a hegemonic moral blind for the depredations of surveillance capitalism.…”