The death penalty is one of America's most contentious issues. Critics complain that capital punishment is inhumane, pointing out how some executions have failed to quickly kill criminals (and instead tortured them). Supporters of the death penalty fire back saying capital punishment deters violent crime in society and serves justice to wronged victims. Complicating the matter is that political, ethnic, and religious lines don't easily distinguish death penalty advocates from its critics. In fact, only 31 states even allow capital punishment, so America is largely divided on the issue.
Regardless of the debate, technology will change the entire conversation in the next 10 to 20 years, rendering many of the most potent issues obsolete. For example, it's likely we will have cranial implants in two decades time that will be able to send signals to our brains that manipulate our behaviors. Those implants will be able to control out-of-control tempers and violent actions—and maybe even unsavory thoughts. This type of tech raises the obvious question: Instead of killing someone who has committed a terrible crime, should we instead alter their brain and the way it functions to make them a better person?
Recently, the commercially available Thync device made headlines for being able to alter our moods. Additionally, nearly a half million people already have implants in their heads, most to overcome deafness, but some to help with Alzheimer's or epilepsy. So the technology to change behavior and alter the brain isn't science fiction. The science, in some ways, is already here—and certainly poised to grow, especially with Obama's $3 billion dollar BRAIN initiative, of which $70 million went to DARPA, partially for cranial implant research.
Vice.com is the home of the original article.
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Electrical brain stimulation may help reduce violent crime in future – study
It could be a shocking way to treat future criminals. Scientists have found that a session of electrical brain stimulation can reduce people's intentions to commit assaults, and raise their moral awareness.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore explored the potential for brain stimulation to combat crime after noting that impairment in a part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex has been linked to violent acts.
They recruited 86 healthy adults and gave half of them 20 minutes of brain stimulation before asking the whole group to read two hypothetical scenarios, one describing a physical assault, the other a sexual assault. Immediately afterwards, the participants were asked to rate the likelihood that they might behave as the protagonist had in the stories.
For those who had their brains zapped, the expressed likelihood of carrying out the physical and sexual assaults was 47% and 70% lower respectively than those who did not have brain stimulation. In the first scenario, Chris smashes a bottle over Joe's head for chatting up his girlfriend, and in the second, a night of intimate foreplay leads to date rape.
[...] Using a procedure called transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, [Prof. Olivia] Choy and her colleagues Adrian Raine and Roy Hamilton at the University of Pennsylvania, delivered a 2 milliAmp current to the prefrontal cortex of volunteers to boost the region's activity.
Stimulation of the Prefrontal Cortex Reduces Intentions to Commit Aggression: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Stratified, Parallel-Group Trial (DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3317-17.2018) (DX)
Related: How Brain Implants (and Other Technology) Could Make the Death Penalty Obsolete
Study Uses Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation to Improve Piloting Abilities
Transcranial Direct-Current Stimulation Could Speed Learning by 40%
Stanford Scientists Use Electric Jolts to Prevent Impulsive Behavior
Washington State Fusion Center Accidentally Releases Records on Remote Mind Control
(Score: 3, Insightful) by riT-k0MA on Friday July 24 2015, @08:03AM
While brain implants sound like an awesome idea, how do we regulate implants?
If this enables the control of the most violent members of society, someone may one day decide that implants are the perfect tool to "prevent sedition".
Imagine a law mandating that every adult must have a device implanted in their skulls at the age of 18, just in case they "may become violent or mentally disturbed later in life". Anyone who resists or objects is arrested and not only has the device implanted, but has the inplant activated so that they are unable to even think of deactivating or removing the device.
Now imagine that the government does something unpopular, like passing a law that the bans the ingestion of caffeine. A massive crowd of people gathers near the capitol in protest of this new law. A police drone flies overhead and broadcasts an "anti sedition" signal. The implanted devices are activated, altering the very minds of the protesters, reshaping their neural anatomy until they are docile and incapable of protesting further.
The potential for abuse of these implants is very very high. How do we prevent wide-scale abuse of these devices?
Knowing that this type of technology will be abused at some stage, should we even try to research it?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by t-3 on Friday July 24 2015, @08:08AM
Brain control is really something that shouldn't be touched as long as the concept of government exists.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @05:55PM
The concept of government will exist for as long as the concept of large groups of humans living together exists.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @09:49AM
G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @09:55AM
This will never happen because insurance companies will never cover the cost of the procedure.
(Score: 1) by riT-k0MA on Friday July 24 2015, @10:15AM
What if it makes the drone more risk-adverse, therefore lowering the likelihood of an insurance claim?
(Score: 3, Touché) by githaron on Friday July 24 2015, @01:09PM
They will when they get the implant!
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday July 25 2015, @08:10AM
The government could not write a cheque fast enough to have one of these devices stuffed into every single unconvicted criminal living in the community.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @01:06PM
This reminds be of the Nebari from Farscape.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 24 2015, @04:50PM
It will be interpreted as 'the mark of the beast' by religious people, who I hope would either flee or revolt.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday July 24 2015, @06:12PM
The Mark of the Beast isn't a brain control issue. It's an identification issue. An RFID tag under your skin might actually qualify as that. Depending on what that RFID tag is used for.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @08:16AM
This is obviously one of those cases.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @08:20AM
In other words, the wet dream of any dictator out there: Just implant them a chip that suppresses even the thought of revolt.
And if you need it, you can also control someone in other ways. For example, you want to get rid of someone for reasons the brain chip cannot control, well, simply make someone near him temporarily super-aggressive and hateful, so he will kill your target.
I'm not sure whether such implants are really more ethical than death penalty, anyway.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by penguinoid on Friday July 24 2015, @09:04AM
Instead of killing someone who has committed a terrible crime, should we instead alter their brain and the way it functions to make them a better person?
This is already standard practice in more civilized countries. Of course, the part about helping them become a better person is more along the lines of education and training and assistance than brain implants.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 2) by bd on Friday July 24 2015, @11:55AM
Instead of killing someone who has committed a terrible crime, should we instead alter their brain and the way it functions to make them a better person?
This is already standard practice in more civilized countries. Of course, the part about helping them become a better person is more along the lines of education and training and assistance than brain implants.
The less non-invasive strategy has also been tried in the past, albeit without implants. Back then, the advocates of lobotomy used surprisingly similar arguments to the proponents of these implants...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 24 2015, @02:25PM
Lobotomies aren't all that far in the past. I had an uncle who was a prime candidate for one. He narrowly missed the knife, but the doctors sure wanted to cut on him.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Friday July 24 2015, @09:37AM
It is a safe bet these will be hijacked by the same guys that hijacked the jeep OTA,
and will hijack smart watches, and probably just as quickly.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @09:58AM
This sort of artificial behavior control (oh, sorry, "modification") is exactly what the tin foil hat brigade and sci-fi writers have warned us about.
If we go down this road, we as a species may consider ourselves an epic failure.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @10:47AM
Dodo simulator 2015... You too can experience the thrill of being a Dodo...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @11:33AM
They aren't tinfoil if it becomes reality.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @12:54PM
why? not trolling, I just want to see your reasoning.
what is this set of values that you're using to judge an entire species?
objectively speaking, the species is only a failure if it dies off (in the sense that none of the members of the species have live descendants).
unless you bring religion into the discussion.
I could agree that we would be failing our ideals of free choice etc, but that's subjective (and future generations may simply laugh at us for grabbing onto old fashioned ideas).
think about it: most ants are slaves. are you repulsed by the idea that most of them live only to serve the queen, and they are compelled to do it via chemical conditioning? are ant species failures because of it?
please note that personally I am frightened at the thought that such devices exist, and I honestly have no idea how to react. that's why I feel the need for some context.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @02:13PM
No, they aren't. They don't have the brain capacity to make complex decisions, but it's not as if the queen decides where they go and what they do. Indeed, if there's a slave in the ant colony, it's the queen. It sits there and can do literally nothing but lay eggs. It's nothing but a living egg factory.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Friday July 24 2015, @08:31PM
Think about what they did to Alan Turing, this is no different. The only thing he did wrong was be homosexual.
Even if it was moral or ethical to do this thing, the people with the power to wield it would not use it so. They would use it against everyone that dared speak out against them.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday July 24 2015, @10:01AM
It appears that once brain manipulation, obviously in the hand of the status quo who sponsors its research, takes off, I mindless bot will have some billion more pals to play games with!
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Friday July 24 2015, @11:35AM
Sometimes I can't tell if a Soylentnews article is about technology, philosophy, or an elaborate sociological experiment in which *we the audience* are the lab-rats.
Is anybody else familiar with the German expression and song, "Die Gedanken sind frei" [wikipedia.org]?
The thoughts are free. This idea has been probably been expressed in every century since Cicero. Read that article, the song has nice lyrics.
100 years after that song was made, in 1948, the UN published the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's handy as a reference sometimes in case we forget who we are as humans. Let's see if it says something about this topic; I think article #18 applies:
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html#a18 [un.org]
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought. Period. End of discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @12:41PM
one can argue that since society is willing to kill the person involved, it has already decided that the person is no longer entitled to human rights.
personally I haven't thought about this thoroughly (maybe I should), but this is one way of looking at it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @01:08PM
If it can be applied to 'people you dont like' it can be applied to you. This is a horrible horrible horrible idea.
I am thinking I would rather be put to death than have someone manipulate me on that level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @02:31PM
No. What happens when society decides that certain people have no human rights is evidenced by the Nazi concentration camps: When people are no longer considered subject of human rights, they are not just killed, they are put to use in the same ways animals are: Forced to do any work, used for experiments, and even used as source of materials. Most proponents of death penalty would object to such use of convicted criminals, even if they don't object to put animals to such use. Which clearly shows that even after being convicted to capital punishment, those people are still be seen by most as having human rights.
(Score: 2) by Francis on Saturday July 25 2015, @03:54AM
For cases like that we have life without possibility of parole and the possibility of committing somebody to a psychiatric hospital until they're no longer a risk to others. It's not perfect, but if there's been a mistake we can mitigate the results. Dead is dead and no matter how wrong the process was, you can make somebody undead.
The risks for abuse in this sort of thing way outweigh the possible benefits.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday July 24 2015, @01:26PM
> Everyone has the right to freedom of thought. Period. End of discussion.
The research in methods to interfere with freedom of thought, like modern advertisement, and age-old disinformation, propaganda, astroturfing... prove that this self evident right is far from being self evident. Like most of the universal declaration BTW. Those are axioms, laudable ones sure, but require faith.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday July 24 2015, @03:14PM
That's a good point. I guess advertisement and propaganda are tolerated, because it is believed they don't always 100% work.
I don't know much about ethics, but what if it's an imprecise, blurred distinction; a mind control technique that works below x % efficiency is societally acceptable, above x% efficiency is uncomfortable, and > 90% efficiency is taboo.
If you read Heinlein's SF/horror book "The Puppet Masters", he describes alien slugs mind-controlling American citizens as somewhat socially un-acceptable. Does it really matter to the puppets if the puppet masters are alien slugs or if they are charismatic, down-to-earth human leaders? I doubt it.
Imagine you sell a soft drink, and invent a trap that, when an innocent passer-by steps on it, it alters their mind to have a permanent craving for your soft drink.
(That was in one of Frederik Pohl's books, I think one of the ones with Kornbluth). Now you have much more customers who are conditioned to spend a portion of their income on your product to keep them going!!
Is that moral? Should that be legal or illegal?
If you change the words "soft drink" to "crack cocaïne", it shouldn't change the principle of the question. Yet many societies outlaw the selling of crack. Why? They could profit a lot from taxing addictive substances.
I should know, I've been addicted to nicotine (smoked cigarettes for 10 years, difficult to quit, had to try twice). It was a bloody expensive pastime with the high tobacco tax.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @04:48PM
I guess advertisement and propaganda are tolerated, because it is believed they don't always 100% work.
And people who believe that are correct. Advertisements and propaganda are certainly not 100% effective; not even close.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Bot on Friday July 24 2015, @09:46PM
Curiously, the policy about drugs seems about maximising its economic impact. That is, making sure it's still feasible to obtain drugs, but at high prices. It's not legalization, it's not prohibition (some dictators successfully clamped down on drug crime, by simply making it not worthy with harsh punishments). I'd say that drugs are about control, not freedom.
Another aspect is that by defining illegal drugs, legal drugs like alcohol and possibly sugars are perceived as safe. A visit to the local hospital should clear that misunderstanding up.
Personally, I'd legalize everything self-produced and -consumed, and punish as homicide attempts the acts of: giving drugs to others, no matter if money is involved, being outside home while stoned, worse if driving or working, implicitly advocating drug use (explicit endorsement is freedom of expression). It's the only way to preserve one's freedom to fuck up his own life, and one's freedom not to have his own life fucked up by others. An exemption for docs prescribing SSRI or equivalents, who would need an insurance to cover for damages by people under antidepressants.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by penguinoid on Friday July 24 2015, @04:53PM
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought. Period. End of discussion.
Dead people don't have freedom of thought.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Friday July 24 2015, @06:56PM
If you mean, you have to choose between killing people or mind-controlling them, I believe that's called a "false dichotomy".
There are more options than those two.
For example, several countries have lifetime imprisonment. That is much more expensive, but also protects society from the individuals that are currently on "death row" in the USA or elsewhere.
From a cost perspective, I can imagine that a Thai or Tchadian or Tongan government would prefer a cheap piece of rope to an expensive long-stay prison. But for the USA, the richest country in the world, that's no excuse.
EDIT: oops, seems Tchad has also abolished capital punishment. Tajikistan, then. Bother, Tajikistan and Tonga haven't executed people for years. OK change the example to Iraq, Iran and India.
(Score: 1) by SiriusStarr on Friday July 24 2015, @11:39AM
Anyone else having flashbacks to old Michael Chrichton? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminal_Man/ [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 24 2015, @01:36PM
We already have the Ludovico Technique, why bother with all the risks of invasive surgery?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 24 2015, @02:31PM
Similar concepts [wikipedia.org] have been explored by science fiction.
Heinlein in particular wrote a lot of stories about revolution and freedom in the future when technologies like thought control exist. We all know science fiction can inspire engineers and scientists to explore new directions (such as the oft-cited Star Trek communicators inspiring cell phones), but the thought experiments that many science fiction stories are can also be helpful in thinking through ramifications as new technologies emerge and become reality.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mr_mischief on Friday July 24 2015, @03:48PM
Similar concepts have been practiced in real life. Alan Turing, a hero of both computer science generally and of World War II in particular, was offered chemical castration rather than prison. His crime? Homosexuality. He eventually committed suicide.
(Score: 1) by cmdrklarg on Friday July 24 2015, @02:34PM
If we rehabilitate them, how are we supposed to enact vengeance upon them and punish them?
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by zugedneb on Friday July 24 2015, @06:06PM
To show respect to the fallen you treasured, kill those you can't turn your back to...
I think, so many noble people have been consumed by life, that to kill some "psychologically unbalanced" individuals (even called garbage) is just a mild distraction from the pain of reality.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Friday July 24 2015, @03:07PM
So better I resort to Science Fiction (and a bit of decent trolling, see below) instead of philosophy.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by meustrus on Friday July 24 2015, @08:24PM
In what way would brain implants make executions obsolete? I'm sorry but it's right there in the summary:
Supporters of the death penalty fire back saying capital punishment deters violent crime in society and serves justice to wronged victims.
Brain implants in no way serve justice to wronged victims. They in fact would serve considerably less justice than the current alternative, life in prison. And while a brain implant is pretty scary, execution or life in prison is objectively a worse fate. There is absolutely no way that you can convince the death penalty supporters to switch over to this pie-in-the-sky police state technology. At least not to replace the death penalty.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @08:28AM
The only solution is to intentionally make the chip horrible. Make the victims quivering piles of flesh, give them insane cravings and spasms.
Then of course throw in the malfunction and software bugs and the crackers and script kiddies that make you do the moon walk when they press a button on their phone...
Hell on earth, we're getting there.