Empathic predators: on the affects and optics of brain-computer interface unmanned aerial vehicle research

Thesis

Empathic Predators is a philosophical anthropological inquiry concerning the dual use problem with relation to brain-computer interface research and technology. The thesis makes use of scientific papers as qualitative data, by taking literature on brain-computer interface unmanned aerial vehicle (BCIUAV) research as its anchor. A small number of digital interviews with BCI researchers were also conducted. The dual use problem involves research, technology, and artefacts with an ambivalent moral valence, in terms of the uses to which they can be put; crucially, where one of the uses entails weapons innovation. In BCIUAV research, the problem is represented by the juxtapositioning of the proposals for future uses of the BCIUAV as an assistive technology for people with disabilities, and as an electronic neuroweapon for combat. The conceptual and normative basis for the approach taken to dual use is found in the work of philosopher John Forge, and the cosmopolitan anthropology of Nigel Rapport. The research and technology are examined over several chapters, and special attention is eventually paid to the ways authors of some BCIUAV research papers figure bodies of future users in their texts. Speculative analyses are conducted concerning the way in which some figured bodies might function as morally persuasive optical devices, manipulating the reader’s perceptions of the research and technology in question. The thesis flows towards a consideration of the Human Right to Life with relation to knowingly dual use and weapons research, but also with relation to the practice of anthropology itself. It is argued that knowingly dual use and/or weapons research constitutes an indiscriminate threat to the Right to Life of Anyone and is thus a fundamental contravention of cosmopolitan politesse; and that a justifiably moralizing anthropology, capable of critique and intervention can be founded on respect for the Human Right to Life.

Authors: Taylor-Green, BC

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-8g6oxm7kr
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: weapons research; anthropology; philosophy; neuroweapons; dual use; brain-computer interface
• Subjects: Anthropology