If you had the chance to not just see your loved ones after they die, but interact with them, would you?
The question for many researchers and neuroscientists working in the aptly coined death-tech field is not one of will we, but rather on what platform.
“Death is often viewed as the great leveller that marks the cessation of experience. But perhaps this needn’t be the case,” writes Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, a data scientist who studies machine learning and artificial intelligence. “Even if the dead can’t interact with us anymore, we can still interact with a simulation of them.”
Not terribly long ago, the concept of bringing people back — or, rather, bringing back their consciousnesses — seemed so far out of reach that it was the subject of an early episode of the futuristic sci-fi series “Black Mirror.” Fast-forward a couple of years to today, and you can find many scientists and philosophers contemplating the ethical implications of re-creating deceased humans, and what that might mean for how we grieve.
Dmitri Itzkov is a Russian multimillionaire who told the BBC in 2016 that he left the business world to “devote himself to something more useful to humanity.” His vision: A world where science has decoded the mysteries of the human mind, which then can be uploaded to a computer and transferred into a robotic avatar.
The thirtysomething Itzkov, who founded the 2045 Initiative to pursue his goal of “cybernetic immortality,” already knows how he will spend his immortal life. “For the next few centuries I envision having multiple bodies, one somewhere in space, another hologram-like, my consciousness just moving from one to another.”
It sounds outlandish, like something out of a low-budget sci-fi movie from the ’80s. But not everyone in the death-tech field is planning an endless existence involving mind-uploading and lifelike robots.
The Philadelphia-based biotech company BioQuark is currently studying how to reanimate the brains of people on life support who have been declared brain-dead. (Once the brain stem stops functioning, a person is considered to be legally deceased.) The plan is to inject stem cells and amino acids into patients’ spinal cords and brain stems, alongside other therapies, and grow neurons in the brain that will connect to each other and thus, regenerate the brain.
“This represents the first trial of its kind and another step towards the eventual reversal of death in our lifetime,” said BioQuark CEO Ira Pastor at the study’s outset.
There are other technologies cropping up that don’t bring back the dead, per se, but do allow mourners to keep their memories of loved ones alive for eternity.
A few years back city officials in Anchorage, Alaska, for example, began allowing people to stick QR codes on the city’s columbarium wall, which holds 9,000 urns. When scanned by visitors, the QR codes pull up an online memorial, photos and videos posted by the family.
“If we give people the opportunity to memorialize in a way that they’re comfortable with, then they’ll be down the road to healthy grieving, and that’s the whole point,” said Rob Jones, director of Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that robotics and the rapid evolution of technology may one day revolutionize the way humans die — or don’t die.
Until that time comes, however, the rest of us will have to make peace with our own mortality and continue honoring our dead the analog way: by keeping their memories alive inside our brains, and our hearts.
Tag: neuroscience
Why Behavioral Science Has Become the Next Big Thing for Solving Society’s Problems
Ever since Dr. Stanley Milgram conducted his notorious experiment in the early 1960s, in which he asked participants to obediently administer a high-voltage “shock” to a victim, researchers have uncovered a wealth of fascinating insights into the human mind. But much of this study has been confined to laboratories and academia. As managing director at ideas42, NationSwell Council member Alissa Fishbane is bucking that trend by applying the lessons from behavioral science to the social sector. At ideas42, her team advises governments and nonprofits about how to better structure their programs in education, healthcare, criminal justice, finance and energy based on what we know about human psychology. NationSwell spoke to Fishbane at her office in Lower Manhattan.
What is behavioral science, and why is it so important for policymakers to understand?
Behavioral sciences are really pulling together all the research in social psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics. This field is so important because people often behave in ways that are strange and peculiar. You want to go to the gym five times a week, you want to stay on this diet and you want to save more for retirement. Why isn’t that happening? We all tell ourselves what we want to do, then it doesn’t quite happen. Why not? We as human beings struggle to follow through on certain decisions, particularly things that are very important to us. But programs and policies in the social sector are often created in ways that don’t account for this fundamental aspect, how we behave as humans. That’s really where we come in.
What’s an example of how this looks in practice?
One thing we’re looking at is how to help students complete college. There’s been a lot of great work in this area, but we’ve taken a different approach, which is the holistic student experience. How do we take the pulse of a student as they go through the process, day-to-day and semester-to-semester? How do we understand their various decisions, actions, habits? Knowing that there are constant hurdles a student needs to jump over — “Did I apply? Did I matriculate? Did I get my aid? Did I study? Did I pass?” — even a small one can trip them up. The solution isn’t any one piece; it’s creating a system that supports them throughout all of their college years.
It can be very simple, like reminders to complete the FAFSA. With something that small, we almost doubled the early application rate at one university we worked with. We also take on tougher problems, like working with a college to figure out how to keep students from dropping out in the first year. We realized a big part of the problem for students was feeling like they didn’t belong on campus. For that, we embedded a video into orientation showing how lots of other students went through similar challenges, the way they overcame them and how thrilled they are now to be there. We were able to raise the retention rate from 83 to 91 percent, which is pretty amazing, just by understanding what these students experienced.
What kinds of issues have you worked on locally, in New York City?
Summons are tickets for low-level infractions that people get for things like having an open container of alcohol in public or riding a bike on the sidewalk. Lots of people are getting these tickets — big city, you know, lots going on — but what’s really scary is that if you get a ticket and don’t show up to court, a bench warrant is put out for you. The next time you have any sort of encounter with police, you will be arrested immediately and put in jail. Almost 40 percent of New Yorkers aren’t showing up, which is an extraordinarily high number. That’s really concerning because for families that don’t have flexible jobs, it’s hugely disruptive. Even if you’re out in 24 hours, you could lose your job. And it’s even worse if you’re undocumented.
We partnered with the mayor’s office, the NYPD and a state entity, the Office of Court Administration, to change what the ticket looks like. Even changing the title makes it clearer. Before it said “Complaint/Information”; now, it says “Criminal Court Appearance Ticket.” Instead of a date and time in chicken-scratch on the back, that info is now at the top along with writing that says that you will get an arrest warrant if you don’t show up.
Then, their next touch point is 12 weeks later. Most people think they have plenty of time, but they forget, lose the ticket or don’t put the date in their calendar. We’re coupling the revised form with a series of text-message reminders. We know people need to ask for time off work, so it comes a week ahead of time to help them plan. In case they forgot, it comes three days before. Then, it comes the day before.
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Are there any ethical dilemmas to watch out for in applying behavioral research to policy?
No matter how you design anything, consciously or unconsciously, you create an outcome. The way anything is built, just in its structure, is nudging people one way or another. We try to de-bias that and help people make the decision they want to be making. In the social sector, we’re really focused on how we help people move from intention to action. So we’re not trying to tell people, “Now, do this,” but rather, helping them follow through.
How do you apply these insights to your own life?
We don’t realize everything else that’s going on in the lives of others; we don’t see the full picture of anyone’s environment. It’s easy to say, “I can’t believe you didn’t make it to the gym five times,” but then you don’t either. I can make these assumptions like, “Oh, she doesn’t have discipline,” but then come up with an excuse for my own lack of discipline. Understanding human behavior makes us more generous about others and ourselves. I’ve become much more forgiving of myself, knowing that lots of these things are funny quirks about human behavior.
To learn more about the NationSwell Council, click here.
This Man Wants to Give a Voice to People With Brain Injuries
Dan Bacher’s job is all about the not-so-simple connection between thinking and doing.
Bacher is a 29-year-old engineer who has been working with BrainGate, a collaboration between Brown University and other academic institutions, to pioneer an experimental brain implant that helps people with severe, paralyzing brain injuries use computers to regain movement and task completion. Bacher has been working with BrainGate patient Cathy Hutchinson, who suffered a brain stem stroke in 1996 that left her mostly motionless but with an alert mind. An optimistic sticker on her wheelchair reads “My legs don’t work, but my brain does.” Bacher and BrainGate have implanted a computer chip in her brain that helps her move a robotic arm by thinking about doing so and perform tasks such as picking up a cup of coffee and drinking it through a straw. Though this technology proves immensely helpful, Hutchinson still struggles with something more basic — communication.
Her $10,000 communications device malfunctions often and is time consuming to use. Bacher said watching and seeing this struggle is what inspired him to create a nonprofit called SpeakYourMind Foundation Inc. Bacher is using SpeakYourMind to find low-cost alternatives to expensive communications technology. He just installed an $800 Windows tablet on her wheel chair with new communications software that uses her slight head movements along with algorithms to spell out words on the screen or send emails. Though the software is still new, it’s a step up from Hutchinson’s current form of communication. Before Bacher left Hutchinson’s home after installing the new tablet, it took her 45 minutes to write this short message to The Providence Journal: “I’m excited about the future of sym,” she wrote, using sym as the acronym for SpeakYourMind. “I have faith in sym and I’m very optimistic about the help it will bring to so many.”
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