Updating our selves : synthesizing philosophical and neurobiological perspectives on incorporating new information into our worldview

Given the ubiquity and centrality of social and relational influences to the human experience, our conception of self-governance must adequately account for these external influences. The inclusion of socio-historical, externalist (i.e., “relational”) considerations into more traditional internalist (i.e., “individualist”) accounts of autonomy has been an important feature of the debate over personal autonomy in recent years. But the relevant socio-temporal dynamics of autonomy are not only historical in nature. There are also important, and under-examined, future-oriented questions about how we retain autonomy while incorporating new values into the existing set that guides our interaction with the world. In this paper, we examine these questions from two complementary perspectives: philosophy and neuroscience. After contextualizing the philosophical debate, we show the importance to theories of autonomous agency of the capacity to appropriately adapt our values and beliefs, in light of relevant experiences and evidence, to changing circumstances. We present a plausible philosophical account of this process, which we claim is generally applicable to theories about the nature of autonomy, both internalist and externalist alike. We then evaluate this account by providing a model for how the incorporation of values might occur in the brain; one that is inspired by recent theoretical and empirical advances in our understanding of the neural processes by which our beliefs are updated by new information. Finally, we synthesize these two perspectives and discuss how the neurobiology might inform the philosophical discussion

Pre-Authorization: A Novel Decision-Making Heuristic That May Promote Autonomy

First paragraphs: While the nature of autonomy has been debated for centuries, recent scholarship has been re-examining our conception(s) of autonomy in light of findings from the behavioral, cognitive, and neural sciences (Felsen and Reiner 2011; Blumenthal-Barby 2016). Blumenthal-Barby’s target article provides us with a timely and helpful framework for thinking about this issue in a systematic way, specifically in relation to the wide range of cognitive biases and heuristics that we employ in our decision making. Building on this, we wish to expand the framework beyond the article’s focus on the threat posed by biases and heuristics by suggesting that it is possible for at least some heuristics to promote autonomy. We hope to demonstrate this point by introducing the conceptual framework for a novel heuristic that we call pre-authorization. Blumenthal-Barby argues that biases and heuristics “pose a serious threat to autonomous decision-making and human agency” and that, consequently, efforts should be made to remove, mitigate, or counter them. While recognizing the autonomy-threatening potential of these ‘fast thinking’ mechanisms, as well as agreeing with the author about the types of cases in which this potential is likely to be actualized, we suggest that it does not capture the full range of interactions that are relevant to a balanced assessment of their impact on autonomy. If, as is widely acknowledged, at least some heuristics are adaptive responses to particular real-world decision-making situations (Gigerenzer 2008), the issue at hand becomes elucidating whether, and under what conditions, the cognitive influence of any particular heuristic is autonomy-threatening, autonomy-preserving, or even autonomy-promoting. Blumenthal-Barby focuses on the first of these categories; and, with respect to the component of absence of controlling or alienating influence, she contends that if the person’s attitude towards the influence is one of feeling controlled or alienated from her decision on account of the workings of a cognitive bias or heuristic, her autonomy is diminishe

Perceptions of Undue Influence Shed Light on the Folk Conception of Autonomy

Advances in psychology and neuroscience have elucidated the social aspects of human agency, leading to a broad shift in our thinking about fundamental concepts such as autonomy and responsibility. Here, we address a critical aspect of this inquiry by investigating how people consider the socio-relational nature of their own agency,particularly the influence of others on their perceived control over their decisions and actions. Specifically, in a series of studies using contrastive vignettes, we examine public attitudes about when external influences on everyday decisions are perceived as “undue” – that is, as undermining the control conditions for these decisions to be considered autonomous – vs. when they are perceived as appropriate and even supportive of autonomous decision-making. We found that the influence of preauthorized agents – individuals and institutions with whom we share a worldview –was judged to be less undue than non-preauthorized agents, even after controlling for the familiarity of the agent. These effects persisted irrespective of the extent to which respondents identified as communitarian or individualistic, and were consistent across two distinct scenarios. We also found that external influences that were rational were perceived as less undue than those that were arational. Our study opens new avenues of inquiry into the “folk conception” of autonomy, and we discuss the implications of our findings for the ethics of public policies designed to influence decisions and for information sharing in social networks

AI Loyalty: A New Paradigm for Aligning Stakeholder Interests

When we consult a doctor, lawyer, or financial advisor, we assume that they are acting in our best interests. But what should we assume when we interact with an artificial intelligence (AI) system? AI-driven personal assistants, such as Alexa and Siri, already serve as interfaces between consumers and information on the Web, and users routinely rely upon these and similar systems to take automated actions or provide information. Superficially, they may appear to be acting according to user interests, but many are designed with embedded conflicts of interests. To address this problem, we introduce the concept of AI loyalty. AI systems are loyal to the degree that they minimize and make transparent, conflicts of interest, and act in ways that prioritize the interests of users. Loyal AI products hold obvious appeal for the end-user and could promote the alignment of the long-term interests of AI developers and customers. To this end, we suggest criteria for assessing whether an AI system is acting in a manner that is loyal to the user, and argue that AI loyalty should be deliberately considered during the technological design process alongside other important values in AI ethics, such as fairness, accountability privacy, and equity

AI loyalty: A New Paradigm for Aligning Stakeholder Interests

When we consult with a doctor, lawyer, or financial advisor, we generally assume that they are acting in our best interests. But what should we assume when it is an artificial intelligence (AI) system that is acting on our behalf? Early examples of AI assistants like Alexa, Siri, Google, and Cortana already serve as a key interface between consumers and information on the web, and users routinely rely upon AI-driven systems like these to take automated actions or provide information. Superficially, such systems may appear to be acting according to user interests. However, many AI systems are designed with embedded conflicts of interests, acting in ways that subtly benefit their creators (or funders) at the expense of users. To address this problem, in this paper we introduce the concept of AI loyalty. AI systems are loyal to the degree that they are designed to minimize, and make transparent, conflicts of interest, and to act in ways that prioritize the interests of users. Properly designed, such systems could have considerable functional and competitive - not to mention ethical - advantages relative to those that do not. Loyal AI products hold an obvious appeal for the end-user and could serve to promote the alignment of the long-term interests of AI developers and customers. To this end, we suggest criteria for assessing whether an AI system is sufficiently transparent about conflicts of interest, and acting in a manner that is loyal to the user, and argue that AI loyalty should be considered during the technological design process alongside other important values in AI ethics such as fairness, accountability privacy, and equity. We discuss a range of mechanisms, from pure market forces to strong regulatory frameworks, that could support incorporation of AI loyalty into a variety of future AI systems

Decisional enhancement and autonomy: public attitudes towards overt and covert nudges

Ubiquitous cognitive biases hinder optimal decision making. Recent calls to assist decision makers in mitigating these biases—via interventions commonly called “nudges”—have been criticized as infringing upon individual autonomy. We tested the hypothesis that such “decisional enhancement” programs that target overt decision making—i.e., conscious, higher-order cognitive processes—would be more acceptable than similar programs that affect covert decision making—i.e., subconscious, lower-order processes. We presented respondents with vignettes in which they chose between an option that included a decisional enhancement program and a neutral option. In order to assess preferences for overt or covert decisional enhancement, we used the contrastive vignette technique in which different groups of respondents were presented with one of a pair of vignettes that targeted either conscious or subconscious processes. Other than the nature of the decisional enhancement, the vignettes were identical, allowing us to isolate the influence of the type of decisional enhancement on preferences. Overall, we found support for the hypothesis that people prefer conscious decisional enhancement. Further, respondents who perceived the influence of the program as more conscious than subconscious reported that their decisions under the program would be more “authentic”. However, this relative favorability was somewhat contingent upon context. We discuss our results with respect to the implementation and ethics of decisional enhancement

Effort-reward imbalance at work and risk of type 2 diabetes in a national sample of 50,552 workers in Denmark : A prospective study linking survey and register data

Objective: To examine the prospective relation between effort-reward imbalance at work and risk of type 2 diabetes. Methods: We included 50,552 individuals from a national survey of the working population in Denmark, aged 30-64 years and diabetes-free at baseline. Effort-reward imbalance was defined, in accordance with the literature, as a mismatch between high efforts at work (e.g. high work pace, time pressure), and low rewards received in return (e.g. low recognition, job insecurity) and assessed as a continuous and a categorical variable. Incident type 2 diabetes was identified in national health registers. Using Cox regression we calculated hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for estimating the association between effort-reward imbalance at baseline and risk of onset of type 2 diabetes during follow-up, adjusted for sex, age, socioeconomic status, cohabitation, children at home, migration background, survey year and sample method. Results: During 136,239 person-years of follow-up (mean = 2.7 years) we identified 347 type 2 diabetes cases (25.5 cases per 10,000 person-years). For each one standard deviation increase of the effort-reward imbalance score at baseline, the fully adjusted risk of type 2 diabetes during follow-up increased by 9% (HR: 1.09, 95% CI: 0.98-1.21). When we used effort-reward imbalance as a dichotomous variable, exposure to effort-reward imbalance was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes with a HR of 1.27 (95% CI: 1.02-1.58). Conclusion The results of this nationwide study of the Danish workforce suggest that effort-reward imbalance at work may be a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.Peer reviewe

Observations of Coronal Mass Ejections with the Coronal Multichannel Polarimeter

The Coronal Multichannel Polarimeter (CoMP) measures not only the polarization of coronal emission, but also the full radiance profiles of coronal emission lines. For the first time, CoMP observations provide high-cadence image sequences of the coronal line intensity, Doppler shift and line width simultaneously in a large field of view. By studying the Doppler shift and line width we may explore more of the physical processes of CME initiation and propagation. Here we identify a list of CMEs observed by CoMP and present the first results of these observations. Our preliminary analysis shows that CMEs are usually associated with greatly increased Doppler shift and enhanced line width. These new observations provide not only valuable information to constrain CME models and probe various processes during the initial propagation of CMEs in the low corona, but also offer a possible cost-effective and low-risk means of space weather monitoring.Comment: 6 figures. Will appear in the special issue of Coronal Magnetism, Sol. Phy

ESC core curriculum for the general cardiologist (2013)

[No abstract available