BCIs and disability: enhancement, environmental modification, and embodiment

Abstract:

This paper explores the ways that BCIs can modify the environment as well as the individual, blur the boundaries between them, and thereby affect the physical functioning and social inclusion of people with disabilities. We begin by outlining the traditional distinction between two kinds of technology that serve people with disabilities: assistive devices and universal design. We then examine a spectrum of BCI applications, from prosthetic attachments to public infrastructure, with the potential to vastly improve the functioning of both disabled and nondisabled people, and to diminish the importance and salience of physical impairments. We suggest that these applications will erode the distinction between assistive devices and universal design as they blur the lines between individual and environmental modifications. Our optimism is tempered by concern for the impact that BCI technology may have on our embodied connection to the physical world and on people with intellectual disabilities. We find the latter concern more disturbing than the former, but speculate that both may be mitigated by the same technology that raises them. We conclude by suggesting that the complexities in appraising the impact of BCI technology on people with disabilities reflect their “dual valence”: the fact that the same uses of that technology have good and bad aspects.

Keywords:

• [BCIs]
• disabilities
• inclusion
• functioning
• assistive devices
• universal design
• prosthetics
• embodiment
• dual valence

Notes

1. In this paper, we focus on the enhancement of movement and mobility. Much of what we say, however, would apply equally well to technology designed to enhance sensory function, communication, and computer or internet access. In IV, we consider whether cognitive enhancement poses special challenges. We thank a reviewer for urging us to emphasize the breadth of our account.

2. To take a more extreme case, people may someday prefer to interact mostly or exclusively in virtual worlds, through BCI-controlled avatars. Such a world is envisioned in the film Surrogates; BCI-accessed virtual spaces are a staple of ‘cyberpunk’ science fiction.

3. One can imagine, for instance, elevators expensively fitted or retro-fitted with a second set of buttons that can be turned on electronically by signals from the user’s implant. If it took appreciably longer to activate a button this way than to push a standard button, few nondisabled passengers would be likely to use the second set of buttons, even if they had implants installed for other purposes. Indeed, they might be tempted to impatiently ask disabled riders which floor they wanted – a request the disabled rider might well find demeaning.