Page - 222 - in Cyborg Mind - What Brain–Computer and Mind–Cyberspace Interfaces Mean for Cyberneuroethics

222 • Cyborg Mind Future Cybercrimes With the continued development of virtual realities and cybercommunities, a new setting is created, which, if no regulations are established, may even- tually result in individuals being harmed and responsibilities being blurred. For example, when a soldier is connected to computers through a neuronal interface to control military drones and one of these accidentally bombs the wrong target, questions could be asked as to who should be blamed. Is it the soldier, the neuronal interface connected to the computer or the programmer who designed the system? At present, the law makes a distinction between human operators and technical systems, while requiring operators to be responsible for these systems. But the situation would change if the operators’ cognition was enhanced by a neuronal interface appliance linked to a computer. It would then be difficult to separate the human operator from the system and the concept of responsibility would become unclear. Of course, some parallels already exist with the use of drugs to control thoughts and behaviour, making persons more efficient and attentive, but the exact nature of the concept of free will and responsibility may have to be reconsidered in many contexts where new neuronal interface systems are used. At the same time, if an ever-increasing amount of information is available about a person’s thoughts, it may become possible to examine a person’s inten- tions to commit a crime. This could then be used by law enforcement organ- isations similar to the ‘Precrime’ specialised police department in the film Minority Report, which apprehends future criminals based on foreknowledge. But, in a way, this may not be so new, since psychiatrists already find themselves in similar situations when they discover that one of their patients represent a very significant danger to society, though he or she has not yet committed any crimes. What Is Real and What Is Virtual? With the development of neuronal interfaces, it is also possible to question whether a crime committed in cyberspace, such as between two Second Life avatars, should be considered a crime in real life and to what extent. To a cer- tain degree, the extension of the law’s jurisdiction into Second Life and other virtual reality settings is already taking place, in that an English court settled a divorce case on the basis of a spouse’s adulterous avatar.26 In other words, this may have happened because what took place in cyberspace affected real physical persons. But since only real persons can be affected with moral values, at present, this may mean that the way in which cyberspace and its virtual realities affect This open access edition has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of Knowledge Unlatched. Not for resale.