Patricia Churchland - US grants

As neurobiological data accumulate and better methods are devised for extracting anatomical and physiological information about nervous systems, a profoundly difficult problem remains: how can we use what we know to explain higher functions in terms of neuronal networks? What are the dynamical principles which yield complex effects from the behavior of individual neurons? Theoretical approaches are underway in various places, and one striking and important development in this context is the connectionist strategy. Combined with serious neurobiological constraints, this has engendered a new enterprise--computational neuroscience. Dr. Churchland in collaboration with Dr. Terrence J. Sejnowski, is seeking to provide a panoramic view of the theoretical task and give a unique integration of material from neurobiology, psychophysics and computer science. They will explore the computational strategies used by human and other nervous systems, presenting detailed examples of promising computational results, of the limits of the models, and of problems remaining. The project is on interest both for the neurosciences and philosophy of science. Philosophically, the principal interest concerns the role and character of representations and computations in neural network theories, and in the emergence of reductive explanations.

The global acceleration in technological innovation and transformation is incidentally leading to a scientific culture in which technology is often designed and launched without providing ethical guidelines for its use. Thus, the mere pace of technology mandates an urgent need for establishing ethical guidelines as part of the natural course of science. Ultimately, a sustainable landscape of innovation will include a culture of partnership between the scientific community and ethicists, allowing capitalization on the benefits of discovery while mitigating the liabilities to society. This movement must be driven as a team effort at the outset. Thus, a primary purpose of this proposal is to formulate a cross-disciplinary team of scientists and ethicists to consider the ethical use of a select set of emerging technologies for application to the science of learning, education, rehabilitation, medicine, and augmented humans.

At the outset, a team of engineers, cognitive scientists, psychologists and educators will work alongside ethicists with expertise in the ethics of virtual reality, neurorehabilitation, robotics, wearable sensors, and augmented humans through a workshop-style forum, set at the University of Queensland, Australia, in order to forge a path for establishing ethical guidelines as part of the scientific process. A virtual organization will be formed to sustain these efforts and to create a secure forum for continual interaction between scientists and relevant ethicists and policy makers. The international component of this grant is absolutely essential not only to the training of a diversity of students who will be trained to lead sustainable science in the future, but also to balance the venture as an international problem worthy of coordination and international collaboration at the outset. Both the international component and the virtual forum also establish the fact that ethical guidelines and policy need to be an inherent component of STEM education. Educational activities for graduate students are an inherent component of each goal of the grant and programs for recruitment and inclusion of under-represented students are embedded in the plan. Additional STEM education materials, and established routes for broader dissemination to under-represented students, will be produced as a byproduct of the high level scientific program. The activities will conclude with a fully articulated process for establishing ethical guidelines as an integral part of technology development.