PUBLIC TALK: Engineering and Ethics with Neural Culture

New media artworks that feature living neural networks, such as “MEArt” and “Silent Barrage,” suggest that humans have ethical obligations to these hybrid neuro-robotic entities. These entities are interesting from an ethics perspective, as interaction between the entity and it's environment is constructed by the artists and scientists who built the piece, but the tissue that performs that interaction is built of the same material that (it is believed) experiences pain and suffering in a live rat. This presentation is part of ongoing research into the types of constructed entities we have obligations towards, as well as the extent of those obligations.

Riley Zeller-Townson is a Biomedical Engineering PhD Student at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University in Atlanta, USA, in the lab of Dr. Steve Potter. Riley's research focuses on the role of the axon in neural computation and what artificial intelligence can get out of neuroscience. Riley is also a Neuroethics Scholar at the Emory University Neuroethics Program, where he studies the ethical claims of artwork that includes live neurons.