Moderators, hero and slaves... who moderates neurotechnology

What are moderators and how does modulating what I see, hear, think, and potentially act affect the way neurotechnology or cognitive capability is applied to modern-day life.

As we always should, we should look to the past to see the future, to try, and understand the pathways that may unfold. 

Moderators have been used for time. From the great debates in public arenas such as; symposiums of old where the battles for rights took shape, to a referee in a football game, or the speaker of the House of Commons who holds the ground for debates. 

Moderation in the modern day comes in many forms and ways we would not have imagined.

Moderating for such things as; content of websites, content of social media, content of forums, our lives are full on moderation, and some find the paternalism too much to handle, and either pass personal moderation to someone else to look after, get confused and ignore it, there are many reasons why. Nevertheless, the law within the UK is drawn from various areas of legislation to support moderation however, it tries to hold together the best interests of people by allowing them to make their own volition or decisions based on what the best way is for them. This is perceived as the only true fire way to freewill and freedom. The law requires moderation to prevent harm, but like all things can have a complex, multifocal degree of application which can be a benefit or a harm.

In the instance of harm, today in the world we have what could be classed as modern-day slavery, when it comes to content moderation. This has been seen in areas where social media companies have exploited individuals, groups and businesses in the form of the master giving them what they need because they like them or are attached to them as they “supply a need” that they themselves cannot get on their own.

When it comes to rights, organisations such as International Labour Organization who seek to find equalism within all areas of work including areas in emerging fields, such as Artificial Intelligent. Content moderation is high on the agender, the video above is shocking and sends shivers down anyone’s spine who sees the exploitation of the vulnerable people seeking crumbs from the gods before them.

The content and nature of humans means we produce some terrifying examples of emotion. The civil aspects that we all have somewhere depending on the situation; is the middle ground the law tries to modulate.

The UK currently does not have direct laws surrounding neurotechnology capabilities, and as this technology is in its ascent, we have an opportunity to lead the way in content moderation when it comes to neurotechnology technology. We are standing at the stairwell of innovation that the mass public has never seen before apart from mobile telephones, but this time, imagen your phone in your head, this is the future and it is not 50 years away.

Content moderation will be derived, but one of the 6 lawful bases of data collection, and 6 for processing will have to take place and should have 6 data protection principles applied.

6 lawful bases of data collection,

Informed decision-making, 

Enhanced understanding, 

Progress Monitoring, 

Problem solving, 

Knowledge Contribution, 

Research Foundation.

6 for processing,

Consent,

Contract,

Legal obligation,

Vital, (absolute reason),

Public interest, 

Law enforcement.

6 data protection principles,

Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency,

Purpose limitation,

Data minimization, 

Accuracy,

Storage limitation, 

Integrity and confidentiality. 

Today, we have transparency and responsibility surrounding data covered by the UK GDPR. The content moderators for the future are coming for devices such as, wearables that detect your brain data your thoughts, feelings, and actions, this has to happen, it’s the law, it’s the law for transparency and responsibility, but this time, it’s not as simple as you can’t just change your brain data, like you can your phone number. Yet, it is treated like so, “personal data” under current regulations. These businesses are and will collect your brain data in a harvest now, store now, decode later fashion. Meaning, what you give away now will be decoded later on.

We have more thoughts in a day than we could ever hope to understand, over 6000 are believed to take place while we know there are more things to be seen in a scene, than could ever been seen. What this means, is that those 6000s thoughts get drawn into semantics, under heuristics and are required to be moderated by either AI or an independent adjudicator to draw a conclusion. In the past, this was only possible by an opinion from a psychologist, but soon this will be adjudicated by your Boss, your lover, your family, anyone who has access to the data and can and will use it if given the chance.

We know this from the simple fact we need moderators in the first place for our current technology. Digitally harvesting, using, sharing, storing, and decoding later, neural data on mass via neurotechnology will be novel, and has never been done to some many on such a scale, and publicly known. What this does not mean is we should be scared of neurotechnology or scared of moderating to the contrary, we should be careful with what, who, and why we share our neural data, for what reasons and understand and trust those that have the access to our most precious commodity. 

As Mark Zuckerberg states: the holy grail of data is you minds data, brain data, cognitive data, if companies could have access to your minds data then this truly would be the highest prize for marketing, and knowing how to predict what you "need".  

We must access the scrolls of the past to apply the moderation of neurotechnological future.

This is why the Nuromovement calls for Informed Consent for all.