Originally broadcast at 10:30 a.m. ET Thursday, August 19, 2021.

At the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence lies a wealth of opportunity for business, labor, and society at large. Yet along with progress comes a host of ethical dilemmas. As a leading scholar and neuro-ethicist, Nita Farahany considers what our neurological information is worth, and the implications of making it available to corporations, work places and government, which she will discuss as the closing presenter of the Chautauqua Lecture Series’ Week Eight theme of “The Human Brain.”

The founding director of The Duke Initiative for Science & Society, chair of the Duke master's program in bioethics and science policy, and principal investigator of SLAPLAB, Farahany is at the forefront of the technology and ethics of wearable devices that use our biological and neurological data. Like devices that inform people with epilepsy when they’re about to have a seizure, these “mind-reading” technologies will change everything from medicine, to marketing, to the processes of justice, to entertainment. Previously, Farahany was the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor of Human Rights at Stanford Law School.

President Barack Obama also appointed Farahany to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, where she served for seven years. She is the president-elect and a board member of the International Neuroethics Society, and co-founder and co-editor-in-chief and of the Journal of Law and the Biosciences.

Farahany received her AB in genetics, cell, and developmental biology at Dartmouth College, a JD and MA from Duke University, as well as a PhD in philosophy. She also holds an ALM in biology from Harvard University.

This program is made possible by "The Lincoln Program in Applied Ethics" funded by the David and Joan Lincoln Family Fund for Applied Ethics and the Foglesong Family Lectureship Fund.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.