Biogem

    Bioethics

    Bioethics

    (Dr. Michele Farisco and dr. Cristiano Colangelo, collaborator)

    Main research lines

    The Bioethics Unit is part of the project “Counterfactual Assessment and Valuation for Awareness Architecture” (CAVAA), and of two Cost Actions: CONNECT, which is about the connection between cognitive decline and chronic kidney disease, and AFFECT-EVO, which is about animal affective and emotional states.

    The CAVAA project, coordinated by the Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, has been selected within the EIC Pathfinder Challenges 2021 “Awareness Inside” call, and will end in 2026. The COST Action CONNECT is an international network involving researchers and clinicians from different fields, while the COST Action AFFECT-EVO is an international network involving researchers from different scientific fields, including neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, aimed at elaborating new guidelines for animal wellbeing.

    The Bioethics Unit, in particular, in collaboration with philosophers, cognitive and computational neuroscientists, and researchers in AI and robotics, is devoted to the theoretical and ethical analysis of consciousness and related disorders (coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state) and of the possibility of developing an artificial consciousness.

    In addition to the study of consciousness, the Bioethics Unit is developing a reflection about neuroethics as a specific discipline. This work resulted in the refinement of the definition of “fundamental neuroethics”, as well as in the analysis of ethical and social impacts of AI. The research activities, multidisciplinary in nature, are conducted in collaboration with internationally recognized researchers. 

    Projects in progress:

    • Theoretical reflection about the conceivability and the feasibility of artificial consciousness: the Bioethics Unit is collaborating with researchers from different fields in order to clarify if it makes sense to talk about artificial consciousness, and what are the criteria for its feasibility
    • Identification of reliable indicators for potential artificial consciousness: the Bioethics Unit is engaged in elaborating indicators that may assist us in attributing consciousness to artificial systems
    • Conceptual and ethical analysis of Artificial Intelligence (AI): the Bioethics Unit is engaged in a philosophical analysis of the impact of AI on contemporary society, especially of its ethical implications

     Main Scientific Collaborations

    • Centre for Research Ethics and Bioethics, Uppsala University, Sweden;
    • The Coma Science Group, University of Liege, Belgium 
    • IRCCS Fondazione Don Gnocchi, Florence, Italy
    • International Brain Initiative (IBI)
    • International Neuroethics Society (INS)
    • International Brain Injury Association (IBIA)

    Most recent publications

    Internal seminar

    MICHELE FARISCO PhD, Are you conscious? Looking for reliable indicators
    MICHELE FARISCO PhD, Are you conscious? Looking for reliable indicatorsMonday 11th October
    Assessing consciousness in other subjects and/or agents (both human and non-human, especially if non-verbal) is an increasingly urgent task. In these two papers, I have recently contributed to elaborate indicators of consciousness in behaviourally unresponsive patients, animals, and intelligent systems, also analyzing related ethical issues. Starting from a characterization of consciousness as a “multimodal situational survey”, we applied an inside-out approach: how can the features of conscious experience, correlating to mechanisms inside the brain, be logically coupled to externally observable (“outside”) properties? Instead of proposing criteria that would each define a “hard” threshold for consciousness, we outline six indicators: (i) goal-directed behavior and model-based learning; (ii) anatomic and physiological substrates for generating integrative multimodal representations; (iii) psychometrics and meta-cognition; (iv) episodic memory; (v) susceptibility to illusions and multistable perception; and (vi) specific visuospatial behaviors. Rather than emphasizing a particular indicator as being decisive, we propose that the consistency amongst these indicators can serve to assess consciousness in other subjects/agents. The application of these indicators to the particular case of patients with disorders of consciousness (i.e., vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, minimally conscious state, and cognitive-motor dissociation) will likely inspire new strategies for assessing pressing ethical issues.

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