The Right to Mental Integrity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Cognitive Human Enhancement Technologies

This chapter provides an analysis of philosophical and legal aspects of AI-driven cognitive human enhancement technologies that complement human rights norms in the context of the right to mental integrity. The philosophical analysis focuses on extended cognition theories in philosophy of mind. Such theories individuate a list of criteria to assess whether an external artefact can be cognitively integrated with human cognitive processes. This chapter shows that two AI-cognitive human enhancement technologies—brain computer interfaces and intelligent personal assistants—do not completely satisfy the criteria of extended cognition due to their unique capabilities. Subsequently, the legal analysis concentrates on the debate on the right to mental integrity to see whether the human mind is safeguarded in the face of such concerns at international and European levels. Although the right to mental integrity has been recognized in international and European human rights law, the meaning and the scope of the concept has remained unclear. To fill this gap, this chapter engages with the issue of an adequate form of cognitive integration and assumes that, if external artefacts such as AI-cognitive human enhancement technologies are not completely or sufficiently integrated with human cognitive processes, such artefacts may not serve mental integrity of individuals. In the light of this analysis, this chapter comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to introduce absolute protection to mental integrity in conjunction with mental privacy to protect the individual from any intrusion of mental states.