Debate: What are the ethics of discouraging much-needed innovation given potential privacy concerns?

Sto­ry descrip­tion (CNN Mon­ey): Ned Sahin is founder and CEO of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy start-up Brain Pow­er, whose tool “Empow­er Me” uses smart glass­es like Google Glass to coach those with autism. It helps school­child­ren learn social and cog­ni­tive skills and can even guide adults through an inter­view process. Brain Power’s prod­uct is sold to many schools in the U.S. but may nev­er make it to mar­ket in Switzer­land thanks to strict data pri­va­cy laws.

To watch the inter­view, click HERE. The dis­cus­sion about the impact of EU GDPR pri­va­cy laws starts in minute 10, includ­ing Ned Sahin explain­ing why “Europe becomes the last place I’ll go to.”

About autism and the innovation in question:

• This AI-pow­ered app aims to help peo­ple with autism improve their social skills
• IndieGogo crowd­fund­ing for “World’s First Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty Glass­es for Autism”
• Study com­bines neu­roimag­ing with machine learn­ing to pre­dict whether high-risk 6‑month-old babies will devel­op autism spec­trum dis­or­der (ASD) by age 2

About neuroethics and brain health innovation:

• A call to action: We need the right incen­tives to guide eth­i­cal inno­va­tion in neu­rotech and healthcare
• The Nation­al Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine (NAM) shares dis­cus­sion paper to help empow­er 8 bil­lion minds
• The FDA cre­ates new Dig­i­tal Health unit to reimag­ine reg­u­la­to­ry paths in the age of scal­able, AI-enhanced innovation
• Five rea­sons the future of brain enhance­ment is dig­i­tal, per­va­sive and (hope­ful­ly) bright