Palmer Montalbano recommends biotech companies integrate ethics into their processes at an early stage to produce better long-term outcomes for both society and business.

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Elon Musk’s Neuralink company recently conducted its second human subject study on its brain implant technology. Recent interviews with the first human subject to receive a Neuralink brain implant show promise. Although we are still a far way from these devices being approved for clinical use, Musk prophesized that human brains will be intimately connected with technology through Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology, such that we might control robots merely through thought. However, the risks posed by such technology loom large. By integrating ethics more closely within their organizations, biotechnology can avoid serious harms to society while also improving their business outcomes.

Biotechnology companies should integrate ethics into their processes in order to discover potential long-term issues with the creation and implementation of their products. By involving ethicists earlier rather than later, issues can be avoided that make technology less beneficial than originally intended. For example, if social media companies had consulted with ethicists prior to their massive uptake by the public, the current crisis in youth mental health may have been reduced, or the mitigation of its harms enacted more quickly.

Photo Credit: deviantart.com. Image Description: A computer generated image of a brain.

Integrating ethics into biotechnology companies could also be beneficial to business outcomes. By avoiding unethical actions or anticipating poor outcomes, companies can prevent costly fallouts of their innovations, including lawsuits and poor public perception. Involving ethics early in the development and launching process of new technology can reduce long-term costs and avoid negative public opinion for failing to act ethically.

Beyond avoiding harm, having an ethics spokesperson or organization that publicly verifies a company is behaving ethically can boost the public image of the company. Especially when attempting to convince consumers to adopt new technology that may cause concern, indications that a company is in good ethical standing incentivizes positive consumer sentiment. It can also improve employee recruitment and retainment because of the increasing public interest in working toward societal improvement.

Many ethicists already work on determining risks posed by new biotechnology. Bioethicists have studied the potential impacts of Deep-Brain Stimulation on the personality of patients and whether those changes are considered negative. The Bridge2AI initiative at the US National Institutes of Health is studying AI technology that can be used to diagnose diseases via changes in voice patterns. Ethicists are working on this team to ensure that the technology is effective for various languages and populations within those language groups that have different accents. This type of work is important for avoiding mistakes made in the past, such as medical technology not working properly for individuals with darker skin tones. However, academic and third-party studies must be noticed and heeded by innovators and regulators for their findings to have societal impact. By integrating ethicists within an organization, the concerns discovered through these studies can be brought to the attention of business leaders.

Ideally, ethicists involved in the biotechnology industry should act as third-party consultants rather than in-house specialists. This reduces the potential biases of ethicists by not attaching the income of the ethicist to the success of the company. Third-party ethicists would also gain insights from experiences at multiple companies, increasing the breadth of knowledge the ethicist brings to the organization.

Biotechnology companies, particularly start-ups, are interested in being financially lean, limiting their costs to focus on getting their product to market in order to generate returns on their investment. They are unlikely to involve ethicists that provide long-term financial cost reductions with limited short-term benefits. OpenAI once promised to provide significant resources to ensuring AI safety, yet its leadership actually restricted safety operations and misled its safety team, causing many to resign from the company.

To address this issue, governments can regulate biotechnology companies to ensure that ethics is integrated into their processes. One method of regulation is direct – companies could be required to employ an ethicist or have a certification from an ethics board. However, such requirements increase the startup costs for new technology, potentially stifling innovation. Another option is to regulate innovators such that they are more accountable for the impact of their technology on society. These regulations could require companies to generate plans to address any known potential risks of new technology products, including ethical risks discovered by academic researchers. In this scenario, companies would be incentivized to leverage ethics expertise while not being forced to do so.

As technology continues to expand its capabilities, it also increases its risks. By incentivizing technology organizations to integrate ethics early in the innovative process, the potential downfalls of new creations can be mitigated, improving their ethics while avoiding potential future costs.

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Palmer Montalbano is a healthcare consultant at AArete. He recently graduated with a Master of Science in Bioethics at Harvard Medical School.