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 anal-
ysis focuses on extended cognition theories in philosophy of mind. Such theo-
ries 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 concen-
trates 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 Euro-
pean 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 indi-
viduals. 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.