Five Arguments Against Brain Monitoring in the Workplace

In a recent presentation at the World Economic Forum, Nita Farahany offers a striking vision of the future of work. Very soon, she thinks, wearable EEG sensors will allow for brain-based monitoring of office workers’ emotions, stress, and fatigue levels. This will allow for such measures as algorithmically-mandated “brain breaks” and fine-grained productivity tracking by management.

Farahany recognizes the dystopian potential of applying neurotechnologies in this way, but opposes banning workplace applications. On grounds of cognitive liberty, she instead defends giving employees the right to decide whether and to what extent to use employer-provided neurotechnologies. Contra Farahany, I sketch five interlocking arguments for an outright ban on these practices:

1) Non-Neutrality: Rolling out these technologies and giving employees the choice of whether to use them is not a value-neutral default; instead, it already presupposes their desirability.

2) Coercion: Even if rollout plus choice were a value-neutral default, the choice of whether to use the technologies would not be free in practice.

3) Untrustworthiness: Even if it would be free, the major actors developing these technologies have shown themselves to be unacceptably poor stewards of data privacy and human well-being.

4) Disempowerment: Even if these technologies were stewarded by good actors, they would be corrosive to our internal resources of cognitive, volitional, and emotional self-regulation.

5) Occlusion: Even if they were not corrosive in these ways, brain-based solutions to the inhospitability of modern workplaces occlude the origins of the problems themselves, employer responsibility for them, and alternative low-tech solutions.