@winstonchiong@neuromatch.social
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winstonchiong

@winstonchiong@neuromatch.social

Neurologist | neuroscientist | ethicist. Director, UCSF Bioethics. Decision neuroscience, neuroethics, aging, dementia

http://decisionlab.ucsf.edu

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winstonchiong, to random
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Wow! Coming home very energized after a great International #Neuroethics Society meeting; I’ve attended many and this was the most engaging. Truly international, cutting-edge and transdisciplinary perspectives on urgent topics such as neuroenhancement regulation, community engagement, “#neurorights,” and the brain disease model of chronic pain. https://www.neuroethicssociety.org/2024-annual-meeting-schedule

jonny, to random
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Loving this piece from @winstonchiong and colleagues, re: the need for agency in neural speech production prosthetics.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1298129

The discussion of mental privacy and the challenges of inferring internal vs. volitional speech when motor control is impaired is v important, not something i had considered before. Of course what someone says is not necessarily what they are thinking - and thus very high accuracy for semantic decoding without the ability to tell those apart would be extremely bad for agency.

I also love how they discuss the need for decoding prosody, stress patterns, and all the non "series-of-phonemes-or-morphemes" things that make spoken language expressive - i can only imagine the kind of vocal dysphoria that would come from being able to say the literal words you intend in a way that feels almost natural but still just isn't your voice. That would be especially important in error correction contexts, where spoken language is constantly replete with repair, and to signal that you need subtle prosodic and gestural cues in addition to the content of the words. Thinking of @dingemansemark 's work on this

The section on the ethics of incorporating language models that might "morph a person's intended message to conform with the statistical trends found within language corpora" is interesting to me - it's true that language is highly ordered, and a model that reduces a lot of the uncertainty over the possible structure of words would be helpful (and necessary atm, they say, given poor accuracy of speech decoders), and i wonder about the ability for the current-gen LLMs to be distilled in such a way that they can just do "autocorrection" for tuning based on syntactic features without being coercive. IDK enough about model distillation or domain tuning to know. in any case it certainly is not how the current foundational models are being developed. They argue for the need to tune speed/fluency (more language model influence) vs agency, and i wonder what that model architecture would look like if not some sort of weighted ensemble model.

The spectre of proprietary prosthetics going defunct hangs over that in a real way - if your speech is dependent on some cloud LLM platform, that's a nightmare indeed, and some serious open source work would need to be done to make a plausible alternative given the regulatory environment of medical software and hardware. The closing note on integration with other wearables is haunting - we joke about neural surveillance re: neuralink for now, but like most things, it will likely be trialed on people who have few other options.

winstonchiong,
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@jonny @dingemansemark Thanks! I'd stress that this paper is really more from my colleagues than me (3rd author on a 4 author paper) as they're all much more expert than I am on the neuroscience of speech and current technical capabilities. I'm happy to have contributed ideas about agency, privacy, disability, and human-centered design. Narayan and I in particular are continuing to do work on ethical and societal implications of this research, hoping to have more on this later this year.

winstonchiong,
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@jonny @dingemansemark Well I'm always glad when someone reads a paper of ours, but I didn't want to assume credit for some of the really interesting technical distinctions in the article that originated from my co-authors. Our other work is interesting too, promise! (Though, not a guarantee that it's equally interesting to you...)

Also want to re-plug in this thread the hiring announcement that started this conversation, we're looking for an empirical neuroethics postdoc and a decision neuroscience RA: https://decisionlab.ucsf.edu/hiring/

winstonchiong, to hiring
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We're #hiring again! My lab is now looking for a #postdoc in empirical ethics of dementia and neurotechnology, and a research assistant in #DecisionScience research in people with neurologic disease. Please share with anyone who might be interested: https://decisionlab.ucsf.edu/hiring/ #UCSF #ScienceJobs #SocialScience #bioethics #neuroethics #neurotech #jobs

winstonchiong, to Epilepsy
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Happy to share our #NewPaper on experiences of patients undergoing #epilepsy surgery, comparing traditional resective surgery to #NeuroPace responsive neurostimulation, using interviews and ethnographic observation of patient visits. First, we documented circuitous treatment paths described by patients and caregivers as "winding," "confusing," and "chaotic." In two of our participants, continual ECoG recordings from an implanted RNS device enabled the detection of a single seizure focus for subsequent resective surgery. Second, RNS was perceived with greater safety, viewing the act of "putting in" a device as reversible in contrast with the irreversibility of "taking out" brain tissue in a resection. Third, evaluation of postoperative course reflected different aims and expectations, with resection understood in "all-or-nothing" terms such that any post-operative seizure was perceived as a failure, while patient expectations in RNS were more incremental. #neuroethics #OpenAccess at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S152550502400088X

winstonchiong, to random
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#HappyNewYear 🐲🎇

CindyWeinstein, (edited ) to music
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Last night #UCSF was the scene of a joyous celebration in honor of #Dr.BruceMiller's parents, Milton and Harriet Miller. #Music, #art, #poetry, and #science -- especially #neurology -- filled the halls. And lots and lots of love. So honored to be there and to have the #memoir I wrote with Bruce be one of the gifts given to the people who came.

#EndAlz

winstonchiong,
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@CindyWeinstein great to see you there, and I’m very happy to have to book!

winstonchiong, to random
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On Monday, Jan 22 UCSF #Bioethics will host a celebration of the career of Barbara Koenig, PhD. We hope people can join us for a great afternoon of conversation!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-life-in-bioethics-celebrating-the-career-of-barbara-koenig-phd-tickets-755703358087?aff=oddtdtcreator

2:00-2:10pm - Welcome
Winston Chiong (UCSF)

2:10-2:50pm - Panel: Race &
Genomics

Sandra Soo-Jin Lee (Columbia)
Jennifer James (UCSF)
Janet Shim (UCSF)

Moderator: Daphne Martschenko (Stanford)

2:50-3:30pm - Panel: Culture & End of Life Care

Bill Andereck (Sutter Health)
LaVera Crawley (CommonSpirit)
Bridget Sumser (UCSF)

Moderator: Ruchika Mishra (Sutter Health)

3:50-4:25pm - Panel: Moving Beyond Consent to Achieve Governance in Biomedicine

Julie Harris-Wai (UCSF)
David Magnus (Stanford)
Julia Brown (UCSF)

Moderator: Mildred Cho (Stanford)

4:25-5:00pm - Fireside Chat: The Future of Bioethics Scholarship

Sandra Soo-Jin Lee & Barbara Koenig

winstonchiong, to hiring
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We're ! My lab is looking for an assistant clinical research coordinator for research on novel neurotechnology. We're particularly interested in candidates with prior coursework or experience in , , and/or methods. Please share with anyone who might be interested: https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Search/home/HomeWithPreLoad?partnerid=6495&siteid=5861&PageType=JobDetails&jobid=3505283#jobDetails=3505283_5861

winstonchiong, to random
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Troubling and plausible allegations of image/data manipulation in #Alzheimer's disease and #stroke research, including about a compound to be evaluated in an upcoming NIH-funded trial of 1400 people with acute strokes: “As a site investigator for stroke trials, I would not agree to participate in the phase 3 trial based on what I know now.”

https://www.science.org/content/article/misconduct-concerns-possible-drug-risks-should-stop-stroke-trial-whistleblowers-say?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ScienceAdviser&utm_content=distillation&et_rid=33802027&et_cid=4983836&

winstonchiong, to random
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With Clara Sanches at , a model analysis of cognitive slowing in aging

winstonchiong, to LGBTQ
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Congratulations to my colleague Nicole Rosendale, profiled in the Lancet Neurology for her work in advancing , with a focus on + neurological health! https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(23)00381-2

thejapantimes, to baseball
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Tigers take bite out of Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Japan Series opener https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2023/10/28/baseball/japanese-baseball/tigers-take-bite-out-of-yoshinobu-yamamoto-in-japan-series-opener/?utm_content=bufferd6aaa&utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon&utm_campaign=bffmstdn

winstonchiong,
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@thejapantimes still hoping the get him, but maybe still line up Webb as the postseason ace if they get there…

winstonchiong, to random
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My relationship with Box and OneDrive when

winstonchiong, to Corgi
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Sunny day.

winstonchiong, to random
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Very proud to have contributed to this new piece advocating the promotion of agency and in speech research. Recommendations for promoting user agency in the design of speech neuroprostheses, with Narayan Sankaran, David Moses, & Eddie Chang.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1298129/full

winstonchiong, to random
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Did anyone else find "The Harvard Professor and the Bloggers" to be a really weird framing for the #nytimes piece on the Gino/Data Colada affair, since the Data Colada bloggers are also very distinguished academics who are also professors at highly prestigious institutions?

winstonchiong, to random
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Endel Tulving's passing makes me reflect on how much our clinical practice has been shaped by discoveries from cognitive neuroscience. Tulving's distinction between semantic and episodic memory is one I use often with patients and families (not using that jargon, of course). That these different faculties that we group together as "memory" are actually dissociable helps us to explain phenomena that can be puzzling or even exasperating. ("How come he can remember how to disassemble a car engine but can't remember what I ask him to get at the store?") Diagnostically, of course, we use the distinction to separate cases of Alzheimer's disease from another fascinating disorder, semantic dementia, in which episodic memory is relatively preserved but people lose semantic knowledge about the world.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/science/endel-tulving-dead.html

kissane, to random
@kissane@mas.to avatar

This book review is going to give me nightmares for the rest of my life

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-chinese-history/article/was-there-an-administrative-revolution/AD2E74A82073AAEAA5105E946BA17823#fn23

(via Ted McCormick on Bsky)

winstonchiong,
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@kissane Wow! Just from the abstract I need to read this

ct_bergstrom, to random
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McKenzie Funk's latest story is about one-time drug smuggler Hank Asher and how we in the United States all came to be surveilled in massive integrated databases.

Gift link below.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/magazine/hank-asher-data.html?unlocked_article_code=ZqR2Qa2xA-r2Z10cKISoXH-E-oxAG8lhJfZqBmcKsZg7pWuBaypxBM14CcEv1h1iHeDolwaRsrxaL2iCmXU954H9zxZrMVH0WegIA6UwE1Kr3lZNwNIkaBeRB5J47nM139Z_mr7C2i-pxz5v_e7d9cc-YN5gUlnyHcyECu0fRQKav6C9_I8WcX6JtpF6wbIxKVervdimI9UB5g-oYgX7f6ThUeN_p6m-2stXBbZz-KIsc_-GPiTg9PmQJFaQ3sHnxxr-bzwjarGsdyhKDSraWi0AXrwKsAkxTCI2djFvQx1Cr-YdrarNJMn_nkeHW79h-gwSYbjx3uy07Q&smid=url-share

winstonchiong,
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@ct_bergstrom The amazing and troubling thing about this piece is how it links a single person's strange, pathological psychological makeup to structures that we now all live in and are largely resigned to (indeed, that many perceive as normal).

winstonchiong, to Corgi
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Lazy Saturday. #corgi #DogsOfMastodon

winstonchiong, to random
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Fascinating read! Thomas Nagel on a new bio of J.L. Austin and his previously-unknown career as a WWII intelligence officer responsible for D-Day preparation, plus possible influences on his scholarly career and Oxford ordinary language philosophy https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n17/thomas-nagel/leader-of-the-martians

ben, to random
@ben@werd.social avatar

I wrote some more thoughts about Threads and what it might mean for democracy. https://werd.io/2023/second-thoughts-about-threads

winstonchiong,
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@ben Hi, just found your writing and appreciate these thoughts. I don't think realistically that Mastodon was or would ever be suited to this mass-democratic role, and not just because of design clunkiness. I find this Noah Smith piece useful (https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-internet-wants-to-be-fragmented)--the potential role for Mastodon is probably not as a common "town square," but instead a throwback to the old internet of blogs, forums and chatrooms. Those were niche spaces, requiring a lot of effort to find and appealing to tightly-knit groups. Just like most people didn't engage with those spaces, most people don't care about what Mastodon has to offer--e.g., lots of people like algorithmic feeds because they reduce the burden of choice and self-curation. But for people who desire them, smaller and focused communities can play important democratizing and organizing roles.

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