ABSTRACT
Within contemporary neuroscience, plasticity has emerged as a foundational and dominant concept, one confirmed by advanced imaging techniques as well as extensive clinical, experimental, and theoretical work. While the concept seems to imply radical openness and even freedom, in fact the neuroscientific idea of plasticity has been seamlessly assimilated into computational models of the mind. Several research groups have embarked on projects to construct neuro-synaptic chips that mimic the kind of connectivity and learning potential of organismic brains (see Akopyan et al. 2015), and one could also argue that the massive influence of deep learning and other forms of artificial intelligence that rely on artificial neural networks has provoked new models of cognition predicated on the dynamic plasticity of connective ‘weights’ and their constant adjustment and transformation. This blurring and interplay between neural and technical discourses is hardly unprecedented. Yet today, given the increasing intensity and accelerated speed of our digital infrastructure, the actual relationship between our living brains and our technical sphere demands more critical attention. If modern algorithmic systems are not simply predicting human behaviours but also moulding them via our plastic minds and brains, what kind of human beings are we becoming?
