Can we 'de-bias' someone? A Neuroscientific approach to decreasing bias

Debiasing has a technical definition in the scientific literature. It's often used in the field of decision making: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=debiasing&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C33&as_sdtp= Also "brainwashing" isn't considered to be a valid concept. Let me put it this way, how hard is it to change your friend's disagreeable political opinions on FB? Pretty hard. It's genuinely hard to change someone's mind, This one study isn't going to change that because it'll take years/decades of study before we figure out reliable techniques for changing peoples' minds.

Noel, what they are doing, as presented, can be considered a weapon from the start. Their only claim is that they want to use it for the benefit of society. The "N400" neural response has been known since 1980. They seek to change how we associate words. They hope, for example, to be able to make the population see women in the role of mechanic as readily as they see men in that role today. This is merely how they're aiming the weapon they are building. The Russian government might, for example, find how to make people accept the idea that Crimea was always Russian. Business might, for example, make people more accepting of unhealthy foods like high-fructose corn syrup.

Has anyone considered how governments or businesses can 'weaponize' this?

Hey Guys, I'm between jobs atm so can't really afford to pledge towards this, but really, really interested to follow the progress. Best of luck with it! Edward

The applicants should say a bit more about the "de-biasing procedure". In addition to the comment by James on potential dual-use of the procedure, let's ask the question where bias comes from. It was successful in evolution to come to quick decisions when a careful evaluation was not possible. Obviously, biased decisions are sometimes wrong. But also obviously, they were most of the time right or at least beneficial for the individuum - otherwise they would have been lost in evolution. I do not want discrimination against people with green skin color or two noses. But in my opinion this has to be achieved by education. Scientists should do experiments to understand the origin of a certain bias. They may also do experiments how a bias is established and how one could revert it. When it comes to applications, we need much more security than with e.g. gene technology because we interfere with the largely unknown territory of the brain. Just my opinion.

I agree with James Grant - sounds like brainwashing to me.

Despite the noble motivation, doesn't 'de-biasing' overlap heavily with brainwashing? In other words, aren't you trying to create a tool that can just as easily be used against people? More is spent on advertising than research, for example. What ethical review have you gone through?