The Human Brain Project:

Tools developed for the Platform will allow researchers to collaboratively design and run in silico experiments to further validate the models, and to perform experiments and manipulations that are not possible in the lab.

Such experiments will contribute to identifying the neuronal architectures underlying specific brain functions, to studies of the mechanisms underlying neurological and psychiatric disease and to the simplification of neuronal circuitry for implementation in neuromorphic technology.

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The Project will use these tools to reconstruct and validate first-draft models of different levels of brain organisation, in mice and in humans. The ultimate goal is to develop multi-scale (simple to complex), multi-level (genes to the whole brain) models of the mouse and human brains.

https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/brain-simulation-platform

What are the ethical issues involved in simulating a human brain and in technology derived from human brain simulation?

https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/faq/ethics

Building computer models of the brain may challenge our concepts of personhood, free will and personal responsibility, and the nature of consciousness. In medicine, brain simulation could make it easier to communicate with people who cannot speak (e.g. people with severe disabilities, people in a vegetative state or with locked-in syndrome) or to enhance cognitive function in people with cognitive disabilities (e.g. dementia, trauma and stroke victims, etc.).

As in other fields of science, it also possible that new knowledge about the brain will be abused – deliberately, for example, to create new weapons – but also involuntarily, because society does not realize the power and consequences of new technologies.

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For instance, it may be possible in the future to use knowledge about the brain to predict and modify individual behaviour, or even to irreversibly modify behaviour through electrical stimulation of the brain, pharmacology or neurosurgery. In cases of intractable mental disease, this may be desirable, but in other cases, the costs and benefits will be debatable. One example of a debate is whether society should allow cognitive enhancement in healthy people.

Similar considerations apply to technology. Future computers that implement the same principles of computation and cognitive architectures as the brain have enormous potential to improve industrial productivity and offer new services to citizens. However, they could also be used to implement new systems of mass surveillance and new weaponry. If such systems came into widespread use they would undoubtedly have a huge impact on patterns of daily life and employment – this could be both beneficial and detrimental.

The Human Brain Project has many potential benefits but it also has risks. It is essential that these risks are debated – preferably a long time before they become real. This is the goal of the HBP's Ethics and Society Programme, which will absorb 3% of the Project's budget. One of the key goals of the programme will be to foster lively debate on social and ethical issues within the HBP, the wider scientific community, and also with the general public.