Ethical quandaries of direct-to-consumer neurotechnology

The direct-to-consumer (DTC) neurotechnology market, which includes brain computer interfaces (BCI), non-invasive neurostimulation devices, virtual reality systems (VR), wearables, and certain smartphone apps, is rapidly growing. This technology's quasi-clinical domain and its status as a consumer product, raises a number of ethical issues, including safety, transparency, privacy, and epistemic appropriateness. In addition, DTC neurotechnology provokes more fundamental questions regarding what may be thought of as the "responsibilization" of the user/patient. While DTC neurotechnology is standardly touted as a means of empowering users, I argue that such empowerment may not be of the sort that is genuinely beneficial to users.