Neurotechnology: Can Your Brain Keep a Secret?

Set on an outdoor patio, this session uses an open-ended comic about a near-future bar where brain-sensing devices read patrons' moods. Legal scholar and bioethics researcher Dr. Marietjie Botes leads a 40-minute lecture and live audience Q&A examining whether brain data is ordinary information or the raw material of personal identity. Blending humor, storytelling, and audience-created comic endings, the discussion explores mental privacy, consent, and the right to remain unread as brain-computer interfaces and emotion-tracking tools enter everyday culture.