Table of Contents
Photo by Jaap Arriens, Nurphoto via Getty Images
In March 2024, the US government took an unprecedented step towards Tick forbiddingThe extremely popular social media platform that is owned by Bytedance in China. The congress approved a bill in a rare and overwhelming representation of a two -part agreement, stating concern about national security. The Supreme Court then unanimous Maintain the decision.
On January 18, Tiktok became dark throughout the country. Then came a stunning reversal.
Within 24 hours the app was online again as if nothing had happened. The next day, President Trump announced a 75 -day delay in enforcement, vaguely promising to ‘work out’.
Suddenly, legislators who had previously been defended on Tiktok’s prohibition fell as an urgent national security risk. They did not offer a protest, no demand for explanation, no criticism of the president’s reversal. Without new data or justification, both Democrats and Republicans seemed to shift their perception from Tiktok. Just like that, the platform had changed from a Trojan horse to a harmless app.
How can such a dramatic shift occur?
The science behind illogical decisions
When smart people make irrational choices, we often assume that they act from selfishness, stupidity or stubbornness.
Yet it is difficult to believe that a chosen officer who really saw Tiktok as a serious threat to national security would consciously ignore danger. The cognitive dissonance would be overwhelming.
Neuroscience explains how people solve these kinds of internal conflicts.
The deceased neurologist George York spent years analyzing brain research studies and psychological examination, identifying an unexpected pattern: in times of considerable threat or opportunities, human perception is distorted. He called this phenomenon “brain‘A process that helps explain why even intelligent, rational individuals make choices that seem astonishing afterwards.
Imagine being a member of the congress who voted to prohibit TIKTOK, trust your decision because of legitimate concerns about the potential abuse of China users of user data. Now the political landscape has shifted. The President’s team has already warned the legislators to support his cabinet nominees – or confronted with primary challenges. The message is clear. Those who defy him about important decisions risk political consequences.
This is where brainshift and tap collide. You could just surrender to fear, but for someone sworn to protect the nation, that is not an easy reality to accept. Instead, without realizing it, your perception starts to shift. China’s danger, once so clear, now seems less urgent. The data has not been changed, but the way you perceive it. And with that shift, silence suddenly feels like the most reasonable way of acting.
This subconscious process is not limited to politics. Under the right circumstances, everyone – regardless of intelligence or moral beliefs – can experience brain spray. It is a vulnerability in human biology, with roots in early human evolution. For our ancestors, surviving often ended up doing business despite fear. Hunting wild animals with only a wooden spear was dangerous, but essential to endure long winters. Brainshift helped early people to overcome their fears by changing their perception of risk, making threats less discouraging and action more feasible.
Modern neuroscience confirm that this old mechanism still works today, with countless medical examples. When it is confronted with considerable opportunities or danger, the brain oppresses the fear center (the amygdala) and involves the parietal lobes (which form perception), all without conscious consciousness.
A good example can be seen in how we assess technology in medicine.
The irrational fear of generative AI in medicine
Only two years after the introduction, generative AI has already become a transforming power in industry, including healthcare. With its capacities that double annually, Genai now corresponds to clinicians in diagnostic accuracy in several independent studies. Soon it was able to enable patients self -diagnosis with more speed and accuracy than in the doctor’s office. Over time, Genai will enable patients to manage chronic diseases more effectively and select personalized treatment plans.
Despite the potential of Genai To save thousands of livesPolicy makers and medical professionals remain fixed on their risks instead of his benefits.
Largely absent in the debate, every recognition of the stunning toll that takes human error in medicine. This is a huge blind spot that suggests that brain shifts can distort perceptions.
According to Johns Hopkins researchers, medical mistakes – including wrong diagnoses, surgical errors and communication errors – they flow more than 250,000 people in the US annually, making them the third most important cause of death after heart disease and cancer.
Yet these stunning figures rarely receive the same study as the hypothetical risks of AI. The inequality in perception – despite the fact that both human medical mistakes and AI errors can lead to equally serious consequences, including death – Mirrors The brain springs that are seen in the Tiktok debate.
Policy makers hesitate to support AI-driven reforms in health care, for fear of the political consequences if an AI-related error harms a patient. On the other hand, they know that when human errors leads to damage, the debt falls exclusively on the individual doctor. Meanwhile, doctors see AI as a threat to their professional autonomy, status and income if technology becomes a generally accepted source of independent expertise.
Lost in this debate is the reality that AI has the potential to significantly reduce avoiding deaths. Again, the perception of the brain shift clouds, so that people cannot recognize how this technology can help patients manage chronic disorders, offer expert guidance outside office hours and identify wrong diagnoses or treatment errors.
If we are not for brain destruction, we would already give priority to large -scale research to weigh the potential benefits of AI against its risks (instead of concentrating primarily on limiting clinical applications) and examining opportunities for Genai to apply to improve the patient’s safety.
Instead, distorted perceptions make AI seem more dangerous than the evidence supports, so that the very real dangers of medical errors and the deteriorating crisis of access to health care overshadow. As soon as supervisors, chosen officials and clinicians fully recognize the existing shortcomings of medicine, the priorities will shift from limiting Genai to utilizing the life -saving potential.
Brainshift and the approval of controversial medicines from Alzheimer’s
In the summer of 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Aduhelm Goed, a controversial medicine from Alzheimer’s, despite strong opposition from independent experts and limited proof of its effectiveness.
The drug, designed to remove amyloid plaques from the brain, was promoted as a pioneering treatment. Clinical data, however, showed at least cognitive benefits and significant risks, including brain and bleeding swelling.
The scientific community was overwhelming towards its approval. An expert advisory panel did not mention sufficient evidence that Aduhelm delayed the cognitive decline, with 10 of the 11 members who voted against his approval (and the last mood to abstain). Different names in protest after the FDA had rejected their concerns.
How have the FDA officials adopted with the making of evidence-based decisions-the opposite conclusion of almost every independent expert?
In this situation with high efforts, fear and reward have probably fueled the brain shift equally. Office leaders were confronted with intense pressure from interest groups that demanded hope, feared media refund and concerns about the financing of the agency, which is largely connected to pharmaceutical companies. In order to resolve the dissonance between the scientific data and this external pressure, their perception of the benefits of Aduhelm was probably reinforced while the risks decreased. After that shift took place in perception, the approval no longer felt irrational. It seemed the reasonable choice.
Had Brainshift not obscured their judgment, the FDA might have chosen a more measured approach: perhaps a phased approval, which required continuous data collection and submission before complete authorization. Instead, they approved the drug right, a decision that held the public trust and diverted resources into a treatment of questionable value.
Breaking the cycle of brain spray
The overcoming brain shift in medicine starts with recognizing how it distorts decision -making and leads to unintended consequences.
To alleviate its effects, health care leaders must be actively looking for different perspectives and embrace critical feedback. Open dialogue and challenges for assumptions will help prevent distorted perceptions before they lead to poor choices.
In addition, enforcing transparency in data and decision -making processes would reduce the distortion and increase responsibility among leaders.
Moftening the effects of brain shift in both political and health care would lead to better results for the nation. If the chosen officials had to explain what had changed in the safety risks of Tiktok, if the FDA would be obliged to justify why it ignored its advice panel, and if supervisors would weigh the risks of human wrong diagnosis against AI errors, better decisions would follow better decisions .
The FDA was contacted about this story on Friday 31 January. A spokesperson for the agency refused to comment and quoted a temporary break about public communication during the transition from the office under the new administration.