{"ID":2837522,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19548","arxiv_id":"2511.19548","title":"When Should Neural Data Inform Welfare? A Critical Framework for Policy Uses of Neuroeconomics","abstract":"Neuroeconomics promises to ground welfare analysis in neural and computational evidence about how people value outcomes, learn from experience and exercise self-control. At the same time, policy and commercial actors increasingly invoke neural data to justify paternalistic regulation, \"brain-based\" interventions and new welfare measures. This paper asks under what conditions neural data can legitimately inform welfare judgements for policy rather than merely describing behaviour. I develop a non-empirical, model-based framework that links three levels: neural signals, computational decision models and normative welfare criteria. Within an actor-critic reinforcement-learning model, I formalise the inference path from neural activity to latent values and prediction errors and then to welfare claims. I show that neural evidence constrains welfare judgements only when the neural-computational mapping is well validated, the decision model identifies \"true\" interests versus context-dependent mistakes, and the welfare criterion is explicitly specified and defended. Applying the framework to addiction, neuromarketing and environmental policy, I derive a Neuroeconomic Welfare Inference Checklist for regulators and for designers of NeuroAI systems. The analysis treats brains and artificial agents as value-learning systems while showing that internal reward signals, whether biological or artificial, are computational quantities and cannot be treated as welfare measures without an explicit normative model.","short_abstract":"Neuroeconomics promises to ground welfare analysis in neural and computational evidence about how people value outcomes, learn from experience and exercise self-control. At the same time, policy and commercial actors increasingly invoke neural data to justify paternalistic regulation, \"brain-based\" interventions and ne...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19548","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.19548v1","authors":"[\"Yiven\",\"Zhu\"]","published":"2025-11-24T12:34:40Z","proceeding":"cs.LG","tasks":"[\"cs.LG\",\"cs.AI\",\"cs.CY\",\"econ.GN\",\"q-bio.NC\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}