Mind reading and mind control technologies are coming | Hacker News Reader

Mind reading and mind control technologies are coming

blogs.scientificamerican.com

62 pointslaurex15 comments

Many states have laws that protect employees from being subjected to polygraph (e.g. CA LC 432.2 ).

It would be good to get these new technologies comprehensively covered by laws like this before they're commercially viable (and thus have spending to oppose laws against them).

In particular, I think it is really important to establish that fMRI/MEG gathered evidence be barred by fifth amendment protections against self-incrimination, and that their use for employment get treated like polygraph.

Beyond the obvious problems with mind reading working, the complexity of these systems means that there is a considerable amount of non-transparency in their operation. We have enough trouble making firmware for breathalyzers that won't lead to wrongful convictions.

It saddens me that modern medical researchers seem to fall into one of two categories: those who will happily make ten thousand people shit out their lungs in exchange for some seasonal allergy relief, and those who would rather let ten thousand people die in hospital beds than risk a trial that may not produce results.

In my opinion we desperately need to embrace the middle ground. The "move fast and break things, so long as you have very well-informed consent" approach. I have a lot of friends who would happily get an experimental needle in the brain, because it's a lot better than having to fight not to put a shotgun in their mouth.

Why should we assume the consent will be well-informed? If what you ask for was accomplished tomorrow, then in 15 years you'd be back on this site lamenting how patients were misled by their doctors into treatments that had horrifying results, and that we need better regulation of what experimental treatments doctors are allowed to administer. Maybe there'd be an anecdote about a desperate low-income family with no other options.

And, by the way, we already have systems in place for experimental treatments. There's a reason why it's hard to get in, and why it's hard for doctors to be allowed to administer the treatments: because doctors (and the megacorporations funding the research) aren't always moral. Sometimes they "will happily make ten thousand people shit out their lungs in exchange for some seasonal allergy relief" and sometimes they "would rather let ten thousand people die in hospital beds than risk a trial that may not produce results".

The "move fast and break things, so long as you have very well-informed consent" approach is a great way to take advantage of desperate people.

Mary Lou Jepsen (One Laptop Per Child) is working on a hat-size device that uses infrared holography to read and write the activation of individual neurons.

It also doubles as a cheap, portable "MRI".

https://www.ted.com/talks/mary_lou_jepsen_how_we_can_use_lig...

One Laptop Per Child fiasco -.. I fixed it

Believing mind reading and mind control is possible can lead to bad behavior and mental illness in some people. I'm all for the research of electrical data in the brain, as described. The cutting out of the gut biome and liquid signalling systems in the brain, among other influences that contribute to the mind, means you do not see the full picture of what you are attempting to control. Which is fine for progress and terrible for building beliefs about the world.

Wow, literally this comment made my stomach hurt. Now I am going to have to meditate on happy thoughts and hope the mind control will be used to keep the gut and mind happy.

From the article >We need to figure out the ethical implications before they arrive

What are some example technologies where we figured out the ethical implications before they arrived? I'm struggling to name even one.

Maybe time travel? We've beat that horse well past death in fiction, and it probably will never arrive.

Since CRISPR-Cas9 was discovered one of the leading figures, Jennifer Doudna, has been active in the discussion of the ethical implications, though we’re yet to see many applications of the technology.

Robots? We are constantly bathed in robot killing the world fiction where Isaac Asimov attempted to lay down laws of robotics, the terminator evolved into not killing civilians. The military and industrial sector have been discussing automated equipment for years before it arrived.

We have done the same with self driving cars, though it depends on where you draw the line on implemented.

A lot of these ethical questions get tied up in institutional processes that are not public.

Who owns the mental models/processes once we can extract and implant them? (...in light of patents on software.)

Should we be calling this branch of science electrophrenology?

I think that the shocking thing will be how little is really going on in there.

I know what you're thinking . . .

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