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Comment by IIAOPSW | Hacker News Reader

Assuming these results hold, I wonder what the legal implications would be. In a criminal prosecution or investigation, can you force someone to just think about the question while stealing the image straight out of their skull? Even worse, what happens when its only 85% accurate but 100% convincing to juries.

In the US at least, I think 4th amendment protections obviously apply (though with this bench, don't count your precedents before they hatch). Elsewhere in the world, even fairly liberal freedom loving jurisdictions, the question is still up in the air imo. That should give everyone pause.

The information age began with a single question the answer to which is still unfolding: .-- .... .- - / .... .- ... / --. --- -.. / .-- .-. --- ..- --. .... - ..--..

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I'm curious what they'd do with someone with aphantasia. Can they get images out of my head? I certainly can't…

TIL I'm in the 0.8% of population. I thought it was a rule, not an exception

Thanks for this comment, I also wasn´t aware of the statistics (also if I´m full aphant / aphantasiac / aphantastic [1]? or within the 3.9% with dim/vague mental images forming capacities). I also wasn´t aware that this is a somewhat new discovery, with research starting ~2015?

> ...in response to reading a frightening story and then viewing fear-inducing images found that participants with aphantasia, but not the general population, experienced a flat-line physiological response during the reading experiment, but found no difference in physiological responses between the groups when participants viewed fear-inducing images (wikipedia)

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/aj7pyc/whats_th...

It seems that aphantasia is much more common among programmers. It must have something to do with the fact that autism and mathematical ability is correlated, or the third fact that autism and exotically expressed drawing abilities are correlated, too. But this is too complicated a tangle to draw simple conclusions.

That's an interesting question, because as far as I understand we still don't know if the issue is that people don't create the image in their minds, or that the imagined "image" is not perceived.

There are always edge cases. For example, it is often difficult to get conclusive evidence against somebody who has an identically twin sibling.

Exactly what I was thinking.

--. --- -.. / .... .- -.. / -. --- - .... .. -. --. / - --- / -.. --- / .-- .. - .... / .. - .-.-.-

That being said, even with a perfectly applied as (most laypeople, not jurists/LE interpret it) perfectly applied, there is an involuntary aspect to what may be being envisaged which would render something like this extraordinarily invasive to.

I'm 100% certain this will be abused as early and often as possible.

I'm invoking the first ever telegraph message both to highlight the parallels of having a civilization changing technology whose implications are not yet grasped, and to highlight the telegraph as the start of encoding information digitally thus beginning the information age. The religious component of the quote is a historical artifact, not a literal endorsement of religion.

Given. I'm just using the opportunity to draw attention to the fact "I wish I could see what's going on in your head" is a uniquely human desire, not the least of which stems from the desire to control.

It is telling, that the figure who is theorized to have that insight "loves us by fiat" and is argued not to exist, or be attainable in that argued perfection by humans.

The end result hopefully being to inspire in the reader an unambiguous understanding that whatever becomes of this technology, it'll be humanity's problem foisted on itself.

We don't have a great track record in handling such things.

I would be more worried about it being used to reveal information than be used in court as evidence. If the trial is anywhere near fair it will be trivial to say you can never prove if it was a real memory.

there are lie detectors(complete gimmick) used all over the world to prove peoples guilt.

Lie detectors are mainly a US superstition, I think. Wikipedia has a long list of jurisdictions which correctly identified them as junk science.

Every country has something. In Germany we have homeopathy, which at least can't be used to pervert justice.

It would be misused like the polygraph

> can you force someone to just think about the question while stealing the image straight out of their skull?

Can the person being mind read, if aware of the technology, force their mind to only output unrelated content (e.g. shrek fighting zombies) or vividly imagine the accuser committing heinous crimes?

Seems that would be easy to beat: the witness can just visualize a different person committing the crime.

Preferably the DA or the judge who approved this. Maybe have them be naked in your mind.

Visualize the text, "welcome to my Ted talk."

But that would mean that you were there to witness it…

There's an outstanding episode of Black Mirror called Crocodile, that explores this idea.

The Cell is also vaguely related: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209958/

...but if it's no longer restricted to the visual cortex and they can extract the kind of horrific imagery as in the movie, I don't really want to see it.

I really like this film, especially with my photography hat on. A lot of the imagery taken from the mind of the serial killer is actually based on surrealist art, and some of the cinematography is superb, e.g. the sequences filmed in the Namibian desert

Tarsem Singh's next movie The Fall is visually similar (though in another genre), so watch it too if you didn't already: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791/

Thanks, it's now on my watchlist

From the aesthetic/cinematography side of things, it did stick with me for a long time; I haven't re-watched it since the early naughties and I do remember lots of scenes. It is just hard to take in that some people might experience a similar internal imagery and the very slight possibility exists that they also act upon it.

I saw that episode and I hated it precisely because it didn't really explore the idea. There was this profound, interesting, thought provoking premise which it completely relegated to the background in favor of an unchallenging police procedural.

And then how it ends with the guinea pig, ugh. That show became so disappointing. So many interesting premises just wasted.

I would think the 5th Amendment prohibition on self-incrimination would apply. Although U.S. v. Kyllo would likely cover the 4A search via technology.

There is absolutely no way this sort of data would ever hold up in court.

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