Japanese Develop Device to Record Dreams and Read Minds

[CuttingEdge100]

Japan's Dream Machine
URL: http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=101445

(Most of this is a video on the site, but there is a small quote)

A Japanese science lab is developing technologies to visualise images and dreams - and eventually read people's minds.

It's amazing how people who develop this always talk about only the benefits of it, like how it will help people remember cool dreams, and help those who can't communicate speak or render keyboards and stuff obsolete. What about the fact that it would totally gut the most basic form of privacy that exists?

I'm not saying I don't care about people who can't communicate -- I do care, and I do feel very sorry for them, but what about the rest of us? If you can't keep what you think within the confines of your own skull, then what privacy do you got?


CuttingEdge100

 

[ProtoAvatar]

So we're getting closer to deciphering the human brain's "machine code".
I wonder if this machine code is identical for all human minds, or if it differs from one person to another (at least when we're talking about higher brain functions) based on the different way a person constructed/understands certain concepts.

PS: You will be assimilated! Resistance is futile!

 

[john titor]

This is very cool.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

You're looking forward to being assimilated, aren't you, john titor?

 

[Geckothan]

Time to break out the tinfoil hats!

 

[CuttingEdge100]

ProtoAvatar,

I would say that most humans brain activity are close enough that it would work on pretty much everybody

 

[ProtoAvatar]

It's probable that the sensory information is processed relatively the same in all humans.

I'm not so sure that everyone's higher brain fuctions use the same electrical language. There are big differences between how two persons define the same concept, between how they think. The information could be encrypted differently in each person, so to speak.

 

[msbae]

Japan's Dream Machine
URL: http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=101445

(Most of this is a video on the site, but there is a small quote)

A Japanese science lab is developing technologies to visualise images and dreams - and eventually read people's minds.

It's amazing how people who develop this always talk about only the benefits of it, like how it will help people remember cool dreams, and help those who can't communicate speak or render keyboards and stuff obsolete. What about the fact that it would totally gut the most basic form of privacy that exists?

I'm not saying I don't care about people who can't communicate -- I do care, and I do feel very sorry for them, but what about the rest of us? If you can't keep what you think within the confines of your own skull, then what privacy do you got?


CuttingEdge100

Don't use the machine and you don't have to worry about your privacy being violated in this manner.

 

[john titor]

You're looking forward to being assimilated, aren't you, john titor?

yes

no wait..

 

[CuttingEdge100]

msbae,

How do you know that one day this won't be used as an involuntary interrogation tool? Also, how do you know one day they won't figure out a way to do this from a distance rather than inside an fMRI-tube?

 

[Plecostomus]

I once dreamed that I shot my boss. Of course I didn't actually shoot him IRL.

If I do something illegal in my dreams... which is a manifestation of my subconscious desires... would I be arrested?

This technology frightens me more so than the "tasting robot" that declared humans taste like yummy sweet bacon.

 

[Maurice]

Annnnd...the technology in this state can do neither. They can just detect an image of what you're looking at.

 

[miraclefan]

It would be the Japanese to develop this stuff.

 

[Noname Given]

Japan's Dream Machine
URL: http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=101445

(Most of this is a video on the site, but there is a small quote)

A Japanese science lab is developing technologies to visualise images and dreams - and eventually read people's minds.

It's amazing how people who develop this always talk about only the benefits of it, like how it will help people remember cool dreams, and help those who can't communicate speak or render keyboards and stuff obsolete. What about the fact that it would totally gut the most basic form of privacy that exists?

I'm not saying I don't care about people who can't communicate -- I do care, and I do feel very sorry for them, but what about the rest of us? If you can't keep what you think within the confines of your own skull, then what privacy do you got?


CuttingEdge100

Paprika!

 

[Meredith]

Can't wait to buy a cyberbrain.

 

[FordSVT]

msbae,

How do you know that one day this won't be used as an involuntary interrogation tool? Also, how do you know one day they won't figure out a way to do this from a distance rather than inside an fMRI-tube?

They probably will! However, I can't see much about what might be in your brain that would be admissible in a court of law because memories are so entirely malleable. Lawyers would shoot gaping holes in that kind of information. What makes you think voters are going to allow the government to make random surveys of people's brains?!

No offence, but why do you seem to focus so much on the negative sides of technology? Not that it isn't important to take such things into consideration, but I can't recall you ever posting something that didn't focus completely on the negative aspects of whatever technology you're talking about. Material science, computers and artificial intelligence, weather control technology, mind reading technology...

A lot of good comes from high technology, the bad things are not as inevitable as you seem to feel they are.

Are you really that concerned about an AI-controlled technocracy that sends government agents rolling around the streets in mind-surveying vans, locking up people for Wrong Thinking?

 

[CuttingEdge100]

FordSVT,

Actually if such technology was well developed enough, they could tell what was imagination and what was an actual memory. Brain activity is different when you're imagining something than when you're just recalling up an old memory.

As for your statement that voters would not allow the government to scan their minds -- if it could be done from a distance -- how would they know they were being scanned, and moreover what could they do to stop it even if they knew?

And in case you're wondering, a tin-foil hat would not do a thing

I suppose I do sometimes focus on the negative sides of certain kinds technology lately -- this is not to say that I do not believe that a lot of good has come from many kinds of technology, or that I am opposed to all technological developments. Most of the technology that I worry about pertains to surveillance technology -- especially the kind that is highly intrusive, and efforts in developing artificial intelligence -- especially when you have scientists expressing serious worries about it, and a lot of A.I. research being developed for military weapons systems (things that are designed exclusively for the purpose of destroying and killing stuff).


CuttingEdge100

 

[Myasishchev]

msbae,

How do you know that one day this won't be used as an involuntary interrogation tool? Also, how do you know one day they won't figure out a way to do this from a distance rather than inside an fMRI-tube?

So? Is it painful? If not, it's a vast improvement over many current involuntary interrogation tools--and potentially a darn sight more accurate. Would you rather get interrogated by Romulans or Cardassians?

And the day everybody's thoughts are public is worth looking forward to, if you ask me. So much of the noise we mistake for civilization will disappear.

 

[miraclefan]

Japan's Dream Machine
URL: http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=101445

(Most of this is a video on the site, but there is a small quote)

A Japanese science lab is developing technologies to visualise images and dreams - and eventually read people's minds.

It's amazing how people who develop this always talk about only the benefits of it, like how it will help people remember cool dreams, and help those who can't communicate speak or render keyboards and stuff obsolete. What about the fact that it would totally gut the most basic form of privacy that exists?

I'm not saying I don't care about people who can't communicate -- I do care, and I do feel very sorry for them, but what about the rest of us? If you can't keep what you think within the confines of your own skull, then what privacy do you got?


CuttingEdge100

Paprika!

Good movie.

 

[FordSVT]

FordSVT,

Actually if such technology was well developed enough, they could tell what was imagination and what was an actual memory. Brain activity is different when you're imagining something than when you're just recalling up an old memory.

Not what I'm talking about.

A person can literally be convinced or can convince themselves they did or did not so something in their past, complete with memories. It's real to them and the memories are stored in the same manner is "real" ones. I'm not talking about daydreaming here.

Lie detectors aren't admissible in a court of law, they are just investigative tools. This would be no different.

I also wouldn't automatically assume that a technology that allows the reception of signals from the brain to be transfered into usable data could be made wireless and noninvasive.