Scientific Researchers Developing Mind Reading
Click here for reuse options!At Yale University, researchers recently used a brain scanner to identify which face someone was looking at — just from their brain activity. At the University of California-Berkeley, scientists are moving beyond “reading” simple thoughts to predicting what someone will think next.
And at Carnegie Mellon, in Pittsburgh, cognitive neuroscientist Marcel Just has a vision that will make Google Glass seem very last century. Instead of using your eye to direct a cursor — finding a phone number for a car repair shop, for instance — he fantasizes about a device that will dial the shop by interpreting your thoughts about the car (minus the expletives).
Mind reading technology isn’t yet where the sci-fi thrillers predict it will go, but researchers like Just aren’t ruling out such a future.
“In principle, our thoughts could someday be readable,” said Just, who directs the school’s Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging. “I don’t think we have to worry about this in the next 5-10 years, but it’s interesting to think about. What if all of our thoughts were public?”
He can imagine a terrifying version of that future, where officials read minds in order to gain control over them. But he prefers to envision a more positive one, with mind reading devices offering opportunities to people with disabilities — and the rest of us.
Copyright 2014 Liberaland