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Comment by meganibla | Hacker News Reader

If the mind extends beyond our heads and into the devices we carry around and therefore into the cloud what about privacy?

It seems the distinction still remains between Inga and Otto in other words between the mind in our heads and the mind in our devices because for what’s in our heads we can always choose whether we want to tell others or not but for our devices even if we set our privacy settings we lose control of choice over who to share that information with as soon as we tell the cloud about it

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If current mental prostheses develop over the years into full-fledged brain implants or whatever, we can expect to lose the privacy and freedom of thought unless we defend the principle now. My files are my augmented memory.

It's not true that you can always choose whether to tell others or not. There are certain drugs that make you more talkative and even consuming too much alcohol makes you unable to control what you tell others. And it likely won't be long until a device is discovered that allows you to see others thoughts.

There are also some things you cannot know without telling others.

For instance finding out the address of MOMA in the first place may require asking someone or googling it.

The stronger version is that some interesting ideas can only come about by dialogue between specialists.

Sometimes a dilemma for scientists is whether to share and benefit from input but then perhaps give away the key insight to others. Q.v. Wilkes showing Crick Rosalind Franklin's DNA crystallograph.

Proper courtesy, accreditation and citation can in some cases avoid this - yet Wilkes told no-one he was working on Fermat's last theorem for many years until he thought he had a solution.

It is true some can always choose but maybe not everybody can, because people react differently to drugs and alcohol. Psychics can already read minds better than existing primitive devices. But AFAICT the gov does not employ them, at least not at scale, so don’t worry. I don’t believe actual mind reading device will ever exist, the closest will be like a synthetic / robotic AI brain with the same abilities as human psychic. Meaning it’s a synthetic AI not “device“ that you completely control. So if you want to read minds without people’s consent you better use psychics or torture.

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