Neuroscientists create computer program that can decode your thoughts

extremetech.com

12 points·ukdm··5 comments

Talk about a misleading headline: Second, the scientists kind of cheated: They were listening to the auditory center, which interprets signals from the ear — they weren’t actually listening to thoughts.

I'm not sure there's much of a difference. If the people thought these words without saying them and the scientist could know what the words were, that is mind reading. It doesn't matter much, IMO, where in the brain they are reading them from.

This is mind reading only to some extent. They weren't capturing arbitrary thoughts, only the brain's interpretation of spoken words. That is a difference, although still quite a leap.

Scary. If research progresses to a stage where its actually able to pick up thoughts rather than sound processing, this sort of technology might be used for interrogation. Imagine drilling holes into the prisoners skull to try and pick up this thoughts.

So many sci-fi ideas to explore..

While scientist can't read "real thoughts" instead of audio signal, spies would be taught to think in a secret language, preferably each spy in a different one, and only translate it, when they need to speak with someone.

Maybe that's how Babel Tower happened :)

I also wonder, if "real thoughts" are universally identifiable between people. I guess not, so reading them will require calibration of thought-reader. So it (the reader) could be tricked by interrogated person, by thinking about different things/ideas in calibration phase, than interrogators want you to think about.

This allows for full blown fantasy style mind wars. Scary, but also cool.

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