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Experts Warn New Computers Could Delete Thoughts Without Your Knowledge

posted by CoolHand on Monday May 15 2017, @01:58PM   
from the you-didnt-just-think-at-me-did-you dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

"Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind," wrote the playwright John Milton in 1634.

But, nearly 400 years later, technological advances in machines that can read our thoughts mean the privacy of our brain is under threat.

Now two biomedical ethicists are calling for the creation of new human rights laws to ensure people are protected, including "the right to cognitive liberty" and "the right to mental integrity".

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/delete-thoughts-read-your-mind-without-your-knowledge-neurotechnology-new-human-rights-laws-a7701661.html

Scientists have already developed devices capable of telling whether people are politically right-wing or left-wing. In one experiment, researchers were able to read people's minds to tell with 70 per cent accuracy whether they planned to add or subtract two numbers.

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Original Submission

• More informative article More informative article (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @03:37PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @03:37PM (#510061)

  Here's a more informative article about the possibilities of memory manipulation:
  https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/memory-editing-technology-will-give-us-perfect-recall-and-let-us-alter-memories-at-will-v24n1 [vice.com]

  Even as our basic understanding of how memory is encoded, stored, and retrieved remains extremely limited, two separate teams of scientists have made breakthroughs in the field of memory study, successfully implanting false memories, changing the emotions attached to memories of trauma, and restoring the ability to form long-term memories in damaged brains in mice and other animals. One has already reached the human-experimentation phase.

  Another interesting article that shows you don't even need to physically access the brain to alter memories:
  http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121213-fake-pictures-make-real-memories [bbc.com]

  Old memories seem to be the easiest to manipulate. In one study, subjects were showed images from their childhood. Along with real images, researchers snuck in doctored photographs of the subject taking a hot-air balloon ride with his or her family. After seeing those images, 50% of subjects recalled some part of that hot air balloon ride – though the event was entirely made up.

  In another experiment by Elizabeth Loftus, one of the pioneer researchers in the field of altered memories, researchers showed people advertising material for Disneyland that described one visitor shaking hands with Bugs Bunny. After reading the story, about a third of the participants said they remembered meeting or shaking hands with Bugs Bunny when they had visited Disneyland. But Bugs Bunny doesn't live in Disneyland – he's a Warner Brothers character. None of those people had ever met Bugs, but seeing images of him and reading the story made them remember something entirely fabricated.

  Childhood memories may be the easiest to manipulate, but recent, adult memories are at risk too. In one experiment, researchers asked participants to take part in a gambling task alongside a partner. When they came back for the second part of the experiment, they were shown doctored footage of their partner cheating. Despite not actually having seen their partner cheat, 20% of participants were willing to sign a witness statement saying that they had. Even after being told that the footage was doctored, participants sometimes recalled the cheating that never happened. “They say things like ‘I remember seeing it, I saw them taking too much money’,” says Kimberly Wade, a memory researcher from the University of Warwick, who carried out the study.

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• Re:More informative article (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @04:12PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @04:12PM (#510083)

  Hmm the second part you reference is very dodgy stuff imho. This seems more like

  a) an attempt to resolve cognitive dissonance.
  b) attempting to please / gain attention by lying. (lying to oneself as well)

  Parent