Now obviously when I say not too far away i don't mean in the next decade, but has anyone read about the Neuroscientists in the University of California and what they have been up to recently? They have developed a computer program that can predict what spoken words volunteers had listened to by analyzing their brain activity. Of course this has not been perfected but in many of the tests the scientists were able to correctly guess the original words the subject had listened to. Other research also shows that internally thought words activate similar parts of the brain as hearing words. This means that with perfection we aren't too far away from being able to communicate with people that, due to certain illnesses, have lost the ability to speak.
And as if having our thoughts heard wasn't bad enough researchers at UC have also developed another program that using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models can recreate an image we have seen. the test was conducted with various movie trailers and the reconstruction of such trailers was fascinating. The result looks unfocused and the colors look like somebody put a magnet to a computer screen but despite the absence of fine detail it is clearly the same clips reconstructed by the electrical impulses in our brain. Researchers reckon that within 20 years we will have the ability to record our own dreams and memories and play them back to ourselves. Now I don't know about any of you but I cant wait for the day when we can do that. Dreams have always fascinated me and despite my best efforts my previous dream journals always have gaps in them and it would be a lot easier to just watch what happened. But anyway I digress.
Those of us who fear for the safety of our dirty thoughts need not worry just yet, the developers say that it will be an incredibly long time before we will be able to just pick a random person off the street and read their minds without their permission and without surgery. Both such programs are far from completion, but this was the first attempt ladies and gentlemen and for both experiments the results were muddled, but undeniably close to what they were observing/hearing. This will open up a whole new world of research and if we get this far on the first attempt imagine where we will be in 5-10 years.
Needless to say the perfection of these programs would provide huge advantages for society. However, as we all know humans have a habit of taking something designed for good and research and using it with less than pure intentions. As I said before we are a very long way away from this (maybe not even in my lifetime) but once we breach the privacy of ones own mind where do we draw the line. The govt. could indeed and most likely will take this technology for espionage / interrogation use and who knows, we could eventually develope into a 1984-esque totalitarian society with thought police that could actually read your mind but now i'm just going waaaay off into a tangent. Does anyone have any thoughts about this?
I Cant find the article i initially read but here is some material to mull over and if you cant be bothered reading here also is a video of a guy explaining the imaging software.
http://news.sky.com/home/technology/arti?
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/2?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zh-bS5SD?
And as if having our thoughts heard wasn't bad enough researchers at UC have also developed another program that using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models can recreate an image we have seen. the test was conducted with various movie trailers and the reconstruction of such trailers was fascinating. The result looks unfocused and the colors look like somebody put a magnet to a computer screen but despite the absence of fine detail it is clearly the same clips reconstructed by the electrical impulses in our brain. Researchers reckon that within 20 years we will have the ability to record our own dreams and memories and play them back to ourselves. Now I don't know about any of you but I cant wait for the day when we can do that. Dreams have always fascinated me and despite my best efforts my previous dream journals always have gaps in them and it would be a lot easier to just watch what happened. But anyway I digress.
Those of us who fear for the safety of our dirty thoughts need not worry just yet, the developers say that it will be an incredibly long time before we will be able to just pick a random person off the street and read their minds without their permission and without surgery. Both such programs are far from completion, but this was the first attempt ladies and gentlemen and for both experiments the results were muddled, but undeniably close to what they were observing/hearing. This will open up a whole new world of research and if we get this far on the first attempt imagine where we will be in 5-10 years.
Needless to say the perfection of these programs would provide huge advantages for society. However, as we all know humans have a habit of taking something designed for good and research and using it with less than pure intentions. As I said before we are a very long way away from this (maybe not even in my lifetime) but once we breach the privacy of ones own mind where do we draw the line. The govt. could indeed and most likely will take this technology for espionage / interrogation use and who knows, we could eventually develope into a 1984-esque totalitarian society with thought police that could actually read your mind but now i'm just going waaaay off into a tangent. Does anyone have any thoughts about this?
I Cant find the article i initially read but here is some material to mull over and if you cant be bothered reading here also is a video of a guy explaining the imaging software.
http://news.sky.com/home/technology/arti?
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2011/09/2?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zh-bS5SD?
