Mind Reading Technology. Should We?
Humans have been trying to get inside each others heads for thousands of years. This is reflected in that saying many of us have heard and said; “A penny for your thoughts.” It may have been a factor in what motivated us to develop language. It’s why we started painting on cave walls, invented the printing press and has always driven us to develop communications technologies. Social media are a way to get inside one another’s heads too. And science fiction has long written about telepathy. There are many ways culture has expressed our desire to read one another’s thoughts.
New advances in technology are starting to actually get to the point of reading thoughts. But do we really want to get inside one anthers heads?
A Japanese research team at Kyoto University has just released a paper on how they used Machine Learning and neural networks (subsets of Artificial Intelligence) to create visualizations of what we are thinking. It’s fuzzy, but it works. It is an early use of such technology. It will likely improve.
Then there’s Open Limbs, an open source platform created by graduate students at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program that lets someone control another persons limbs remotely through a keyboard, joystick or an iPhone.
Then of course, there’s the rise of Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI), research into this technology has been going on since the 1970’s and today there are companies looking to make it commercially viable. It could have incredibly valuable health benefits for those paralysed and other health issues. It’s not necessarily seen as reading other peoples brains, but it could. Should it?
We have long been saying we want to understand each others thoughts. But the question is, do we really? How much do we actually want to get inside a partners’ or family members or co-workers heads? And how much could we actually interpret and understand those thoughts? Will it give us any clarity into another person? Would it helps us evolve society?
Then of course are the dangers and unintended consequences which are a factor of every technology we have ever invented. A bronze axe can build shelter, get us food and chop wood for fire. It can also be used to slay our perceived enemies. Humans have a rather dismal record of considering unintended consequences and even when we know the potential risks, carrying on anyway. Nuclear energy to weapons. Social media and the disruption of society as an unintended consequence.
Consider thought reading for job interviews. Is that acceptable in terms of human agency and human rights? Abuse by law enforcement and definitely authoritarian governments like China and Russia. Will we even see it as socially acceptable?
We might use Augmented Reality (AR) and smart glasses as an indicator technology. Remember Google Glass? Those seen wearing them were called “glassholes.” Part of the social rejection is that we didn’t want to be filmed or have a picture taken without our consent. An image of ourselves is a reflection of our internal self, how we view our “self” in the world. It is a perceived intrusion we are uncomfortable with.
While we do like to know what others think, and it is important to our survival and evolution as a species that we do, we’ve long set limits around how much is revealed, when and where. We set barriers in our cultures without often realizing it. Masks and costumes in theatre allow us to explore the minds of others, but draw a line at going too deeply into another’s mind. We do the same with literature and music.
Humans have shaped their world and their reality through culture, as well as using it as the means by which we can adapt to our world and survive. Music, art and literature are means by which we explore with each other, what it means to be human. The tension between truly knowing and guessing or estimating, is, arguably, part of who we are and how we enjoy living.
We both reveal and cover ourselves in many ways, every day across cultures. We use technologies to both survive and as sociocultural signals such as wealth and power status. If I’m wearing an Apple Watch Ultra, it sends a social signal that I have the wealth to afford one, but that I’m an adventurer and explorer, or that I aspire to such. It is likely more couch potatoes will buy the Ultra than actual adventurers.
Non-verbal communication makes up for over 90% of human communication with one another. It’s why we don’t want to spend hours every day in Virtual Reality and partly why video meetings can leave us exhausted.
So the question is, just how much do we really want to get inside each other’s heads? It is a question we should be asking. Because the technology is evolving. We also need to ask questions and consider the dangers and the unintended consequences (we can’t predict them all, but we can design for some) and acceptable use cases. For example, what if a malicious person could alter our thoughts or make it look like we’re thinking about committing a crime or suicide and a justice system takes action?
Reading of another person’s thoughts intrudes and questions too, what “self” means and will impact societal organisation and culture. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
