Mind Reading Technology

Have you ever wanted to read anyone's mind ? Not me, I do not want to know what people are thinking of me, neither do I want to know what they're thinking about. Mind reading has always been a concept that has fascinated us.

Imagine controlling your phone or the computer with just your thoughts or reading your friend's mind. I'm not talking about telepathy. It's neural technology that can give you this superpower. This field of science studies how the brain and technology interact. Companies like neurolink founded by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg's Meta are working on brain computer interfaces that could pick up thoughts directly from your neurons and translate them into words in real time.

Scientists from the U.S based University of Texas have also developed an artificial intelligence system called Bain Decoder, that is capable of translating a person's brain activity into a continuous stream of text while they are listening to a story or imagining telling a story. It's no sci-fi mind probe though mind reading involves electrodes monitoring brain activity and algorithms interpreting it into meaningful information. It's like having a translator for your thoughts. This breakthrough could help people with disabilities control devices using their thoughts alone. Who needs a remote when you can just think about changing the channel but wait there's more in the future we might even communicate with each other through our thoughts no more.

For instance, Artificial Intelligence such as ChatGPT where a computer program will respond to your questions really cleverly but only because it is programmed to do so. We wouldn't consider it conscious because it doesn't have a sense of itself. It doesn't feel anything. It doesn't have its own inner life. It's just a program that responds automatically to my inputs.

I mean, you are you. You are conscious. You are aware of what is happening to you from the perspective of yourself. Think of it this way. If you just stare at something and kind of feel what it feels like to be you, it feels a little bit like you're a thing inside a body looking out through the eyeballs. And nobody else on earth will ever see the world from that position. This awareness of your own experiences, the awareness that you are having them, the awareness that you are having your own thoughts makes up what we call consciousness. But if I were to take your brain and split it into two and put it into two different people, would both of them be new people who were conscious?

With great power comes great responsibility. Many people are concerned about privacy implications. Multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett has warned the world about the rise of artificial intelligence by comparing it to an atomic bomb. Buffett is wary of something that has multiple capabilities and he believes that it cannot be uncreated once invented. Drawing parallels to the creation of the atomic bomb during World War II and it is not the first time Buffett has rejected technology. He's also bearish on cryptocurrencies and called it a non-productive asset classes.

His defensive stance on technology has been called out by his peers. Elon Musk labeled him old school for not keeping up with the advancements in A.I. and cryptocurrency but is it fair to completely dismiss Warren Buffett's concerns ?

As with many cutting-edge Innovations, this technology poses serious ethical quandaries. Imagine private companies and governments accessing your thoughts in the form of data and using it for their advancements sounds scary right ? Either way, neurotechnology is an exciting field and mind-blowing developments will come next and how will it push the limits of what's possible in the future.