1) Huth lab and Gallant lab are extremely highly regarding in fMRI encoding/decoding, plus their code and models are released as open source; much admiration for that.
There were some follow up studies to the visual decoding thing which is getting more sophisticated w/ diffusion models and other ML techniques improving the accuracy of semantic and visual coding - I think a few were presented at NEURIPS this year
spooky thought - using the output from a Huth-style semantic decoder into the Eddie Chang-lab/UCSF vocal synthesizer?
2) I would say, the neuroethical part of things is growing in importance. What's available in the lab still is way more sophisticated than the devices out in the field - DBS, rTMS, ambulatory EEG, but it's worth having that discussion.
3) Given the above - almost a decade after Obama BRAIN - the lab demonstrations are getting better and better...but none of them have joined DBS, rTMS, ambulatory EEG as something in routine use - i.e. I cannot order an fMRI decoder on a patient in any practical shape or form, or get it covered by Medicare....
I found the article a bit puzzling as it made the researchers seem almost panicked about the neuroethical part. This was either: (1) a journalistic technique (2) the capabilities are progressing far faster here than I have seen, and the article didn't really do a good job of going into it.
I would like it to be based on real progress, but I don't think the article really described the recent progress well.
We're cursed by our own creativity. The tech has a handful of positive use-cases, and a seemingly infinite number of nightmarish abuses that even its inventors are terrified of. But they will continue to develop the tech, or someone else will in their place. It's a huge, exciting, valuable advancement that could change the history of our species - not exactly the sort of thing anyone would want to just walk away from.
It's not the most dangerous thing that man has ever built, but it is dangerous, and it's probably the most uncomfortably personal.
The following was encouraging:
In late 2021, the scientists began to run new experiments. First, they were curious if an algorithm trained on one person could be used on another. They found that it could not — the decoder’s efficacy depended on many hours of individualized training. Next, they tested whether the decoder could be thrown off simply by refusing to cooperate with it. Instead of focusing on the story that was playing through their headphones while inside the fMRI machine, participants were asked to complete other mental tasks, such as naming random animals, or telling a different story in their head. “Both of those rendered it completely unusable,” Huth said. “We didn’t decode the story they were listening to, and we couldn’t decode anything about what they were thinking either.”
Thank God for your last quote. The nightmare of the police or whatever reading even what you don't think about would be total. Hopefully they will not find a way to make it work on uncooperative persons any time soon.
The nightmare situation is them using it and claiming it works with the 'correct interpretation' and that being admissible in court whether or not it does work.
We dodged a bullet with the 'polygraph' but times have changed and I could see something like that being accepted.
We already have 'fire forensics/arson investigation' which is complete bullshit and just so pseudoscience as well as a lot of other bullshit science around forensics and DNA and questionable 'experts'.
That coupled with the unreliability of witness statements, the bullshit around sniffer dogs and it's a wonder there are any guilty people in prison at all.
The ACLU’s write up and foia actions raise some crazy questions…
Meanwhile, as CBS Seattle first reported, some scientists are claiming they can “hack” information out of a subject’s brain, and engage in lie detection, by using a simple “brain computer interface”—biofeedback brain-wave readers that are increasingly used to control computers and are available off the shelf for only $300. According to the scientists, a “guilty knowledge test” based on a particular brain wave, the P300, “has a promising use within interrogation protocols that enable detection of potential criminal details held by the suspect.”
Five or so years ago, we looked at this issue in great depth—consulting with experts, hosting a forum, and filing a Freedom of Information Act Request. Around that time several companies were aggressively marketing the technology as lie detectors and for other purposes. One of our concerns was that the technology might be applied by our national security agencies against suspects in the “war on terror,” who would then be mistreated based on inaccurate results. Our FOIA request attempting to find out if that was true did not yield any answers.
The ethics of this seem awful. If the tech actually works, it's almost certain that governments will start using it to force information out of people.
How could it be used to force information out of people? Sounds like it can be used to eavesdrop on the part of the brain that decodes hearing. At best.
Fairly easily... We could do a lot of this now if we wanted. Lie detectors can kinda be used to know what someone is thinking, but requires cooperation since the subject still needs to say whether something is false / truthful.
If we could tap into someone's brain then we could simply ask a question and find out if they're recalling an event from memory, or whether a statement like "do you know where she is" is truthful. More advanced modelling of someones brain activity can even pick out specific thoughts so there's various ways to extract information from people as this technology progresses.
Although my guess is that none of this is required. An advanced AI model could probably learn your to understand your subconscious muscle / eye movements well enough to extract information without anything more invasive. For example:
1. "Do you know where she is" – AI says he's thinking yes
2. "Is she in the US?" – AI says he's thinking yes
3. "Is she in Texas" – AI says he's thinking yes
And so on until you have the information you need.
If we could tap into someone's brain then we could simply ask a question and find out if they're recalling an event from memory,
I do not think this would work on me. Not even slightly. And I'm having some real trouble understanding why you think it would work on you. When people claim to be able to beat lie detector tests, it's about involuntary reactions and their ability to voluntarily control them. I don't think I have ever been able to affect how much or little I perspire or my heart rate.
But my cognition? It is effortless. How will you "pick out my thoughts" when my thoughts are on pause?
2. "Is she in the US?" – AI says he's thinking yes
AI says he's thinking about poodles, and how much effort is put into trimming their hair when they might just be sheared bald like sheep. He's also thinking about use human feces in a stew and feeding it to the PTA at their next potluck. Now he's thinking about DROP TABLE ai_prompt_index...
AI OFFLINE.
Seriously, like, if I ask you a question, you can't help but blurt it out into your mind? Christ, I have superpowers and apparently never knew it.
There are at least 2 PhD EE teams interested in developing and implanting 1k's-10k's of MEMS IR sensors with an option to add electrical or light stimulation for a complete cybernetic brain interface.
It's amazing how much information can be extracted from functional MRI data. That's like figuring out what a chip is doing by looking at which parts are using warmer because they're using more power.
No way in hell I would ever install a computer in my body, not even a pacemaker. I would rather shrivel up and return to nature than get rekt by a hardware/software mistake.
"I'd rather die for sure than risk being killed by a malfunction in a pacemaker" seems like a rather bizarre positon. I completely understand (and share) not wanting elective brain surgery for cybernetic implants of this kind, but a pacemaker is a very simple choice: if you need one, you either have it installed or you die. Sure, it might malfunction and kill you, but that's still better than 100% chance of death, isn't it?
I completely understand and respect the idea that you may not want to prolong your life.
However, what baffles me is that the problem you see with a pacemaker is the fact that it could malfunction and kill you. Is that the right understanding? And if so, why is that worse than your body malfunctioning and dieing on its own?
I feel a great deal of sympathy for your loved ones. They'll either watch you decline care that will extend your life from ~hours to a normal lifespan, or at the other end of the spectrum they'll watch you live out an incredibly uncomfortable and tortured few months (if you're lucky). I hope you have a will.
This is such a wild statement. Why are we so caught up on ensuring people don't die? What if someone doesn't want to be alive anymore? Personal agency and absolute freedom are more important to me than life.
Conversely, the idea of not liking a bit of metal and silicon keeping you from dying a terrible death SO MUCH that you'd rather just suffer and die (to the detriment of your loved ones) is an equally wild idea to me. You do you man, but that's a hell of a principle to hold up against existing.
People keep going on about living for the sake of loved ones but a terrifying amount of elderly people don't get the visitors to show for it. A lot of families would rather ignore them until it's time to say goodbye once they become too difficult to interact with regularly. And a lot of people would rather die comfortably or suddenly at an old age than die choking on their own fluids surrounded by family at an even older age.
Although I draw my line a bit further down (and am pro-cybernetics for various reasons), I can see why invasive augmentation is where some people do. I don't plan on surviving some treatable cancers if I get diagnosed simply because merely existing as a worn out husk from the strain of the treatment is not worth the burden on my family and myself. Other cancers have a treatment that is worth trying to fight through. Managing a pacemaker is just not a fight they want to have.
Any time a thread even remotely tangential to life extension comes up, all "maybe we should think long and hard about this" commentary is met with "OMG EVIL DEATHIST" energy.
So you encounter a person who makes an informed decision about declining extraordinary and invasive medical treatment, and your solution is to paternalistically force that invasion onto his body, with a pretense of life extension?
Is this a good example of the philosophy of "My Body, My Choice" that should pervade health care today?
I have absolutely no problem with people choosing not to go through an invasive surgery. My dad declined a surgery that might have saved his life but would have put him through agony.
If you critically read the thread, my astonishment is the stated reason: a distrust in the technology. There's nothing "informed" about that choice, especially if you're looking at the data (I'm not sure how else you can be informed about such a choice).
Getting a pacemaker is also arguably NOT an invasive surgery. Many people who get them leave the hospital the same day. As far as emergency surgeries go, it's very low on the ladder. A routine appendectomy is more invasive.
I feel like I might have perspective here, as I went through this decision. I died, was brought back to life (despite 99.99% chance of that never happening), and strangely have most of my faculties still available. I have a rare condition where I can just go v-fib at any time for no real reason at all.
The doctor came into my room, gave me the option of getting an ICD implant. My first 4000 thoughts were hell no. He explained that otherwise I could just drop dead at any moment, and in all likelihood I wouldn't be the 1/1000 that survived. And if I were to survive I might just be a vegetable next time. I very hesitantly accepted after a lot of thought. BTW this is my 20s that this happened.
Since then more than 1 person has died due to a software error with my device, and I have not been shocked once. I get "patched" all the time to rule out certain errors. But the odds of me dying without the device are still much higher than the odds of my dying with it. More importantly I fully believe the standard of care / investigation into my problems have increased significantly because I opted into having the device. Is that fair? Not really. Is that realistic? Yep, Boston Scientific wants data to make better devices.
I'm in a country where the device was free to install, all care after is entirely free, which definitely helped make the decision. But if there's never a situation in which you'd consider such a compromise I'd say you've probably never woken up in the ICU with no memory of the past 20 days.
Comments
1) Huth lab and Gallant lab are extremely highly regarding in fMRI encoding/decoding, plus their code and models are released as open source; much admiration for that.
There were some follow up studies to the visual decoding thing which is getting more sophisticated w/ diffusion models and other ML techniques improving the accuracy of semantic and visual coding - I think a few were presented at NEURIPS this year
spooky thought - using the output from a Huth-style semantic decoder into the Eddie Chang-lab/UCSF vocal synthesizer?
2) I would say, the neuroethical part of things is growing in importance. What's available in the lab still is way more sophisticated than the devices out in the field - DBS, rTMS, ambulatory EEG, but it's worth having that discussion.
3) Given the above - almost a decade after Obama BRAIN - the lab demonstrations are getting better and better...but none of them have joined DBS, rTMS, ambulatory EEG as something in routine use - i.e. I cannot order an fMRI decoder on a patient in any practical shape or form, or get it covered by Medicare....
Thanks for the context!
I found the article a bit puzzling as it made the researchers seem almost panicked about the neuroethical part. This was either: (1) a journalistic technique (2) the capabilities are progressing far faster here than I have seen, and the article didn't really do a good job of going into it.
I would like it to be based on real progress, but I don't think the article really described the recent progress well.
We're cursed by our own creativity. The tech has a handful of positive use-cases, and a seemingly infinite number of nightmarish abuses that even its inventors are terrified of. But they will continue to develop the tech, or someone else will in their place. It's a huge, exciting, valuable advancement that could change the history of our species - not exactly the sort of thing anyone would want to just walk away from.
It's not the most dangerous thing that man has ever built, but it is dangerous, and it's probably the most uncomfortably personal.
The following was encouraging:
Thank God for your last quote. The nightmare of the police or whatever reading even what you don't think about would be total. Hopefully they will not find a way to make it work on uncooperative persons any time soon.
The nightmare situation is them using it and claiming it works with the 'correct interpretation' and that being admissible in court whether or not it does work.
We dodged a bullet with the 'polygraph' but times have changed and I could see something like that being accepted.
We already have 'fire forensics/arson investigation' which is complete bullshit and just so pseudoscience as well as a lot of other bullshit science around forensics and DNA and questionable 'experts'.
That coupled with the unreliability of witness statements, the bullshit around sniffer dogs and it's a wonder there are any guilty people in prison at all.
I was not aware that fire forensics was on the bullshit list. Kind of scary if that's true.
The ACLU’s write up and foia actions raise some crazy questions…
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/high-tech-mind-r...
There was a man executed in Texas based on evidence that was completely bogus.
This makes me think of the matrix.
Maybe one can't shield their true thoughts if they don't know they're in a simulation...?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus
The ethics of this seem awful. If the tech actually works, it's almost certain that governments will start using it to force information out of people.
There is zero way a system that is wired into the place where pain is translated won't be used for evil.
Yes - but just imagine the inescapable horror-show once you can force information into them.
This reminds me of Dollhouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollhouse_(TV_series)
How could it be used to force information out of people? Sounds like it can be used to eavesdrop on the part of the brain that decodes hearing. At best.
Fairly easily... We could do a lot of this now if we wanted. Lie detectors can kinda be used to know what someone is thinking, but requires cooperation since the subject still needs to say whether something is false / truthful.
If we could tap into someone's brain then we could simply ask a question and find out if they're recalling an event from memory, or whether a statement like "do you know where she is" is truthful. More advanced modelling of someones brain activity can even pick out specific thoughts so there's various ways to extract information from people as this technology progresses.
Although my guess is that none of this is required. An advanced AI model could probably learn your to understand your subconscious muscle / eye movements well enough to extract information without anything more invasive. For example:
1. "Do you know where she is" – AI says he's thinking yes
2. "Is she in the US?" – AI says he's thinking yes
3. "Is she in Texas" – AI says he's thinking yes
And so on until you have the information you need.
I do not think this would work on me. Not even slightly. And I'm having some real trouble understanding why you think it would work on you. When people claim to be able to beat lie detector tests, it's about involuntary reactions and their ability to voluntarily control them. I don't think I have ever been able to affect how much or little I perspire or my heart rate.
But my cognition? It is effortless. How will you "pick out my thoughts" when my thoughts are on pause?
AI says he's thinking about poodles, and how much effort is put into trimming their hair when they might just be sheared bald like sheep. He's also thinking about use human feces in a stew and feeding it to the PTA at their next potluck. Now he's thinking about DROP TABLE ai_prompt_index...
AI OFFLINE.
Seriously, like, if I ask you a question, you can't help but blurt it out into your mind? Christ, I have superpowers and apparently never knew it.
That questioning methodology reminds me of Daemon/Freedom(TM): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel)
Locked in syndrome is such a horrifying thought, I'm just glad there is some better help for them, even if the tech has bad uses.
There are at least 2 PhD EE teams interested in developing and implanting 1k's-10k's of MEMS IR sensors with an option to add electrical or light stimulation for a complete cybernetic brain interface.
It's amazing how much information can be extracted from functional MRI data. That's like figuring out what a chip is doing by looking at which parts are using warmer because they're using more power.
It'd be fucking weird if they were decreasingly sophisticated.
So how does one invest in actual god damn “tin foil” hats?
That oughta hold off the brain parsers for a while.
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https://archive.ph/Wb046
No way in hell I would ever install a computer in my body, not even a pacemaker. I would rather shrivel up and return to nature than get rekt by a hardware/software mistake.
"I'd rather die for sure than risk being killed by a malfunction in a pacemaker" seems like a rather bizarre positon. I completely understand (and share) not wanting elective brain surgery for cybernetic implants of this kind, but a pacemaker is a very simple choice: if you need one, you either have it installed or you die. Sure, it might malfunction and kill you, but that's still better than 100% chance of death, isn't it?
Honestly no. If my doc came to me and said, only option is a pace maker. I would probably just become a hermit and literally die.
I completely understand and respect the idea that you may not want to prolong your life.
However, what baffles me is that the problem you see with a pacemaker is the fact that it could malfunction and kill you. Is that the right understanding? And if so, why is that worse than your body malfunctioning and dieing on its own?
Become a hermit? You might not even be able to leave the hospital.
DNR :peace:
I feel a great deal of sympathy for your loved ones. They'll either watch you decline care that will extend your life from ~hours to a normal lifespan, or at the other end of the spectrum they'll watch you live out an incredibly uncomfortable and tortured few months (if you're lucky). I hope you have a will.
This is such a wild statement. Why are we so caught up on ensuring people don't die? What if someone doesn't want to be alive anymore? Personal agency and absolute freedom are more important to me than life.
Conversely, the idea of not liking a bit of metal and silicon keeping you from dying a terrible death SO MUCH that you'd rather just suffer and die (to the detriment of your loved ones) is an equally wild idea to me. You do you man, but that's a hell of a principle to hold up against existing.
People keep going on about living for the sake of loved ones but a terrifying amount of elderly people don't get the visitors to show for it. A lot of families would rather ignore them until it's time to say goodbye once they become too difficult to interact with regularly. And a lot of people would rather die comfortably or suddenly at an old age than die choking on their own fluids surrounded by family at an even older age.
Although I draw my line a bit further down (and am pro-cybernetics for various reasons), I can see why invasive augmentation is where some people do. I don't plan on surviving some treatable cancers if I get diagnosed simply because merely existing as a worn out husk from the strain of the treatment is not worth the burden on my family and myself. Other cancers have a treatment that is worth trying to fight through. Managing a pacemaker is just not a fight they want to have.
Most people seem to lack theory of mind beyond assuming everyone is a clone of them, unless they actively work on that.
Many people don't have a reference point for what it's like to not be afraid of death.
Any time a thread even remotely tangential to life extension comes up, all "maybe we should think long and hard about this" commentary is met with "OMG EVIL DEATHIST" energy.
So you encounter a person who makes an informed decision about declining extraordinary and invasive medical treatment, and your solution is to paternalistically force that invasion onto his body, with a pretense of life extension?
Is this a good example of the philosophy of "My Body, My Choice" that should pervade health care today?
I have absolutely no problem with people choosing not to go through an invasive surgery. My dad declined a surgery that might have saved his life but would have put him through agony.
If you critically read the thread, my astonishment is the stated reason: a distrust in the technology. There's nothing "informed" about that choice, especially if you're looking at the data (I'm not sure how else you can be informed about such a choice).
Getting a pacemaker is also arguably NOT an invasive surgery. Many people who get them leave the hospital the same day. As far as emergency surgeries go, it's very low on the ladder. A routine appendectomy is more invasive.
Who said anything about forcing anything?
I feel like I might have perspective here, as I went through this decision. I died, was brought back to life (despite 99.99% chance of that never happening), and strangely have most of my faculties still available. I have a rare condition where I can just go v-fib at any time for no real reason at all.
The doctor came into my room, gave me the option of getting an ICD implant. My first 4000 thoughts were hell no. He explained that otherwise I could just drop dead at any moment, and in all likelihood I wouldn't be the 1/1000 that survived. And if I were to survive I might just be a vegetable next time. I very hesitantly accepted after a lot of thought. BTW this is my 20s that this happened.
Since then more than 1 person has died due to a software error with my device, and I have not been shocked once. I get "patched" all the time to rule out certain errors. But the odds of me dying without the device are still much higher than the odds of my dying with it. More importantly I fully believe the standard of care / investigation into my problems have increased significantly because I opted into having the device. Is that fair? Not really. Is that realistic? Yep, Boston Scientific wants data to make better devices.
I'm in a country where the device was free to install, all care after is entirely free, which definitely helped make the decision. But if there's never a situation in which you'd consider such a compromise I'd say you've probably never woken up in the ICU with no memory of the past 20 days.