The rapid leaps achieved by artificial intelligence technologies, one of which threatens the human right to the privacy and confidentiality of his thoughts, and that what he thinks between him and himself becomes vulnerable to espionage, and even electronic piracy on it and directing it from another party.
This matter was revealed by a warning from the British Data Monitoring Authority that there are efforts to enable companies to use brain-reading technology to monitor or hire workers, with the violations that may ensue, if not used properly, so can this really happen soon?
What has been done so far
Dr. Ahmed Raslan, Professor of Functional Brain Surgery and Neurosurgery at the American University of Oregon, explains to “Sky News Arabia” the true extent to which technology has reached in reading human thoughts, and what has already been used in it, or what it can reach:
- Currently, the intellectual content of a person can be predicted by analyzing the waves emanating from the brain, but not specifically, in the sense that it can be predicted that a person wants to eat, but it is not possible to predict what he thinks to eat.
- It is also possible to predict that a person is thinking about the past, or moving an arm, but all of this requires the placement of receptors on the surface of the skull or in the brain itself.
- These receptors must have a strong connection between them and the brain to be able to read thoughts.
- It is also possible now to predict a person's behavior, not by reading thoughts and brain waves, but by behavior, as happens through companies that analyze the behavior of users on the Internet, to find out which products are most suitable for them.
- The mind contains about 2 billion cells, and a very large group of connections called “neural connections” that may outnumber the number of neurons a thousand times, and reading all the electrical content and activity recorded in all brain cells is currently impossible.
- Of course, some electrical activities can be read in some places; This helps in predicting the intellectual content, but this requires implanting devices inside the brain, and implanting these devices so far is only done with the aim of modifying brain activity in order to treat a problem. Therefore, talking about companies reading the minds of employees is unlikely. Because companies can't force them to implant devices.
- All of this raises questions about the possibility of modifying behavior by means of electrical stimulation in the brain. The answer is yes, it can, but only in intractable disease cases to modify abnormal behavior.
- For example, a device can be implanted in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder to change the sensation of wanting to do something, but this change is still not a direct change of free will.
- Depression can also be treated, but not by direct personality change, and all of this is done within clear ethical frameworks, and by educating the patient and his family about the importance and reasons for this treatment.
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