Mind Controlled Technology Pursued by Microsoft and Facebook
The drive to integrate man and machine is strong. People want easy access to technology, and nothing is easier than simply thinking. Tech giants will make a killing from providing the convenience of using seamless technological integration with the human mind.
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Imagine being able to have the power and control to use applications and surf the web hands-free, all through the power of your mind. A lot of people, especially transhumanists want this type of future to develop. But at what cost does this level of interactivity come at? When two of the most powerful (and hated) tech companies are leading the way in brain-computer interface technology, what problems could there possibly be, right?
Last year Facebook confirmed that they were looking into developing a "mind control" brain interface. Microsoft sees the potential, and is taking on Facebook in the same domain. Microsoft has filed a patent called "Changing an application state using neurological data ". It will decode electrical activity in the brain through EEG readings using sensors on the scalp.
Computer systems, methods, and storage media for changing the state of an application by detecting neurological user intent data associated with a particular operation of a particular application state, and changing the application state so as to enable execution of the particular operation as intended by the user. The application state is automatically changed to align with the intended operation, as determined by received neurological user intent data, so that the intended operation is performed. Some embodiments relate to a computer system creating or updating a state machine, through a training process, to change the state of an application according to detected neurological data.
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Designed to operate apps and web browsers, the mind reading device would resemble a headband, detecting what actions a user wants to perform. The goal is to develop algorithms that learn someone's brain behavior to interface with video games, augmented reality, virtual reality and modeling software. This would eventually lead to mind control software being incorporated into everything, everywhere, forever changing how humans interact and use technology.
Facebook has a head start in the race to tap humans into technology at a depper level, with 60 engineers already working on brain-computer interface technology. Mark Zuckerberg has said:
We’re building further out beyond augmented reality, and that includes work around direct brain interfaces that one day will let you communicate using only your mind, although that stuff is pretty far out.
With Facebook and other tech giants manipulating user data, we should be asking how brain data can be used and manipulated. Will a new market emerge for brain-pattern data that the device learns from each individual? Will advertising and marketing take on a new level of depth with the data from our brains and minds?
Or will there be a new way for tech giants to tailor data and block data according to profiles developed from the data? If you're known to not align with certain political agendas -- like we see now with tech giants manipulating data -- could they be in better positions to manipulate what we have access to?
Given how Google is tailoring to authoritarian governments like China to restrict user access to certain information via the censored search engine being developed, a mind reading device that learns of the behavior thinking patterns of citizens would be a gold mine for great social engineering and mind control.
With technology being developed to peer into the human mind and know what's going on, the consequences could be far reaching. Manipulation of our mind could reach another level of sophistication and precision, leading to greater control of society. Corporations and governments would be steering the wheel of humanity at never before seen levels. It seems like dystopian and sci-fi novels and movies about corporations ruling society may not be too far away from becoming a reality.
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We are headed towards more merging of man and machine, and towards a transhumanist dream of becoming more machine if some get their way. Who knows how long it will take, but futures like that seen in Blade Runner, Altered Carbon or Ghost in the Shell seem like an inevitable direction we are marching towards in our insatiable desire for technological "progress". Even if many people resist it now, all it takes is slow incremental changes towards more subtle use and integration of technology in order to get people to shift and accept technological integration into the body.
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In their hubris what many fail to realise is that, a net/mind interface of information and the repetition of generationally alternating facts is a wholly different beast to knowledge and wisdom. For me, reflection, contemplation and empathy are the path to wisdom and as such are the nature of true intelligence, evolutionary intelligence.
Indeed as I wrote in a previous post: Even in the best case scenario of a benevolent artificial intelligence I often think about Sat Nav technology. I think about how within a generation the ability to read a road map will become a dying art. Just like how the advent of mobile phones has destroyed our capacity to remember numbers. From this perspective is it really that far-fetched to suggest that over time artificial intelligence will reduce the public’s capacity to think, question, debate and express thoughts and opinions that are contradictory to the hive mind. Because A.I knows best, doesn’t it?
Yeah, ppl trust too much in GPS and get lost often because they don't know where they are going, they just are told where to go and misunderstand as opposed to truly understanding where they are going because they know which roads to take. And yeah with looking up anything, who needs to think for themselves an remember or verify anything, jsut believe what you're told :/
This is crazy, sounds dystopian and can really change human behavior and vulnerability.
Yeah, maybe we worry for nothing and it's all good :P
There are always two sides to technology and of course the tech companies market good side and don't acknowledge the equally potent negative side.
I was at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year in the blockchain conference session. An incredible company called Hanson Robotics presented their humanoid that looked like a real woman's head and she blinked, nodded and conversed used conversational AI. It was incredible. Dr. Hanson at one point said to imagine all of the incredible things that would be possible for human good. I turned to the people around me and panned: imagine what the evil people of this world could use it for...
Yeah, we seem to be only looking at the utopian good side of tech advancement and ignoring the downsides that can arise... Sex robots are all the rage now... lonely humans can't fix their issues together, so isolate more into sex robots for companionship they lack... sad.
@krnel - I went to Tokyo ... and boy, talk about human emotion disappearing out there. I guess it's happening worldwide, but I found it frighteningly accepted more so in that city.
That's one of saddest new lows I've heard about but certainly a reflection of social decay around the world. I'm assuming some of this has occurred because of video games, but I could be wrong...
Yeah probably a drive to do that for gaming purposes, AR, VR, etc. Just move things with your mind, why bother with a controller. Big business opportunity...
One day we will just lay all day with AR goggles on and be served our food and drink and watch robots play our video games for us. We are moving toward a very scary and lazy world, at least in the developed world.
That CES conference seems cool. They hold in Vegas once a year right?
Yes, every January. Well over 200,000 attend and it's a bit crazy. There are the conference session and then the actual company booths. I walked like 10 miles the first day of visiting booths this year.
I experienced two interesting things this year outside of the blockchain conference session. I was visiting a technology booth and all of a sudden there was a small mob of people walking down the aisle towards me and a guy with a badge that said Stevie Wonder. I poked the guy next to and said: Is that really Stevie Wonder? He said yes. I could figure out why he would go to the booths when he could see the technology, but it was interesting.
I also me the CTO of Homeland Security and talked with him for a minute about a blockchain crypto I have that is working on contracts to support the DHS drone program security.
A brain interface makes things really convenient, but can also really mess up ppl's psychology.
Nice article man. My only question is what if it's our only chance to compete with AI? I do realize that most companies that offer the brain-computer interface will exploit it.
However, if AI does spring into existence in a meaningful way that creates a competition that we simply cannot compete with without enhancements. In that case, we might be up against a wall and forced to evolve or get left behind. I might be playing devils advocate because I do have very mixed feelings on the subject.
E.g. I'm a strong advocate of technology and computers yet I hate the way that Windows 10 and smartphones have used it to mine our data for all that we are worth. Hell, even all of your posts on the blockchain could be harvested by AI to create an artificial you without your permission. It's very complex territory, I'm not so sure that it is as simple as black and white.
I think if the singularity comes and it will if we don't nuke ourselves first we have to consider things on a case by case basis and not throw the baby out with the bath water. I think it's a well known maxim that technology primitive or otherwise is a double edged sword and if the good guys don't keep up with it then the bad guys will prevail.
What say you, is there room for a middle ground? Or, how will the future human race have a chance to compete if the tools the dark side is using are verboten?
Sorry I wrote most of the above before finishing your article. I see now that you also see the singularity as an inevitable factor. I think that our only hope is to use the tech for good as much as possible. Yet, if we can't shake the desire for free apps and operating services that provide them we'll be doomed to enhancing their capabilities against us.
Even on Steem, we're feeding them and all they need to do is harvest our thoughts and use it against us. It is no doubt, a very complex problem indeed.
The premise is that there is a need to compete. Alternative ways of life can be engaged in that provide mechanisms for survival. Not that it's easy. Feudalism, and other ways of living were changed not because it was the only way to compete, but because there were people who chose to do things differently by getting out of a purely survival based mindset and thinking within the construct provided by the mainstream current condition.
AI could work, but it's like nukes. Nukes are a horrible invention. They don't have a mind of their own. AI would. It could even used nukes against us inferior carbon based moral life forms.
I am always left with the question of why AI not under the control of human beings (that evolved in a competitive ecosystem) would be competitive with us. Controlled by people with malign intent, sure. But sentient and autonomous? Why would it view us as anything but amazing features of an amazing universe it wants to hang out in?
If it has a conscience capacity for moral inclusion, sure. But if it's just data, then it would seem to conclude in it's superiority over the flailing biological form ;) It depends on what it is actually. Humans have consciousness and we view others as lesser and enslave and murder them and eat them. it can view us as lesser as well.
No doubt, after the advent of AI people can choose to splinter outward, like Amish groups. Even today, if people wanted to they could choose to not use energy from the grid because it's based on nuclear power.
The reasons I mounted a 60 watt solar panel on my truck were more immediately compelling than opposition to nuclear power, although that is amongst them.
Power becomes free to me. I can take my electricity manufacturing plant wherever I go. I can't be cut off from power by the utility, government, or etc... These reasons were more relevant factors in turning my pickup truck into an electrical power generating plant, and better illustrate why the myriad technologies burgeoning today are going to be adopted by a lot of people.
That's awesome! : -)
I think that in time the desire to minimize expense for the tech we want to use will drive Open Source Hardware and personal manufacturing (3D printing) to make the capitalist manufacturing paradigm obsolete. As our ability to make stuff ourselves becomes available to more folks, less capital will be spent paying big companies to make it for us, because it will cost far less when we make our own.
There's always some people that want to be dependent, and they're not going to be the first adopters. As OSH and 3D printing continue to advance in capability, and reduce in cost, the downsides of being subject to Orwellian social control and paying for it will drive adoption by those that value their freedom - and their wealth - highly enough to take control themselves.
Hopefully, problem is big brothers tech is so high tech that they'll invest millions to infiltrate even the most obscure of technologies. In that way they can be alerted with red flags should anyone create something that endangers their ability to be "big brother."
All I can think of are all the downsides to this becoming a reality with these companies at the forefront of it all... Let’s hope we don’t see it in our lifetime! The mind control and manipulation that would be rampant. They will claim they only read signals coming but we know they want to be able to send signals into our brain so badly that the technology won’t emerge to market until that time.
Yes, exactly. At some point, they can induce some altered signals to change how someone feels, at the least, if not inject information in some dystopian future. Who knows!
This has been a long time coming.
Hello Ghost In The Shell.
Oh wait maybe West World would be more accurate.
I wonder if a certain race or gender will be better at controlling machines. I had an idea for Sci Fi that the Patriarchy begins to lose its power because women are better at interfacing with technology.
That would be pretty scary, creating a whole new class in society.
Not only that, but many people would feel compelled to join for fear of being left behind. Then you'd have to expect a huge religious backlash where the cloth is telling people they're going to hell if they interface with machines. Fun times.
That would be a popular story, I think. However, my assessment of how people choose employment and education is that males are far more psychologically suited to such emotionless undertakings. That's really why there's so few women in STEM fields. They want to do things that involve people, not machines.
That's a hard sell, because women are pushed away from those subjects and ostracized at every turn. The willpower required to overcome this adversity is immense.
https://www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few/
I bet the author of articles like this would say your attitude is part of the problem.
Of course you can always find the opposite conclusion:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/
So who knows. This is the age of information we live in, where no one can get to the truth because the Internet is flooded with everything; a problem blockchain aims to solve.
Many people would, but I'd disagree, and could provide plenty of evidence of my own encouragement of women in any and every field.
I admire and associate with intelligent people. I don't find that STEM fields are the sole province of intelligence, either, so my comment isn't intended to derogate the intelligence of females.
I also only stated my opinion that is certainly not authoritative, and welcome reasonable debate on any issue. IMHO, men and women are very different psychologically, and this has nothing to do with superiority, patriarchy, or intelligence.
You're absolutely correct that it's difficult to parse the internet =)
Such a kind and clear response, bravo!
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The secret society of jacked-in women, plugged into the cyberspace and running everything as a collective consciousness :P
Like Elon Musk says ... we are cyborgs already, just rudimentary and basic interface between electronics and us. Very soon, the exchange in information between us and electronics will be synonymous.
I disagree. We don't have technology implanted in us like cyborgs are in scifi.
@krnel - yes fair enough if going by the exact definition of cyborgs, then we don't have metal components embedded in us. Although "if true", weren't there some employees in some company in middle of the US that had chips implanted in them?
I just hope such advance in technology will not come at a great irreversible cost on humanity
Me either. If most ppl are mesmerized by it, short term gain vs. long term issue won't be looked at or cared about...
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