Name: 【TED】Nita Farahany: When technology can read minds, how will we protect our privacy? (When technology can read minds, how will we protect our privacy? | Nita Farahany)
Uploaded: 2018-12-18T18:27:12.000Z
Duration: 13 min 5 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

In the months following the 2009 presidential election in Iran,

Adverbs of manner

The Iranian government violently suppressed

what came to be known as the Iranian Green Movement,

to cut off communication between the protesters.

My parents, who emigrated to the United States in the late 1960s,

where all of my large, extended family live.

during some of the most violent crackdowns of the protest,

none of them dared discuss with me what was happening.

They or I knew to quickly steer the conversation to other topics.

All of us understood what the consequences could be

But I still wish I could have known what they were thinking

what if the Iranian government could have?

Would they have arrested them based on what their brains revealed?

With our growing capabilities in neuroscience, artificial intelligence

we may soon know a lot more of what's happening in the human brain.

As a bioethicist, a lawyer, a philosopher

I'm deeply concerned about what this means for our freedoms

I believe we need a right to cognitive liberty,

as a human right that needs to be protected.

and our mental privacy will be threatened.

the average person thinks thousands of thoughts each day.

like a math calculation or a number, a word,

creating a miniscule electrical discharge.

When you have a dominant mental state, like relaxation,

hundreds and thousands of neurons are firing in the brain,

creating concurrent electrical discharges in characteristic patterns

that can be measured with electroencephalography, or EEG.

In fact, that's what you're seeing right now.

You're seeing my brain activity that was recorded in real time

with a simple device that was worn on my head.

What you're seeing is my brain activity when I was relaxed and curious.

I wore one of the early consumer-based EEG devices

which recorded the electrical activity in my brain in real time.

It's not unlike the fitness trackers that some of you may be wearing

to measure your heart rate or the steps that you've taken,

It's hardly the most sophisticated neuroimaging technique on the market.

and the most likely to impact our everyday lives.

we can literally see inside the human brain

and learn aspects of our mental landscape without ever uttering a word.

While we can't reliably decode complex thoughts just yet,

and with the help of artificial intelligence,

we can even decode some single-digit numbers

or shapes or simple words that a person is thinking

Despite some inherent limitations in EEG,

I think it's safe to say that with our advances in technology,

more and more of what's happening in the human brain

an epileptic can know they're going to have an epileptic seizure

A paraplegic can type on a computer with their thoughts alone.

A US-based company has developed a technology to embed these sensors

distraction and cognitive load while driving.

Nissan, insurance companies and AAA have all taken note.

You could even watch this choose-your-own-adventure movie

"The Moment," which, with an EEG headset,

changes the movie based on your brain-based reactions,

giving you a different ending every time your attention wanes.

I am a huge proponent of empowering people

to take charge of their own health and well-being

by giving them access to information about themselves,

including this incredible new brain-decoding technology.

I worry that we will voluntarily or involuntarily give up

our last bastion of freedom, our mental privacy.

or free access to social-media accounts ...

the train drivers on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail,

【TED】Nita Farahany: When technology can read minds, how will we protect our privacy? (When technology can read minds, how will we protect our privacy? | Nita Farahany)

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【TED】Nita Farahany: When technology can read minds, how will we protect our privacy? (When technology can read minds, how will we protect our privacy? | Nita Farahany)

cognitive

perceive

mental

access