How Mind-Reading Technology conquers your Brain | Katrin-Cécile Ziegler | TEDxRWTHAachen

[Applause] yeah did you as a child have such a sign on your bedroom door or perhaps your children do or perhaps you still have it well the warning should be clear free can keep a secret only when two are dead and later in life such threats make us mine but they are an important milestone in our development sorry some of you miss it as a small child we assume that everyone knows everything of us but when we are 4 years old we realize that our parents are far from omniscient and that's the moment when we separate from others and we start to develop an own identity and suddenly we wake up to the fact that cleverly applied knowledge is power and some powers better kept a secret on the average every one of us here has 13 secrets and 5 of them you will keep your entire life those are secrets born of your strongest emotions sexual preferences you may be ashamed of our fears grief as well as dreams of another personality or another life that's mine all your secrets your private thoughts and memories make you who you are your individuality your personality but also your vulnerability which is why you protected with the strongest impenetrable firewall there is and that's your brain no one can read it and true freedom true security only exists in the mind there is no other place and that's why it's our source of strength it's sacrosanct and frankly we never bother to question it this refuge and this retreat but what if that should change imagine there is someone who can read your thoughts even the one you don't perceive and that might sound like science fiction but it's more real than you think take your decisions your decisions are predictable before you can't you see make them this device combined with machine learning can do that which decisions are predictable is still limited but yet it is possible to read your unconscious thought processes and then use this information to anticipate for example your buying behavior and this has long been common practice in neuro marketing research so your brain areas provide a wealth of a material to read such as your political leaning if you are a Republican or you are a Democrat but there is little risk of manipulation since you rally go shopping or to vote while in the city machine or did anyone of you but like that I hope not all the same never underestimate your friends technological pathways imagine you have had a serious accident you can still think and hear and feel but you can no more move and communicate Universal and coma and your family doesn't know if you can hear them and still your family has to decide life support or not this brain computer interface can help you it can save you it not only measures your consciousness level but can read your answers to yes or no questions as you think them I tried it myself and it is impressively precise I could even control letters on my keyboard I felt like superwoman and afterwards I asked myself hmm what if this device or one like it is abused if it is used as a lie detector as they already do in of America and as it has been already tested at the Hungarian border by the EU Commission but almost nobody knows then what will become of our right of silence also Silicon Valley has been striving to decode the human brain since quite some time enormous sums are invested in neural technology and patents have increased 500 percent over the last few years so if Facebook Google Amazon or Apple however could convince a mere 1% of their billions user to have their brain data measured while surfing imagine that would be the greatest neuro research study of all time and research dimensions that science can only dream of on the other hand there's the question who wants to spend their time in a wired gooey and sexy I think it and you might think what idiot gives her consent to take such a photo with I don't know her but anyway there are more elegant options this BCI is a product of a u.s. American start-up and is commercially marketed it measures concentration levels and offer practical support to people with compulsive or it attentiveness disorders such as ADHD that's fantastic and an elementary school in China they were so delighted they immediately hooked up all school kids no more daydreaming either you are concentrating or you blink I I would like to have it now for you the same data grants access to decoding other information fierce grief excitement depression your state of mind so in these cases how can we speak of voluntary action explicit or implicit it's an act of coercion so I've asked myself when is it not and yes there are those who privately and willingly use BCI namely gamers eSport a neuro gaming is a growing market and what users don't know and certainly don't want is that Nero gaming not only allows access to your performance but also to direct questions concerning information stored in your brain pin number banking data location identity completely without your knowledge simply by playing a game proven by a scientific experiment and hackers can slip through security gets accessing this data and once identified there is a 94% probability that your Nero data can be traced to you why because Nero data is unique but even if you are no gamer there are still other approaches to read your thought processes for example a nice little detour over your muscles by means of sensors and artificial intelligence it makes silent speech possible and no more need of typing good for me only with two fingers but by the way one such research study was financed by Facebook Facebook has a team of 60 engineers working on brain computer interfaces and a few weeks ago Facebook acquired a praying computing starter for nearly 1 billion dollars so Facebook want to be among the winners of the next big device it's just a matter of time but yet all of the aforementioned examples have two practical disadvantages first the device is visible and second we would have much more accurate data and precise control if we penetrated the skull so why not let's do it a deep brain stimulation implants an electrode directly in the brain it can predict epileptic seizures it can heal depression and it can reactivate the memory of dementia patients what a great achievement but patients have reported post-operative reactions that they are completely out of character yeah that they felt strange and they have told that they have actually lost their sense of self imagine what a weapon and I don't know if the US military thought the same but it has been studying neuro technology for many near years now aiming to enhance their soldiers learning and cognitive abilities so it would enable them to manipulate memory but also the capacity for empathy however the operation is risky and the operation is very expensive so research team DARPA funded by the US military came up with another innovative solution it's a minimally invasive procedure you hardly feel it there's little or no risk an implant a device that makes its own way to the plane traveling throw away a mere four millimeter it's smaller than a paperclip and controls for example the plane sector or governing movement and has the potential to animate paralysis patients also it records every movement and future models hope to be externally controlled I hope they never fall into the wrong hand but let there be no mistake technology itself it's not frightening huh its applications are every advancement has a drill you suspect and new technology might be one of the greatest human innovations but so are the risks especially when manipulated by forensic commercial or military intentions and right now we are not able to read all your individual thoughts so far the positive healing applications outweigh the negative ones but there is cause for concern since sufficient legal protection is not yet in place and we've made such a mistake before think of social media think of Alexa or your mobile and we have grown accustomed to all these data Hoover's and can hardly turn back time we accept the laws of privacy but we should not repeat this mistake again at this point though we still have a chance to install prudent regulations protecting Nero data before the technology spreads to mass consumption what which is bound to happen why because Nero data opens the floodgates to another life full of convenience our dream and therefore unprecedented business models so how are we currently protected in Europe there is the precautionary principle that means until the long term technological effects are not clearly defined we are to proceed with extreme caution but in all likelihood companies will choose locations where these principles do not apply for example USA where disruptive approach is a given and technology primarily serves economic growth and where military co-funding is a common practice so let's have a look what kind of data neural data is obviously neural data seems to be sensitive data and in Europe the list of laws governing sensitive data is highly exclusive niro data is not on it according to current laws neural data is as worthy of protection as that measuring your food size which is why we need a new approach and a global approach even the currently existing human rights are not sufficient they emerge from a time prior to our technological age and they assume that no one can penetrate your mind but technological progress is out rising time and therefore we urgently need adequate rights and neuroscientists demand us as well so we need rights that empower you to protect yourself of coercion of manipulation to empower your mental privacy and to empower you to decide whether in which niro data you share because brain computer interfaces will become part of our daily life and if there's one thing that's threatened with extinction it is our secrets but you know some human attributes they will never change you and I we need our secrets not only because they conceal our vulnerability or our ProLiant ideas and also the stupid ones but because without their would know there wouldn't be no interiority no subjectivity it's about you're awfully unique dimension of consciousness and dimension not found in the rest of the world in reality so interiority is probably the most valuable asset you manatee has and that's why once more let us remember the instinct and wisdom of a child and this time I'm asking you who are you letting who gets access to your entire reality and all my call upon you is get up stand up please you've done the first step thank you [Music] [Music] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 28,752

Rating: 4.9241071 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Science, Brain, Digital, Human Rights, Interface design, Neuroscience, Privacy

Id: csjFifU2Pxc

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020