Mind Reading Technology May be Cumbersome

Scientists now have revealed Technology that could one day speak for you. Researcher at Colombia University in New York has developed a “vocoder” that could eventually decipher, purely from brain activity, whatever person has to speech synthesizer.

The aim is to give the artificial voice to the patient, who has lost their own voice through some incident or accident. Nima Mesgarani, a project leader said that with the right technology, these people’s thoughts could be decoded and understood by any listener. The technology might be right one day, but there is no guarantee that patient will be benign .The brain computer interfaces are primarily design for the sick, they have the potential to be misuse on the healthy life.

Colombia researcher is one of several projects aiming to uncover how internal thought become an action. Early attempts to move the cursor on the computer screen by using the power of thought. In 2017, the scientist of Beijing progressed further down by mind reading road: they were able to tell, crudely, that people are looking at, simply by analyzing neural signals.

Current projects by the scientist have target patient with conditions such as paralysis or neurological diseases. The same technique, however, offers a means of invading someone’s mind and breaching the final frontier of personal privacy.

Eran Klein, neurologist and philosopher, Katherine Pratt, a graduate student from the University of Washington, are among those who have sounded the alarm. In a 2017, they have argued that the ethical issue raised by BCI deserves special attention: “Should be able to keep our neural signals private?”

While mind - reading technologies may be cumbersome for now, requiring the use of brain - scanning machines or wire riddled caps as well as the explicit consent. Next generation device might acquire the capacity for covert detection.

Neural Privacy may become as asset to be traded, in the same way that we give up digital privacy top use online services. In future threatened by automation, it could also become the cost of keeping a job; many reporters have emerged last year last that many employees in China were having the emotions and moods monitored through “mind reading” helmets.

Such are the dual consequences of the brain computer interface: a porthole that allows needy patients to connect with the outside world can become a peephole for voyeurs looking into the opposite direction.

By: Lakshender S Angras

Content: https://www.ft.com/content/8bf0a3d4-2541-11e9-b20d-5376ca5216eb