Neurotechnology and the Battle For Your Brain - Nita Farahany | Intelligence Squared

Imagine a world where people who suffer from epilepsy receive alerts moments before a seizure, where the average person can peer into their own mind to eliminate painful memories and we can easily cure addictions. This is also a world where your brain could be interrogated to learn your political beliefs, your thoughts can be used as evidence of a crime, and your own feelings can be held against you. 

Neuroscience has already made all of this possible today, and neurotechnology will soon become the ‘universal controller’ for all of our interactions with technology. That’s the claim made by Professor Nita Farahany who came to Intelligence Squared to share her insights in May 2023. According to her, the growth of commercial neurotechnology could be of immense benefit to humanity, but without safeguards, it could seriously threaten our fundamental human rights to privacy, freedom of thought and self-determination. 

Hear one of the world’s foremost experts on the ethics of neuroscience offer a path forward to navigate the complex legal and ethical dilemmas that will fundamentally impact our freedom to understand and define ourselves.

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[aurorajones]

I love Nita’s references to John Stuart Mills and John Locke to formulate some boundaries around tampering with or peering in on people’s thoughts. Agreed on all points regarding necessary human rights in light of these new technologies.

[Seefood]

One thing they have not put any focus on and is very important: the resolution of the sensors used for the "brain reading" experiment is 4 orders of magnitude over what you can ever get in an earpiece, so your earphones won't be able to read your mind any time soon. Also, that experiment required a machine learning training session of 15-16 hours on that one individual and it was very interactive and intended. it's not something you can trick someone's brain to go through (that we know of) and you then have a model for just that ONE brain. running that model on a different people produced junk output. This is not a "brain reading is around the corner" in any way. It might be a better interface for locked-in patients or people with writing disabilities, but not a general "Truth machine" for police interrogations, etc.

[AravindRaj-jk]

I am from India. I have been unethically a victim of this brain computer interface technology from last one year till now. At the beginning i could not find how the people around me sense my actions. Later i got to know that they are identifying my movements as per my thoughts and trying to give stress and depression to me. I wondered how they could findy thoughts. Some of them are hearing my thoughts just with the help of smartphone and headset. Some of them even doesn't carry smart phone but they could hear. Another surprisingly, they could conversate with me, which is irritating. Day by day, the things become serious. I browsed in website about this issue for long time to fix the problem actually what it is. But i could not know how to solve this issue. I dont know how to stop others from accessing my thoughts. I cried, shouted, fighted from my thoughts itself. Even i could not share this to anyone. Parents were illiterate, financially unsupported, and literally now i am imbalance due to my mental issue. Even i could not make a complaint to police regarding this matter. From my side of research i just come to know through some implants or any non invasive material, they could monitor my thoughts. But how to find what is that exact tech, how to remove from my body ? If rightly not that, what would be the way that everyone could easily track my thoughts, how to stop it?.. I am completely unsupported. Even I tried to attempt suicide. But my inner thoughts never allowed to happen it. I struggled against them and doing it day by day. I cannot concentrate in my job. The number of users who disturbing me is increasing daily whomsoever i didn't see in my life. A supportless, financially unstable, mentally illness, unethically suffering from depression' Youngster from India humbly request to this world of ethical people, who ethically believe that this intervention of cognitive liberty is brutally wrong, to support me to survive by getting rid off this problem.🙏

[lystic]

It's very interesting to compare this 21:30 to her recent speech.

[jora]

Is there anyway to get a hold of nita. Can you tell if someone is in your head. How would one get someone out of there if there in your head without your permission

[EldhoseJoseph]

I also dream to have a career in this. Especially in smart prosthetics and augmented bci.

[erickay]

My next sci-fi novel Above Dark Waters, (on sale now) is about advertising misuse of brain data to get you to click on the perfect ads.

[AshrafulIslam-vlwd]

Are you find any natural way to improve brain problem?

[Neo.Jordon]

Better not be using it in the workforce. Completely unethical

[dreamdiction]

Trying to understand what someone is thinking by analyzing their brain waves has been compared to floating over New York in a hot air balloon while dangling a micro phone below the balloon to try and understand what is going on in the city.

[rfarebrother]

You can make your neighbors life a living hell😂