Mar 6 2008Scary: Brain Scanner Knows What You See
Soon computers will be able to know what you're looking at simply by reading your mind.
Scientists used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine -- a real-time brain scanner -- to record the mental activity of a person looking at thousands of random pictures: people, animals, landscapes, objects, the stuff of everyday visual life. With those recordings the researchers built a computational model for predicting the mental patterns elicited by looking at any other photograph.
Wow, this is getting scary. Except for safety devices and video games, I'm afraid of the uses for this technology. I've been able to read minds for awhile now, and I've got to tell you, you don't always want to. Like right now the cat lying beside me is thinking about eating a bird. Which isn't so bad. But my roommate, who's playing Guitar Hero, is thinking about trying to mash the buttons with his pecker. Which is so bad, because it's my controller.
NOTE: I have no idea what the hell those pictures prove. I just posted them because that's what the other website had up. I think they might be Grateful Dead t-shirt designs.
Brain Scanner Can Tell What You're Looking At [wired]
Thanks to Billy Avenue, who is way cooler than a street, for the tip
Reader Comments
1. cc - March 6, 2008 6:21 PM
thats fucked
2. SlowMonkey - March 6, 2008 6:51 PM
George Orwell was a f'ing genius. The Thought Police are at your door.
3. niocole - March 6, 2008 9:11 PM
If computers will be able to know what you're looking at simply by reading your mind, then there is no secret for people, I believe people with STD at ihavediseases would't like it
4. David - March 6, 2008 9:43 PM
Why is this guy's brain shaped like New Jersey?
5. Michael Brown - March 6, 2008 10:51 PM
Yea real scary - if you're worried some scientist is going to sneak up behind you and drop an MRI on you, and hope you don't notice.
6. Fuzzbutt - March 7, 2008 1:56 AM
Those images are FMRIs of the major visual processing regions of the brain. They deal with shape, color, hue, etc.
7. error on page - March 7, 2008 5:39 AM
Thank you Michael Brown. I feel better. I am sure I can out run a Polish guy with an MRI device on his shoulder.
8. blp - March 7, 2008 7:55 AM
I don't know what some of you are worried about. It only knows what you're looking at to communicate it back to software, if a human being wants to know what you're looking at they just have to look in the same direction as you! It's not like you can spend a day living your life with a MRI attached to your head AND a recording device so some government agent can play it back later. If they were going to force that they'd make you wear a tiny camera.
The only thing you have to worry about regarding NWO and a Big Brother scenario is getting yourself microchipped. You allow that and we all lose our freedom of thought.
9. 8TrackTapePlayer - March 7, 2008 8:18 AM
@blp - we also have to worry about power outages - without electricity, we have no money.
Without money, there is no need for the Thought Police. We will all be thinking of food.
The person with all the food will have all the power.
10. sheigh342 - March 7, 2008 9:47 AM
Remember Christopher Walken in the movie Brainstorm 1983?
If not, go see it - I posted the IMDB link - because that's where we're going with this.
I should know, I'm from Jersey :) (though I'd only admit it here because it's relevant, usually I'm from "right outside NYC") However I did have a good chuckle reading #4.