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Scientists Build Mind-Reading Computer
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have developed what they are calling a "mind reading computer." Using a panel of nine volunteers, the team built a "profile" of 58 test words based on brain scans taken while the volunteers were directed to think about the meaning of each test word. "'If I show you the brain images for two words, the main thing you notice is that they look pretty much alike. If you look at them for a while you might see subtle differences,' explains Tom Mitchell of the Machine Learning Department, which lead the study. 'We believe we have identified a number of the basic building blocks that the brain uses to represent meaning. These building blocks could be used to predict patterns for any concrete noun,' added Mitchell."
The list of words chosen were: funding, grant, tenure, award, patent, contract, ...
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
All you have to do is have a different connotation for the word and it doesn't work. The gays stole rainbows so now if people see a picture of a rainbow, they have a distinctly different reaction to it. Or you could purposely make yourself feel angry or sad or do a complex math problem as you're thinking of the word and it would throw the machine off. To get this to work I'd bet they have to tell you to stay calm and what to think about beforehand, during, and after they try to predict what word you're thinking of or whatever. Gee, they tell you how and what to think and then predict what you're thinking of. AMAZING!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Now that a computer can read my mind I'm waiting for the mind-reading 'puter that knows to change the mouse focus when I look at a new window. I hate looking at one window while typing in another, especially when posting to /. while I have a window open with an email to my boss. It turns out he's not interested in the goatse link.
..THIS is the basis for yet-another-trek-related-invention: the Universal Translator.
I always knew it had to work this way.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Might be fun to watch the expressions on the scientists face as they realize what's going on tho. "That guy was a fluke, the next will about something else I'm sure!"
This is why passwords by themselves are fundamentally unsafe. Anyone typing a password "thinks" about the next character they're about to enter just before they type it. If concrete nouns can be can be scanned while the subject is entering the password, things as basic as the letters of the alphabet and the numeric system would be dead ringers for remote password stealing.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
Hold on, just got handed this printout:
"Thank you, but we already knew you were going to say that.
Sincerely,
Your new mind-reading computer overlords."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Wasn't there an I, Robot short story by Asimov about a mind-reading computer that lied to people in order to avoid hurting their feelings (because that would "harm" a human)?
This area of research has been growing more popular lately. Last year's big language conference had a keynote speaker address the question of brain waves and word recognition. Most of the progress though is based on nouns because they have a core rooted meaning in everyone's head...you basically visualize a generic version of that object in the world. You say hammer, I think of an actual hammer I've seen. It's not really mind reading because the approach falls apart when you start talking about verbs and actions...which are what most conversations and thoughts are about. Actions don't have a stereotypical physical representation in the world, but rather involve several objects with that action, all interacting in some way that defines it. As I understand it, the patterns they observe in the brain then become too complex to capture.
I know it sounds funny but i would like to see the brain activity for pornografic pictures, since it already known that "bad words" are stored in a different area of the brain than regular words... it would be kind of interesting if "bad images (or nice depending on the person)" got also stored on different areas....
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
What the CMU scientists have done is some preliminary brain imaging using MRI.
Here is a better CMU link with more details and pictures. The scientists hope that this research to could have applications in the study of autism, disorders of thought such as paranoid schizophrenia, and semantic dementias such as Pick's disease. Not once did they ominously dub their research as "mind reading" as claimed by the submitter.
...like a Claymore trigger?
The next comment will be wrong.
By reading his mind, before ScuttleMonkey approved it.
How do you think that subscribers get that "Mysterious Future" stuff, anyways?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It's too bad the article doesn't go into any detail about what they are measuring... its possible its reading alpha waves (normally linked to waking periods of relaxtaion or possibly drowsiness), beta waves (normal waking consciousness), gamma waves (perception and consciousness), or who knows, maybe they are monitoring the chemical reactions taking place. I guess its a possiblity that they don't want to let out the key to their study just yet.
It's strange, every time a researcher is assigned to go disassemble the prototype, something else comes up right when they come within range of the machine. Yesterday something kept spamming "REDRUM" across the networks broadcast address and causing bandwidth issues. Today several printers in the lab wouldn't stop printing out documents that looked like fake rebates for Newegg ...
My work here is dung.
Quoting article:
"We believe we have identified a number of the basic building blocks that the brain uses to represent meaning. These building blocks could be used to predict patterns for any concrete noun..."
The implications of building blocks would suggest that the french word for "Desk" (bureau) would elicit the same response as the english word for "Desk", instead of some governmental unit.
That would be useful, (once we get cheap portable MRI hats).
However I doubt these building blocks are anywhere near that generic due to the excess emotional baggage that people associate with words. I suppose it might be able to detect the presence of such baggage even if it could not decipher it.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Phrenology was 19th century "science" of discerning personality types by look at fine detail of skull shape. This shares some aspects with 21st century brain scans:
(1) They are both based on head geometry. Phrenology just looked at the surface, while MRI looks at volumes.
(2) They are both derived from empirical measurements, rather than first-principles of why geometry is the way it is. This is not bad if it really works. Although more people would believe it if the underlying mechanisms for the geometric patterns were known, and improving the predictablity of new patterns.
(3) There seems to be some degree of interpretation of data. This degenerated into prejudice against certain kinds of humans for phrenology, eventually defeating that method. Supposedly in the 21st century there is more objective statistical discrimination of results.
(4) The majority of scientists arent convinced of either.
So you're saying Microsoft is God?
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
I forsee some lonely nerd using a video-chat application to try and talk with a woman when all of a sudden, his computer reads his mind and says to him:
"I'm reading that you're horny, Jim. Here is a selection of your favorite porn- Princess Leia doing an Ewok. Enjoy!"
Prospective Girlfriend: "You sicko! *exits the video chat*"
Jim: "Oh well... I guess I'll just enjoy this video. Thanks manputer!"
either:
Kreskin
Derren Brown
Chriss Angel
Dunninger
Max Maven
Could this be one of those technologies that is already considered 'quaint' by the elite societies by the time the public discovers it?
Just a thought...
if (male)
cout "sex";
else
cout "nagging";
Mine's at least 95% accurate.
So, if they make one that runs WinBlows and it crashes, do you lose all unsaved data? Could you require a reboot, or gasp, a reformat before you will recover from lost files in your NTFS partitions? Of course you would come back with a snazzy swap file and would have an epileptic seizure every time someones actually makes you think.
Like arts? Like cheesy little Indie mags? Check out www.artwerkmag.com, and don't laugh at the bad coding please.
that the word "fanny" will light up two rather different regions of the brain depending on which side of the Atlantic you were born.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
I for one welcome our new thought monitoring overlords.
[don't take it seriously] /. there are not many secrets as to what I am thinking.
If I wanted others to know what I am thinking. I would tell them.
Plus I am posting in
[/don't take it seriously]
Fucking great, just at the time when I lost my tinfoil hat
Thanks a lot.
How long before we start seeing this technology embedded in the metal detectors in airports?
Not SEX only SEX that SEX, it SEX is SEX possible SEX to SEX use SEX this SEX to SEX type. SEX isn't SEX that SEX wonderful?
Some people encrypt by using rot-13 twice. I prefer the more secure method of using rot-1 a total of twenty six times.
noun verb preposition adjective noun!!
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
it just redirects all URL's to porn sites.
Pah! Just plug your controllers into the other slot.
The first military use will be in the MiG-31 Firefox, no?
Looks like the brain was programmed with microcode.
Now the only question is, risc or cisc?
And how many threads of conciousness in a sane person's mind?
Hasan
Probably not.
Otherwise these guys would certainly have noticed and made a big noise about it:
http://www.physorg.com/news4703.html
"Responses among the eight subjects varied with the person and stimulus. "
"For example, a single neuron in the left posterior hippocampus of one subject responded to 30 out of 87 images, firing in response to all pictures of actress Jennifer Aniston, but not, or only very weakly, to other famous and non-famous faces, landmarks, animals or objects. The neuron also did not respond to pictures of Jennifer Aniston together with actor Brad Pitt.
In another instance, pictures of actress Halle Berry activated a neuron in the right anterior hippocampus of a different patient, as did a caricature of the actress, images of her in the lead role of the film "Catwoman" and a letter sequence spelling her name."
So to me it indicates their brains organize stuff a bit differently.