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Algorithm Can Identify Suicidal People Using Brain Scans (wired.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from WIRED: In a study published today in Nature Human Behavior, researchers at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh analyzed how suicidal individuals think and feel differently about life and death, by looking at patterns of how their brains light up in an fMRI machine. Then they trained a machine learning algorithm to isolate those signals -- a frontal lobe flare at the mention of the word "death," for example. The computational classifier was able to pick out the suicidal ideators with more than 90 percent accuracy (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). Furthermore, it was able to distinguish people who had actually attempted self-harm from those who had only thought about it. In today's study, the researchers started with 17 young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 who had recently reported suicidal ideation to their therapists. Then they recruited 17 neurotypical control participants and put them each inside an fMRI scanner. While inside the tube, subjects saw a random series of 30 words. Ten were generally positive, 10 were generally negative, and 10 were specifically associated with death and suicide. Then researchers asked the subjects to think about each word for three seconds as it showed up on a screen in front of them. "What does 'trouble' mean for you?" "What about 'carefree,' what's the key concept there?" For each word, the researchers recorded the subjects' cerebral blood flow to find out which parts of their brains seemed to be at work.
An abstract of the nature.com article is here.
I hope this algorithm will help prevent suicides.
However, the increasing ability of machines to read minds is getting a little scary. Some day we'll be able to read someone's emotions without hooking the person up to a machine - just point a reader at their head.
Government employee: What do you think of our dear leader?
The person's brain shows the emotion of revulsion.
Government employee: Off to a re-education camp, for you and your family!
Yes. There are no distinguishable brain characteristics for this kind of thing, every person is different, there are no physiological comonalities that denote a decision people will each feel very differently about. More sci-fi bullshit from futurist nincompoops tested on a small, hardly representative group of people one time, if not an outright simulation. Spare us. Very little in real life is that linear.
Then they recruited 17 neurotypical control participants and put them each inside an fMRI scanner. While inside the tube, subjects saw a random series of 30 words. Ten were generally positive, 10 were generally negative, and 10 were specifically associated with death and suicide.
I sure hope no one of any importance in a decision-making position of authority confuses this bullshit with real, legitimate research. Control size was 17. Seventeen controls? How many people are on an professional football team? If you picked 17 people at random, it's easy to get all, or almost all professional football players, and you could extrapolate from that that all, or almost all humans, can play football on a professional level, and all they need is the helmet and pads.
Seventeen is not a large enough sample size for jack or shit. Also, 30 words? Generally negative? Generally positive? According to WHOM? I'll bet for SOME people, the word "Palestinian" is positive, and for some negative. Same for the words "black" and "white". Depends on your point of view, so the 'word list' is garbage... and if only TEN of each group were considered wholly negative or entirely positive...
Yeah, this is bullshit and it's sad if anyone buys into the nonsensical and/or unbelievable drivel. This is gallons and gallons of stew from barely ONE oyster.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.