AI Is Helping Us Read Minds, But Should We?

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Since mind reading has only existed in the realms of fantasy and fiction, it seems fair to apply the phrase to a system that uses brain scan data to decipher stories that a person has read, heard, or even just imagined. It's the latest in a series of spooky linguistic feats fueled by artificial intelligence, and it's left people wondering what kinds of nefarious uses humanity will find for such advances.

Even the lead researcher on the project, computational neuroscientist Alexander Huth, called his team's sudden success with using noninvasive functional magnetic resonance imaging to decode thoughts “kind of terrifying” in the pages of Science.

But what's also terrifying is the fact that any of us could come to suffer the horrific condition the technology was developed to address — paralysis so profound that it robs people of the ability even to speak. That can happen gradually through neurological diseases such as ALS or suddenly, as with a stroke that rips away all ability to communicate in an instant. Take for example, the woman who described an ordeal of being fully aware for years while treated as a vegetable. Or the man who recounted being frozen, terrified and helpless as a doctor asked his wife if they should withdraw life support and let him die.

Magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a permanent version of the condition, used a system of eye blinks to write the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. What more could he have done given a mind decoder?

Each mind is unique, so the system developed by Huth and his team only works after being trained for hours on a single person. You can't aim it at a someone new and learn anything, at least for now, Huth and collaborator Jerry Tang explained last week in a