Computer designed to read thoughts from brain scans

Frighteningly enough, this isn't the first (or second) time that we've seen scientists pat themselves on the back for creating a mind-reading machine, but a dedicated team from Carnegie Mellon has just announced a computer that "has been trained to read people's minds by looking at scans of their brains as they thought about specific words." In a completely unsurprising move, gurus familiar with the development are suggesting that the breakthrough could be used to better understand how the brain organizes knowledge, and eventually, treat language disorders and learning disabilities more effectively. That's all gravy from here, but when this stuff starts passing as evidence in court, you'll know it's time to seriously investigate a relocation to Mars.

[Alexander The Best @ May 31st 2008 5:16PM]

Just one more step taken towards Judgement Day.

[Sora267 @ May 31st 2008 5:16PM]

Jesus, this would be so evil to use in psychological warfare. Yet oh so amazing.

But I'm sure it isn't developed enough for that yet.

[Denis @ Jun 3rd 2008 3:14PM]

Wanna Bet?

[andres @ May 31st 2008 5:17PM]

researcher: damn, the only reading i get is porn
test subject: about that...

[Charlie Calhoun @ May 31st 2008 5:42PM]

I lol'd.

[Christy McGrory @ May 31st 2008 5:21PM]

Can I have it for my exams? please?

[andres @ May 31st 2008 5:33PM]

i fail to see how it would help you

[Chuckles McGee @ May 31st 2008 5:29PM]

"...when this stuff starts passing as evidence in court, you'll know it's time to seriously investigate a relocation to Mars."


I think you forgot the obligatory tinfoil hats. Metal hats would seriously mess up an MRI (if the intense magnetic force doesn't rip them off your head first.)

[andres @ May 31st 2008 5:33PM]

i think tinfoil would only heat up

[Tim @ May 31st 2008 11:41PM]

If you wanted to mess up an mri, just move your head; no need for hats. Even though the temporal resolution of an fMRI is better, this technique should still be effective.

[cubiclegangsta @ Jun 1st 2008 2:56AM]

Better dead than "read".

[ReggieXuk @ May 31st 2008 5:34PM]

maybe they can use it for on the fly swear beeping

[Charlie Calhoun @ May 31st 2008 5:45PM]

Yeah! And use GPS to track everyone and when someone is near a child, it would beep swear words!! Brilliant I say. Honestly, there was a time when swear words made me cringe, but that's because I was a young child and they were watching their words, so they only used it in extreme force like during a fight or baseball game.

[boredtoday @ May 31st 2008 5:44PM]

Imagine how much computing power would be needed to make one for the ladies.

[andres @ May 31st 2008 7:04PM]

id need another computer just to make up a number high enough

[ReggieXuk @ May 31st 2008 7:20PM]

just the thought makes clusters all over the world cry

[Neebs @ May 31st 2008 9:22PM]

Not really, you'd just need one testicle from a living man per woman.

[Roofus @ May 31st 2008 5:45PM]

Total Recall, come on, it was a reference to Total Recall. How am I the only one who got that?

[Alex @ May 31st 2008 7:00PM]

I got it.
I also thought there would be more DOOM related comments...

[giuliop @ May 31st 2008 5:52PM]

Uh... and what's that in the picture? Correspondence of colours is maybe 10% for "Celery"; "Airplane" is 2% at most. And what about all the other hundreds of thousands of words?

[Dolemite @ May 31st 2008 11:26PM]

That indeed is a very sensible comment. Unless you are also in on the conspiracy.

In any case, I love the avatar. I was thinking of choosing it as my avatar as well.

[shaun @ May 31st 2008 6:01PM]

Lets hope it can only be used in court with trials involving airplanes, celery or a combination of both

[Sora267 @ May 31st 2008 6:20PM]

Judge: Mr. Pilot-man, you have been accused of crashing an airplane made of celery into the cardboard boxes of homeless people. How do you plead?
Mr. Pilot-man: Not guilty.
Audience: *gasp*
Judge: Order, Order!

[j dale @ Jun 1st 2008 1:35AM]

i want an avatar of celery growing on/in an airplane

[giuliop @ Jun 1st 2008 6:16AM]

I guess it can be used with all sorts of trials:

Judge: Mr. Pezzelli, you said you got home by car, but we know you're lying. The mind-reader clearly says: Airplane. And what about the poison you administered your wife? You said it was arsenic, but we know it's Celery.
Therefore, you're innocent.
Oh, and by the way, what is the secret ingredient of your famous pasta dish?

Mind-reader: Celery.

Mr. Pezzelli: Damn.

[giuliop @ Jun 1st 2008 6:16AM]

I guess it can be used with all sorts of trials:

Judge: Mr. Pezzelli, you said you got home by car, but we know you're lying. The mind-reader clearly says: Airplane. And what about the poison you administered your wife? You said it was arsenic, but we know it's Celery.
Therefore, you're innocent.
Oh, and by the way, what is the secret ingredient of your famous pasta dish?

Mind-reader: Celery.

Mr. Pezzelli: Damn.

[giuliop @ Jun 1st 2008 6:17AM]

I swear I didn't double post. However, I know all I can say in my defence is "Celery".

[JJV @ Jun 1st 2008 6:37AM]

New movie:
Celery on a Plane

[Matthew @ May 31st 2008 6:07PM]

I'm happy for it. It could be used to help the deaf communicate. It could be used in interrogation instead of torture. It could be used as a lazy-man's keyboard. There are numerous legitimate applications for this type of technology.

[azx4442 @ May 31st 2008 6:16PM]

i thought it was spelled "Aeroplane" ... not airplane?

[Don @ May 31st 2008 7:01PM]

They're american.. so they spell it Airplane

Guess this computer's only designed the US

[Alex @ May 31st 2008 7:02PM]

Airplane is the American way I think. Aeroplane is the original way.

[tha-don @ May 31st 2008 7:45PM]

i think we should start usin aeroplane here too. it sounds cooler.

[Roofus @ May 31st 2008 8:08PM]

Don't go adding syllables to our words, we took them out for a reason. You might just cause an uprising... wait, we're too lazy.

[sinai @ May 31st 2008 6:52PM]

the deviance between "celery" predicted and observed is about the same as between "celery" predicted and "airplane" observed.

[korey @ May 31st 2008 8:07PM]

this is pseudo-science at best, read:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-06/mf_neurohacks

[Beth @ May 31st 2008 10:08PM]

Reading the fMRI scans above. you can see that the word "celery" actually causes zero activation of any brain cells at all.
The word airplane was expected to produce frontal lobe responses but instead it produced a scattered mix of prefrontal lobe, a scant activation of the right temporal lobe, and a blip almost evenly bilaterally in the midbrain region. The airplane response is not surprising given that it is an active as well as visually engaging experience PLUS the post 9-11 recollections encoded in memory via traumatic encoding.
This type of MRI actually detects what a person thinks and feels about a word, or a concept, or a person, etc.
When used in interrogation, it is passive interrogation. However, this type of technology removes all elements of free will and choice.
Some find that offensive. Some find that useful. Regardless, it is the most highly invasive technology there is to date, and the fact that it has been paraded around the public lately is because we are likely to have it introduced into various realms of our society any time soon.
Psychiatrists will want to use them, attorneys, of course NSA/FBI and the like, and perhaps even employers to see if their prospective employees really want to work there. Future spouses may wish to have a fiance take one to insure that he doesn't think I'm really fat or that she is not marrying me for my money. And, because technology is so far advanced from contact probes and electrodes to remote wireless forms of
connections, it is likely that these could conceivably be installed in airports and Federal Buildings to visualize the emotional brainset of those passing through. It fully circumvents the 4th amendment in it's future
applications.

[rich @ Jun 1st 2008 12:36AM]

you're a dickhead

[SouthPolePengwin @ May 31st 2008 10:10PM]

Thank The Framers for the 4th Amendment. Hopefully the exclusionary rule still means something when this technology is widely adopted.

[Beth @ May 31st 2008 10:13PM]

PS. And the 5th Amendment under certain circumstances too.

[Iridium @ May 31st 2008 11:20PM]

I for one do not see any correlation between the prdicted and observed scans. I think it is a bit of self fullfillment on th epart of the observer.

The scans are completely different. It you were actually writing the MRI scan as a symbol the two scans would be like a letter E and letter F. The two symbols are similar in structure but completely different in meaning.

While the celery scan may have protions that match the actual word may be carrot, or brocoli. Or it could be stick or celeron. Point is we do not know and have absolutely no idea how the brain stores information.

I was in several cog psych classes at Carnegie Mellon. I had fun disproving every memory theory that was presented. There is not one way people store information in thier brains. There may be similar ways but some people have a photographic memory and others can remember words as they hear them.

I for one can't remember a phone number to save my life but I can draw a perfect layout of any room that I walked in for a few seconds. What scares me is that people want to use MRI brain scans as evidence in court cases to prove or disprove guilt. Like showing brainscans of a murderer seeing a weapon when a scan of a 5 year old playing a video game shows the same thing.

[PictureSharing.com @ Jun 1st 2008 12:08AM]

Looks kind of like a person, in a short sleeved shirt, with their arms up in the brain scans.

havingababy.net

[Bones3D @ Jun 1st 2008 12:30AM]

A huge problem with this kind of approach, is that it assumes human thought has a static form. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near that simple.

For example, look at the words shown in the article. When they were told to "think" about the item in question, what exactly did they focus on? Imagery of the item? The sound of the words themselves? Properties of the items like smell, taste or texture? Perhaps the objects themselves weren't even entered into the thought process, but instead, the sensations or emotions they personally feel when presented with those items, such the memory of a positive event that just happened to have celery around, or perhaps apprehension toward airplanes out of a few of heights (or more likely, the events of 9/11 if you're a US citizen...).

These are things you can't universally quantify across the board. You *might* be able to use this sort of thing to discover a person's fears in context to imagery and sensations you present to them when they're hooked into such a system, but it's unlikely you'll ever read their exact thoughts using such methods.

[Peter @ Jun 1st 2008 9:17AM]

I don't think this kind of technology will ever work in a 'static' way. I doubt there's any such way to just 'read' what a person is thinking. However coupled with an AI, it may just be possible to make it learn what you are trying to do. For instance: typing. This would be a great help to me since I'm currently suffering from RSI (I know I should get off the computer lol).

The way I would see this working is that the computer records activity while you type, trying to get a general image of how your brain works while typing pressing certain keys, and then eventually you take the keyboard away and touch type in mid air (this would only work for touch typers who don't look at the keys), and then it may be possible to remove the action entirely, although this is where my inexperience in neuro science prevents me from knowing for certain if it'll work.

But the concept of using an AI to 'learn' how your brain works seems much more likely than just 'reading' your thoughts.

[LlammaLou @ Jun 1st 2008 3:51PM]

What if you are able to think of both celery and an airplane at the same time? Personally, I have A.D.D. and I have a hard time NOT thinking of several things at once.

[whiskey @ Jun 3rd 2008 4:01AM]

Will it know the difference of me thinking of eating celery on a plane, flying a celery plane, flying to get some celery?

I concur with the ADD issues and... look a a celery plane!

[Kaptainess @ Jun 3rd 2008 1:29PM]

Artificial intelligence? They have it, what do you think has been running the country for the past eight years? LOL!

Seriously, we have it, but they don't think the general public needs to know.

[neurosceptic @ Jun 25th 2008 3:01PM]

Don't worry. No civilised country would use such unreliable technology in a court of law, it would be like using unreliable, unsafe and unvalidated lie detector technology, or even evidence from torture. Oh yeah, oops.