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Facebook mind reading headset

Mikeybd27

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Joined
Jan 12, 2019
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119
In 2017, Facebook announced that it was working on a brain-computer interface that designed to let users type by simply thinking words. And today, the company revealed for the first time how far it’s come in its quest to make such a device a reality.

“Imagine a world where all the knowledge, fun, and utility of today’s smartphones were instantly accessible and completely hands-free,” reads a Facebook blog postfrom today. “Where you could connect with others in a meaningful way, regardless of external distractions, geographic constraints, and even physical disabilities and limitations.”

The meat of today’s announcement: Facebook says it’s collaborating with researchers at the University of California in San Francisco to build a device that could help patients with neurological damage speak again by analyzing their brain activity in real time.

In an article published in the journal Nature Communications today, the team of researchers shared their latest progress on such a device.


In the experiments, they asked participants a question and directed them to say the answer out loud. By examining readings from high-density electrocorticography monitors — electrodes that are surgically implanted directly on the surface of the brain — they could figure out the answer with accuracy rates “as high as 61 percent” by looking at brain signals alone.

The researchers claim that their results “demonstrate real-time decoding of speech in an interactive, conversational setting, which has important implications for patients who are unable to communicate.”

But there are plenty of areas that still need work — especially considering the researchers’ goal of “real-time decoding speed of 100 words per minute with a 1,000-word vocabulary and word error rate of less than 17 percent,” according to Facebook.

During the initial trials, the vocabulary of possible answers was extremely limited and the success rate leaves plenty of room for improvement.


And then there’s the invasiveness of surgically placing electrodes directly on the surface of the brain — a very different model than a sleek headset that’s meant for mainstream consumers.

But Facebook’s Research Lab is already exploring a promising alternative: infrared. By measuring blood oxygenation levels, Facebook believes that it can create a less bulky — and far less invasive — brain-computer interface.

In other words, Facebook isn’t going to get inside your thoughts any time soon. A device that can allow us all to move a mouse, type Facebook comments, and play games with our thoughts alone is still many years, if not decades, out.

And it’s also bound to raise plenty of questions concerning privacy. Our thoughts are one of the last safe havens that have yet to be exploited by data hoarding big tech companies.


“To me the brain is the one safe place for freedom of thought, of fantasies, and for dissent,” Nita Farahany, a professor at Duke University who specializes in neuro-ethics, told MIT Technology Review. “We’re getting close to crossing the final frontier of privacy in the absence of any protections whatsoever.”

 
Its not really "reading a mind" though is it? Its more like assessing brain waves in the language centre of the brain and converting them to language. We have no great idea of what a 'thought' even is, nor how an allegedly conscious mind generates them- I find it very hard to believe that we have any technology that can coherently translate a persons raw thoughts into anything intelligible. Most people cannot even do that themselves ;)
 
Your completely correct, but even the potential fields scans are now creating 90 plus accuracy. How much of your or my thought are relevant.. As far as mine much less then 90%. What we need to think about is if they can read our thoughts with a scan of a magnetic field of micro energy, Then how far away are they from manipulating said micro field. Would this work in reverse to alter our consciousness?
 
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If anyone would do it, it would be FB. Probably you’ll feel compelled to take selfies and post frequently?
Been there before on fb. The reason I deactivated my account was it was affecting my relationship I was having in my non virtual life. I also felt possessed by it. Another reason I gave them was something about honey bees. I used to work with bee’s and all the WiFi signals mess with their direction of flight.
 
Ever think of something and it immediately shows up in your ads?

Yes, one time, recently, though it was Google. It freaked me out though. My friends and I were texting each other animal names along with drugs, it was a weird conversation but it started because my friend named his baby's stuffed fox "Foxy Methoxy" (the old-school nickname for 5-MeO-DiPT), so we were all trying to come up with others like that. At one point I was trying to think of "Nitrous the _____" but couldn't think of any animal names that started with N. But I didn't mention in texts or say out loud anything at all about my intention for that particular name. I went to google and typed in "animal" and then immediately the first suggestion was "animal names that start with n". I get that it could have figured out that I wanted animal names that start with a particular letter by parsing out our conversation (though IMO that would be quite sophisticated as we were speaking in text speak and it was a silly and random conversation), but how would it know to suggest the letter N?

I've also had plenty of times I was talking about something and it came up but that makes more sense, although it's still creepy as fuck because it pretty much proves that our devices are always spying on us, if you can be talking about something really random and unusual and have an ad instantly pop up about it.
 
Its not really "reading a mind" though is it? Its more like assessing brain waves in the language centre of the brain and converting them to language. We have no great idea of what a 'thought' even is, nor how an allegedly conscious mind generates them- I find it very hard to believe that we have any technology that can coherently translate a persons raw thoughts into anything intelligible. Most people cannot even do that themselves ;)

QFT
 
What we need to think about is if they can read our thoughts with a scan of a magnetic field of micro energy, Then how far away are they from manipulating said micro field. Would this work in reverse to alter our consciousness?

You're saying that we don't need to think about this but just accept it? No, sorry, that's unreasonable. How do you know the electrical activity in my brain that emerges when I think "shit I'm horny" isn't the same pattern that arises for you when you tie your shoes?

Show me a good, objective definition of a 'thought'. What happens when you have a thought? Is a thought the words of our inner monologue? Are they the deep impulses that make us imagine we have conscious free will?

People think all sorts of shit that is 100% wrong and sometimes even about themselves. People go to therapy for years to figure out why they behave in the way they do as if the process leading to that is a mystery even to the agent involved. Meditate for 10 minutes and you will see thoughts simply emerge in the mind, without volition. We are often unaware of the content of our own thoughts and have very little control over them. And yet, we are asked to believe that government bodies have solved all of this and are able to both translate individual thoughts, and in some cases, actually generate them. Yeah, no, we are a long way from this. The conscious mind that people think is being manipulated may not even be doing the thinking...

What is a magnetic field of micro energy anyway?
 
can you guys imagine if all this tech that we are afraid of, was used in a way that was beneficial to us?

i know sometimes it seems like the world is lost and we have no hope, but WHAT iF, everything we have now was put into secret societies run by benevolent kinda people. What kinda stuff do you think could happen!
 
It would be amazing, we could have a far different world. I hope we can get there at some point (consistently benevolent leadership, human cooperation instead of war, equitable distribution of resources).
 
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