AI technology to decode brainwaves, Meditation and psychic counters

[Ataxtia]

I swear, I know this sounds like a schizo post, but hear me out. I run windows on my work computer and was procrastinating looking at my Microsoft news feed (which I know is just straight propaganda), but a Popular Mechanics article caught my eye. It was about how a World Economic Forum presentation was being conducted on decoding brainwaves with AI using an armband as a transmitter. It allowed it to figure out how you were feeling and if you were focused or not. I've linked the article here, which links to the WEF presentation, if you want to dig a bit deeper.

I find it hilarious that like 2 years ago you would be called crazy for thinking the government can read your mind with microchips, but here we are and it's (at least according to the article) a piece of technology that is past the theory stage. It can even predict what numbers you're thinking of, like if you were typing in your pin number to an ATM. The article also mentions things like tattoos behind the ear, earpieces, and hats being possible ways to transmit your brainwaves.

I wonder if at some point within the next decade, if technology like this will be required to enter the job market or go to school, kind of like how the COVID vaccine was so heavily pushed socially in 2020 and 2021. If that were the case, I wonder if there are ways you could circumvent your own thoughts betraying you. Like mediation, mnemonic tricks, or disassociation to, at the risk of sounding cliché, "empty your mind". Tinfoil hats perhaps?

Maybe we are living in a time where we can finally commit thought crimes, psychic terrorism, and be a mental nuisance to corporations and governments by only thinking of memetic viruses or something. Just constantly recite the VIRUS 23 script over and over again in your head to annoy your thought handler. What do you all think?

 

[Taleisin]

Cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked

I use EEG technology daily so I'm qualified to speak on this. The technology you see in that video is very overblown, and in actuality would be extremely limited. any kind of cheap wearable EEG device has very low resolution and minimal information can be deduced from whatever it does pick up. EEG caps for studies use minimum 32 electrodes evenly spaced over the skull, whereas this will use a much smaller number with suboptimal spacing.

To see what someone is thinking using EEG, you need top of the line equipment (64+ lead minimum) and you first need to establish a very large dataset of responses to different stimuli so that you can compare someone's signals to that database. That data will only apply to that one person, so it would be extremely difficult to implement this in any setting other than the lab. You could get minimal stuff like seeing how "focused" someone is quite easily though, although the validity of that is questionable.

Honestly, the scary thing is less about being able to see people's state of mind, and more about establishing correlations to different stimuli. Adding the (even low-quality) EEG data to things like advertising profiles would allow generative AI to produce much more carefully targeted content to elicit specific responses from people. Its just one more data stream for manipulating people, but a powerful addition to the toolkit.

(will respond to your question about countering later)

 

[Ataxtia]

Cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked

I use EEG technology daily so I'm qualified to speak on this. The technology you see in that video is very overblown, and in actuality would be extremely limited. any kind of cheap wearable EEG device has very low resolution and minimal information can be deduced from whatever it does pick up. EEG caps for studies use minimum 32 electrodes evenly spaced over the skull, whereas this will use a much smaller number with suboptimal spacing.

To see what someone is thinking using EEG, you need top of the line equipment (64+ lead minimum) and you first need to establish a very large dataset of responses to different stimuli so that you can compare someone's signals to that database. That data will only apply to that one person, so it would be extremely difficult to implement this in any setting other than the lab. You could get minimal stuff like seeing how "focused" someone is quite easily though, although the validity of that is questionable.

Honestly, the scary thing is less about being able to see people's state of mind, and more about establishing correlations to different stimuli. Adding the (even low-quality) EEG data to things like advertising profiles would allow generative AI to produce much more carefully targeted content to elicit specific responses from people. Its just one more data stream for manipulating people, but a powerful addition to the toolkit.

(will respond to your question about countering later)

I'll trust you on the fact that it is probably overblown because it was basically third hand data from Popular mechanics about a WEF presentation. In reality it would likely take some serious bribery/lobbying to get this to be socially required in any meaningful way (At least in America I don't know about other countries).

Although the possibility exists of technology like this advancing seems very likely to me. When you mention correlations between stimuli to create advertising profiles, I could imagine this as a marketing tool being one way for them to sell their research. Currently it seems to be relegated to researchers in some lab, but if they were able to get accurate, repeatable, and meaningful results, then we might see some wonderful and kind philanthropists investing in this idea. Your also probably right in the fact that they still are using EEG caps, and would need to find less invasive ways to get data from a target.