Do You Really Want to Live in a World Where Computers Read Your Mind?

Not that we really have a say in the matter either way, but nothing about the question conjures up warm, gushy feelings. The government, via its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is spending $60 million on a direct brain-computer interface via neural implant that would allow computers to decode the human brain.

The interface would serve as a translator, converting between the electrochemical language used by neurons in the brain and the ones and zeros that constitute the language of information technology. The goal is to achieve this communications link in a biocompatible device no larger than one cubic centimeter in size…

Sounds like a super fun addition to the coming smart grid.

And when they finally decide to announce these technologies to the public, the military, government, and media always like to propagandize them with the idea that it will be used for only for good, as in to help deaf and blind people, but come on. Since when is DARPA the benevolent giver of $60 million in technology just to help people with physical disabilities?

What if technology like this progressed to the point where your thoughts could be read whether you liked it or not?

The idea isn’t science fiction. It isn’t even far-fetched. A panel at the elite Davos forum recently met to discuss the issue of neuro technologies being used decode our brains whether we like it or not. UC Berkeley professor Dr. Jack Gallant said, “Personally, I think it’s just a matter of time before there will be a portable brain decoding technology that decodes language just as fast as you can type with your thumbs on a cell phone and everyone will wear them because people have shown that they’re quite willing to give up privacy for convenience, and then I think that brings up a lot of really interesting and scary ethical and privacy issues.”

Gee… you think?

Meanwhile Microsoft is in the process of acquiring language prediction technology maker Swiftkey, home of the first neural network for smart phones, for over $200 million.” Just what the world needs, clairvoyant smart phones,” Fortune reported. Facebook is already asking people how their day is going when they log in…

Not sure if you can visualize where all this tech is headed (no pun intended), but Google chairman Eric Schmidt said that soon the Internet will be “part of your presence all the time” as we get swept up into the ever-connected, omnipresent Internet of Things that the NSA keeps drooling over. Just imagine if brain decoding tech is made a standard part of that grid.

No wonder Bilderberg asked if privacy still exists.

The question was rhetorical. And everyone is stumbling around with their faces in their smart phones, seemingly unaware of the rabbit hole their about to fall into.

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