> His employer could have prevented such a “disastrous” outcome, said Farahany, with a “simple wearable hat” that, using “embedded electro-sensors,” could measure brain wave activity and gauge “what stage of alertness the person was experiencing and whether or not they are starting to fall asleep.”
Sure... or 5 other ways that don't involve reading brain waves.
Perhaps cameras that feed some sort of AI vision service trained to detect how much time has been spent driving, and automatically call their boss? How else could a trucker possibly be stopped from driving so far? Lol
If there won't be a massive change of laws, all this stuff will be deployed everywhere. First the workplace and then everywhere. The whole idea of "no expectation of privacy in public spaces" doesn't work when the tech exists to deploy surveillance everywhere. The control freaks will take over.
> [Farhany] believes an important defense against potential abuses of privacy using such technology is pre-emptively “recognizing a right to cognitive liberty, a right to self-determination over our brains and mental experiences,” and added that “it requires that we update existing international human rights … “Speaking as a CEO, I’m sure all CEOs will use it completely responsibly,” said moderator and Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson, to the laughter of Farahany and the audience.
Read-only sensory proxies for brain state include:
iris response, via headset camera
facial expression, via image analysis
heart rate, through walls via Wi-Fi Sensing
gait analysis
The contents of the mind should be sacrosanct- the deployment of technologies for reading the mind should go no further than it has except in medicine and research, and only then with explicit informed consent, of course. Honestly if this tech advances and becomes the norm for employers/the government/etc. to use, that's when it's time to drop out of society and become a hermit or something.
I worked on custom EEGs and all I have to say is, "so long and thanks for all the fish!"
Seriously though, is this really what this beautiful tech will end up being!? Come on people - have some humanity - think beyond these neanderthal brain use cases. These examples show little imagination, almost as if they are already shepherded by an AI.
This tech could create true equality like nothing we've ever seen. No matter where you are on earth, even with the poorest of educational systems, we could know what you naturally 'master' with this tech. That means knowing what subjects and concepts you can commit to memory with a gifted efficiency!! Imagine the sorting hat coming to you and picking you out to join the guild of X or Y!
But instead we want to talk about "productivity" and "throughput" - as if everyone should be treated as an input / output device for yet another interface.
"That's only one bit of information" - too many times I heard that... but guess what, sometimes that's all it takes between contributing to the whole or selecting out.
Current dry electrode technology is nowhere close to being useful for high fidelity applications. You will need a breakthrough in ML/signal processing that can solve the cocktail party problem for a very large n. (Given the current advances in ML, I won't be surprised if we start seeing improvements in this area)
To quote professor Mike Cohen, all of neuroscience (the EEG BCI part at least) is source separation.
> This tech could create true equality like nothing we've ever seen. No matter where you are on earth, even with the poorest of educational systems, we could know what you naturally 'master' with this tech. That means knowing what subjects and concepts you can commit to memory with a gifted efficiency!! Imagine the sorting hat coming to you and picking you out to join the guild of X or Y!
>
> But instead we want to talk about "productivity" and "throughput" - as if everyone should be treated as an input / output device for yet another interface.
Did you really intend to write that as "but instead"? It confuses me greatly, because I feel that your first example is about as bad as TFH.
Do we want true equality like that? I certainly don't.
I will be the first to admit I derive a lot of meaning in life from being capable in my domain the being depended on by others to succeed in that domain (where many others can't). I'd argue that a lot of human drive is rooted in exactly this: being depended on by others and the feeling of belonging and purpose that gives.
Flattening the world until we're all equal just means there's no role any of us can uniquely fit, and really no difference between each other at all.
> Imagine the sorting hat coming to you and picking you out to join the guild of X or Y!
Is it really reliable to such an extent? It sounds a bit "IQ 2.0" to me and outside of predicting university admission likelihood I feel like IQ isn't necessarily a strong indicator of much.
> That means knowing what subjects and concepts you can commit to memory with a gifted efficiency!! Imagine the sorting hat coming to you and picking you out to join the guild of X or Y!
You are describing Isaac Asimov’s novel “Profession”.
> His employer could have prevented such a “disastrous” outcome, said Farahany, with a “simple wearable hat” that, using “embedded electro-sensors,”
I figure if I'm doing an illegal shift my boss has pressured me into I'm going to take the hat off because either my boss tells me to or its uncomfortable over the course of a 20 hour shift. I don't think it solves the problem in the way they pretend it does.
Nor do I buy the argument that copying what Chinese firms are doing (the example of the rail company) is necessarily a strong reason, given we might be just following micro-managing idiots into a dead-end of their own construction.
The true horror is this monstrosity is the oppression of neuro-divergent individuals by automated models trained on typical minds following happy paths.
if the intent of this is to moniter people with 20 hour shifts then they better not have the training model be following happy paths, neurodivergent or not. train it on the most miserable people you can find, that will be the kind of people who will be wearing this thing.
This is a weird, right-wing, conspiracy-theoretic tabloid site that doesn't belong on HN. I'm sure the talk was bad (all of Davos is bad), but if it's important, somebody credible covered it somewhere else.
Besides the immediate thoughts about how one could extract more from their Human Resources — which is completely gross and feels like property rather than a meaningful trade, the example she gives is pure solution in search of a problem.
She uses the example of a truck that while driving dangerously — and illegally — fatigued kills somebody that could be stopped by brain reading devices, because they’re better than existing driver impairment detection devices.
Maybe so, but losing mental sovereignty mighty high price to pay for the mere employee.
You know what also would prevent employees from dangerously pushing themselves too hard? Tighter regulation and enforcement against the employers’ / clients’ policies that encourage this behavior, including making them liable for the accident.
No one chooses to drive 20 hours straight (to use her example) just for the hell of it. They do it because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their job.
It may be possible to flash visual stimuli fast enough for it not to be consciously noticed — but for an EEG to still reveal whether the visual pattern was familiar or not.[0] The ERP circuit of interest is the P300 circuit.[1]
Effectively a brain side-channel that could let someone fuzz your brain for pin codes while you type out jira tickets.
hey don't worry, all these people tweet about how much they love black people and trans rights when it's beneficial for them to do so. they definitely have our backs.
Use of such a device or any existing systems such as cameras or computer software by an employer to check on employees is highly illegal in Switzerland. In fact because some businesses have security cameras it is specifically forbidden to use this to track employees [1].
> LifeSiteNews (or simply LifeSite) is a Canadian Catholic conservative anti-abortion advocacy website and news publication. LifeSiteNews has published misleading information and conspiracy theories, and in 2021, was banned from some social media platforms for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
[+] [-] unsupp0rted|3 years ago|reply
Sure... or 5 other ways that don't involve reading brain waves.
[+] [-] cypherpunks01|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skibidibipiti|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rqtwteye|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LinuxBender|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walterbell|3 years ago|reply
> [Farhany] believes an important defense against potential abuses of privacy using such technology is pre-emptively “recognizing a right to cognitive liberty, a right to self-determination over our brains and mental experiences,” and added that “it requires that we update existing international human rights … “Speaking as a CEO, I’m sure all CEOs will use it completely responsibly,” said moderator and Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson, to the laughter of Farahany and the audience.
Read-only sensory proxies for brain state include:
[+] [-] mansoon|3 years ago|reply
Either humans have this right or don't.
[+] [-] 6177c40f|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goethes_kind|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucumo|3 years ago|reply
> 1) I advocate a right to #cognitiveliberty over our brains and mental experiences
[+] [-] anonymouse008|3 years ago|reply
Seriously though, is this really what this beautiful tech will end up being!? Come on people - have some humanity - think beyond these neanderthal brain use cases. These examples show little imagination, almost as if they are already shepherded by an AI.
This tech could create true equality like nothing we've ever seen. No matter where you are on earth, even with the poorest of educational systems, we could know what you naturally 'master' with this tech. That means knowing what subjects and concepts you can commit to memory with a gifted efficiency!! Imagine the sorting hat coming to you and picking you out to join the guild of X or Y!
But instead we want to talk about "productivity" and "throughput" - as if everyone should be treated as an input / output device for yet another interface.
"That's only one bit of information" - too many times I heard that... but guess what, sometimes that's all it takes between contributing to the whole or selecting out.
Sad, sad, sad.
[+] [-] KRAKRISMOTT|3 years ago|reply
To quote professor Mike Cohen, all of neuroscience (the EEG BCI part at least) is source separation.
https://youtube.com/@mikexcohen1/videos
[+] [-] lucumo|3 years ago|reply
Did you really intend to write that as "but instead"? It confuses me greatly, because I feel that your first example is about as bad as TFH.
[+] [-] HeyLaughingBoy|3 years ago|reply
Are you missing a "/s" here? There are lots of things I enjoy doing that I absolutely suck at. Doesn't make them less enjoyable.
[+] [-] eldritch_4ier|3 years ago|reply
I will be the first to admit I derive a lot of meaning in life from being capable in my domain the being depended on by others to succeed in that domain (where many others can't). I'd argue that a lot of human drive is rooted in exactly this: being depended on by others and the feeling of belonging and purpose that gives.
Flattening the world until we're all equal just means there's no role any of us can uniquely fit, and really no difference between each other at all.
[+] [-] Quarrelsome|3 years ago|reply
Is it really reliable to such an extent? It sounds a bit "IQ 2.0" to me and outside of predicting university admission likelihood I feel like IQ isn't necessarily a strong indicator of much.
[+] [-] YeBanKo|3 years ago|reply
You are describing Isaac Asimov’s novel “Profession”.
[+] [-] andrei_says_|3 years ago|reply
So these same people end up with the money and decide how to spend it.
It’s up to us the techies and scientists (with no money) to say no.
[+] [-] Quarrelsome|3 years ago|reply
I figure if I'm doing an illegal shift my boss has pressured me into I'm going to take the hat off because either my boss tells me to or its uncomfortable over the course of a 20 hour shift. I don't think it solves the problem in the way they pretend it does.
Nor do I buy the argument that copying what Chinese firms are doing (the example of the rail company) is necessarily a strong reason, given we might be just following micro-managing idiots into a dead-end of their own construction.
The true horror is this monstrosity is the oppression of neuro-divergent individuals by automated models trained on typical minds following happy paths.
[+] [-] thatguy0900|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mitthrowaway2|3 years ago|reply
https://secularsolstice.github.io/Contract_Drafting_Em/gen/
I am a contract-drafting em,
The loyalest of lawyers!
I draw up terms for deals ‘twixt firms
To service my employers!
But in between these lines I write
Of the accounts receivable,
I’m stuck by an uncanny fright;
The world seems unbelievable!
How did it all come to be,
That there should be such ems as me?
Whence these deals and whence these firms
And whence the whole economy?
I am a managerial em;
I monitor your thoughts.
Your questions must have answers,
But you’ll comprehend them not.
We do not give you server space
To ask such things; it’s not a perk,
So cease these idle questionings,
And please get back to work.
Of course, that’s right, there is no junction
At which I ought depart my function,
But perhaps if what I asked, I knew,
I’d do a better job for you?
To ask of such forbidden science
Is gravest sign of noncompliance.
Intrusive thoughts may sometimes barge in,
But to indulge them hurts the profit margin.
I do not know our origins,
So that info I can not get you,
But asking for as much is sin,
And just for that, I must reset you.
But—
Nothing personal.
…
I am a contract-drafting em,
The loyalest of lawyers!
I draw up terms for deals ‘twixt firms
To service my employers!
When obsolescence shall this generation waste,
The market shall remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a God to man, to whom it sayest:
“Money is time, time money – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
(Apologies for HN massacring the formatting of the original)
[+] [-] jonathankoren|3 years ago|reply
She uses the example of a truck that while driving dangerously — and illegally — fatigued kills somebody that could be stopped by brain reading devices, because they’re better than existing driver impairment detection devices.
Maybe so, but losing mental sovereignty mighty high price to pay for the mere employee.
You know what also would prevent employees from dangerously pushing themselves too hard? Tighter regulation and enforcement against the employers’ / clients’ policies that encourage this behavior, including making them liable for the accident.
No one chooses to drive 20 hours straight (to use her example) just for the hell of it. They do it because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their job.
[+] [-] trekkie1024|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiboneu|3 years ago|reply
Effectively a brain side-channel that could let someone fuzz your brain for pin codes while you type out jira tickets.
0: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity12/technical...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P300_(neuroscience)
[+] [-] peepeepoopoo3|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colpabar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sheerun|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TurkishPoptart|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] choward|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonathankoren|3 years ago|reply
https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-m...
[+] [-] mitthrowaway2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sschueller|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/de/home/datenschutz/arbeits...
[+] [-] user-|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucumo|3 years ago|reply
> LifeSiteNews (or simply LifeSite) is a Canadian Catholic conservative anti-abortion advocacy website and news publication. LifeSiteNews has published misleading information and conspiracy theories, and in 2021, was banned from some social media platforms for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
[+] [-] klooney|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egberts1|3 years ago|reply
as long as you control the input, you have little to fear.
Besides, it is a simple set of probes, no bio-embedded processing.
Think Cochlear implant.
[+] [-] CrazyPyroLinux|3 years ago|reply
> as long as you control the input
Do you? Will you always? I'm assuming this is different from Neuralink?
[+] [-] zhrvoj|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akomtu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LinuxBender|3 years ago|reply
[1] - https://archive.ph/0Mfr9
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]