[digdigdag]

Why not? There are perfectly legitimate uses for this kind of technology. This would be a godsend for those suffering from paralysis and nervous system disorders, allowing them to communicate with their loved ones.

Yes, the CIA, DARPA, et. al. will be all over this (surprisingly if not already), but this is a sacrifice worth making for this kind of technology.

[ctoth]

How many people in the whole world are paralyzed or locked in? Ten thousand? Less?

How many people in the whole world are tinpot authoritarian despots just looking for an excuse who would just love to be able to look inside your mind?

Somehow, I imagine the first number is dramatically dwarfed by the second number.

This is a technology that, once it is invented, will find more and more and more and more uses.

We need to make sure you don't spill corporate secrets, so we will be mandating that all workers wear this while in the office.

Oh no, we've just had a leak, we're gonna have to ask that if you want to work here you must wear this brain buddy home! For the good of the company.

And so on.

I'm blind, but if you offered to cure my blindness with the side effect that nobody could ever hide under the cover of darkness ( I donno, electronic eyes of some kind? Go with the metaphor!) I would still not take it.

[ctoth]

The other thing you people are missing is how technology compounds. You don't need to have people come in to the police station to have their thoughts reviewed when everyone is assigned an LLM at birth to watch over their thoughts in loving grace and maybe play a sound when they have the wrong one.

[zamadatix]

All this choice guarantees is new technology will always be used for bad things first. It holds no sway on whether someone will do something bad with technology, after all it's not just "good people" capable of advancing it. See the atomic bomb vs the atomic power plant.

What's important is how we prepare for and handle inevitable change. Hoping no negative change comes about if we just stay the same is a far worse game.