THE STATUS OF NEURO-SCIENCE (FICTION), THREATS AND REALISM

 Things are getting really interesting and really complex very quickly, once you start to think about the possibilities that neuro-sciences can achieve and what their visions for the future are. And soon enough you start to scratch at the core of human existence, of what makes a human and you raise even more complex issues about morality and human life. Lately there were two very interesting and far-reaching experiments published. One of them was to find ways to help dramatically impaired people to a better life by making computers understand what they are thinking. In this experiment the scientists were able to write a computer software that by scanning the brain via ETM could translate orders of the brain given to the computer. Well, that is the future target. The only thing tested at the moment is moving the cursor up into a blue field at the right upper corner of the monitor, but hey, it is a start. The other experiment had an even larger target, to read people’s minds. What the scientists were able to do was write a software that could estimate with a probability of seventy percent wether a person being ETM-scanned would add or substract two figures. Apparently before the person itself had consciously decided.

Although both experiments are far from any use in real life and the software has to be trimmed to the brain of each person individually in a rather long process, the media, especially in the USA and especially with the second experiment, had a field day writing about the possibilities in the future, such as writing letters on a computer by thinking or how to find people in an airport planning to hijack a plane before boarding. Especially the movie “Minority Report” seemed to have had a big impact on journalists, because they raised a lot of questions along the basic plotline of this hollywood-blockbuster. But in a lot of ways this discussion is good because it raises issues into the public’s mind that are actually really important, even if their realisation is still a long way off, such as how much is the state allowed to interfere with the civil right’s of its citizens?

On the other hand a lot of these ideas, even of those the scientists raised, are nothing but ridiculous. Focusing on the complexity of the human mind they seem to forget about the complexity of real life. For instance writing a letter on a computer by using your thoughts: As I am writing this I am constantly thinking for the right words, the right metaphors and the right ideas. I am sorting my thoughts – which is why educators throughout history favored their pupils to write down their thoughts, because thinking is just a lump of disconnected ideas that jump from one point to the next in milliseconds and their connection must not be logical or traceable by other humans. The slowing down by writing, especially handwriting, makes the thinking much more concentrated and rational. How would the computer software be able to differ between the words I am thinking and the words I want to have written down in the letter? Writing to a service provider I am not satisfied with the letter might read like this: “Dear Madame and Sirs, I am writing to you on behalf of my fucking internet cable which isn’t working half of the time nah I can’t write that have to be polite even if I want to kick them to the moon for being lazy half-asses so on behalf of my internet access which ...” you get the idea.

After all, no matter how many rules and by-rules you put into a machine logic, it will never be able to get outside these rules and have a creative thought, even with fuzzy logic. It will probably look like artificial intelligence but we had that already in the Sixties when Weizenbaum constructed his Eliza. When confronted with new ideas and new things people seem to be forgetting the most basic real life fundaments and the second scientific vision mentioned above does just that: reading the mind and preventing crimes by detecting people thinking about them. For one there is the fact that you can’t be sentenced for instance for shouting: “I’m gonna kill him”, because that alone doesn’t mean you’ll do it. You’ll probably have a fatal accident on the way to the place of your crime or you’ll think otherwise and change your plan. After all shouting that means nothing but that you are angry at the person. That is a motif, but no proof. Of course there are paragraphs about conspiring to commit a crime but that also needs further proof like written plans, telephone recordings or something likewise concrete.

There is another nice argument, which is more philosophical, will lead us to the central point of the issue and goes like this: if you are planning to do something and the computer reads this, how can the computer be sure that it is really going happen in the future? Is the future fixed? So, if I can be arrested for thinking “I’m gonna kill this mothafucka!” then what if I am thinking: “I’m gonna write a song that will be number one in the US Charts”? Will I get my million dollars right away? Can I get a honorary medal for thinking “I will save this guy’s life” in an emergency even if he dies later on? Planning an act and acting are two very different things. Even if there is the argument that preventing a possible crime is better than letting a crime happen, how are you going to decide the probability of the crime really happening? Who is going decide?

My opinion on these matters is completely undecided. I am seeing the big threats for society, especially in a nation like the US were homeland security started to rule over all other powers of the whole country. But also in Austria the issue of the secret service eavesdropping on people without proper control has not been solved. Reading people’s minds is part of their private sphere. And if you are entitled to a free opinion where should you have it but not inside your mind? On the other hand the benefits to society could also be good, especially when raising the issue of impaired people, who are for instance unable to communicate but have all their senses and mind intact. The most important thing now is to keep the discussion alive and keep a close watch on the progress of science in these fields.

By Georg Cracked, Feb 2007