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WEF speaker touts tech that allows your boss to monitor your brain activity
- peepeepoopoo3 4y agoWhat a relief that we have a democracy and not an oligarchy to prevent bad things like this from happening. Wouldn't that be terrible if we did?
- colpabar 4y agohey 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.
- sheerun 4y agoIndeed it would be terrible if there were available countless apps to monitor your remote workers' work
- TurkishPoptart 4y agoI started replying to this then realized you are completely sarcastic :D
- choward 4y agoI'm just thankful we have free speech on social media and that the government never interferes to censor people.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- walterbell 4y agoBrain ethicist from Duke Law, https://law.duke.edu/fac/farahany/ https://law.duke.edu/fac/farahany/ > [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
- mansoon 4y agoThis is regularly deprived for the mentally ill. Either humans have this right or don't.
- sterlind 4y agoonly the Sith deal in absolutes. schizophrenics often reject medication in the midst of psychosis, while agreeing it's necessary when they're lucid. lots of addicts genuinely want to kick the habit, but their willpower fails them. drugs like disulfiram and naltrexone can help by making highs unpleasant or unattainable. sex offenders who abuse minors are sometimes chemically castrated with GnRH agonists as part of their parole. this reduces their sex drive by depriving them of androgens, reducing the risk they'll reoffend. where to draw the line is complicated, but at least in the schizophrenic case I really think forced medication compliance helps everyone. if you're not lucid you aren't competent to make medical decisions.
- mansoon 4y agoI do not hold those views, but I respect your right to state that you have them, and be met with an understanding that that is the case, and that I don't have the right to change your mind by violence.
- mansoon 4y agoIs someone diagnosed with Schzophrenia allowed to disagree with you?
- mansoon 4y agoIt always comes down to absolutes, if you're sifting the question finely enough (warning, at some point this process will distort the grains, and you won't be processing reality anymore, but the result of your own mind, the cycle is fatal). Anyway. This moment is a _very_ direct test of this question. Answering it, or more carefully, your emotional reaction on reading this, will expose some of your absolutes.
- LarryMullins 4y agoWEF are either completely tone deaf, or they're playing the role of the heel. "You will own nothing and you will be happy."
- agnos 4y agoThis is what I don't understand. How is this and other public WEF content not guaranteed bad press/fuel for social unrest? Or is that the intent?
- walterbell 4y agoTrial/trolling balloons drive engagement and data analytics for group/individual sentiment analysis and message calibration.
- tptacek 4y agoThey're just a few tens of thousands of ops away from deploying the HypnoDrones.
- walterbell 4y agoSocial media is cheaper, faster and widely used, https://www.statista.com/statistics/539395/smartphone-penetration-worldwide-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/539395/smartphone-penetr...
- at_a_remove 4y agoI don't think they care. They can just shrug and say "Misinformation" and "You need to stop letting the alt-right scare you." And ten years later when you're squeezing the last of the bug-paste ("New Crunchy style!") out of your pre-third shift meal supplement packet and reading on the telescreen how the chocolate ration has been increased to five grams, well, you won't want to do anything rebellious in your safe little pod, lest your social credit scores sink enough that Amaflix and Marv-Ney deplatform your connection, and your options are twiddling your thumbs hoping another gig job makes itself available or you're reduced to leaving your head in the Satisfaction Tracker for one Hertz sampling of "engagement" as a nameless studio shows you pre-vis dumped out of MediaGPT-7 in between ads. Between your worries, your woes, and the relentless twenty smash cuts per second delivery of anything, your attention will be so atomized you won't be able to think back to how it all started.
- intrasight 4y agoGlad that I instead have KEF speakers ;) My take is that the human brain isn't magic. It's mysteries will be cracked. Mind reading machines will be built. Some good may come from that, but the risk of much bad does weigh on me.
- rqtwteye 4y agoIf 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.
- LinuxBender 4y agoHas anyone gone through the thought exercise of what criminals could do with such a thing if it existed?
- choward 4y agoHas anyone gone through the thought exercise of what governments could do with such a thing if it existed? Oh wait, that's what you said.
- user- 4y agoThe amount of bias on this news site is overwhelming, so im going to take this whole article with some skepticism.
- lucumo 4y agoGood call. From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeSiteNews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeSiteNews: > 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.
- CrazyPyroLinux 4y agoOoooh "misinformation" and "conspiracy theories"... also often (but not always!) known as "spoiler warnings" edit/addendum: The source of the original talk is the CEO of The Atlantic, so accusations of media bias of the middleman source may be casting stones in a glass house...
- lucumo 4y ago> Ooooh "misinformation" and "conspiracy theories"... also often (but not always!) known as "spoiler warnings" Yes, by people with an agenda of spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories. > The source of the original talk is the CEO of The Atlantic, Then why isn't an article from The Atlantic shared? And do we instead of the rely on the trustworthiness of some untrustworthy rag?
- CrazyPyroLinux 4y ago> Yes, by people with an agenda Kafka trap. > Then why isn't an article from The Atlantic shared? They apparently didn't report on it? https://www.theatlantic.com/search/?q=WEF https://www.theatlantic.com/search/?q=WEF
- mitthrowaway2 4y agoReminds me of the poem of "The Contract Drafting Em": https://secularsolstice.github.io/Contract_Drafting_Em/gen/ 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)
- LinuxBender 4y agoNon-JS version [1] [1] - https://archive.ph/0Mfr9 https://archive.ph/0Mfr9
- anonymouse008 4y agoI 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. Sad, sad, sad.
- KRAKRISMOTT 4y agoCurrent 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. https://youtube.com/@mikexcohen1/videos https://youtube.com/@mikexcohen1/videos
- anonymouse008 4y agoThe author of the “great text” of EEG - where we started, too. Yeah; I was surprised with our results, but if you follow his instruction, there’s a lot one can glean.
- andrei_says_ 4y agoFunny thing - in business (as I’m war) the ones with least compassion win. 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.
- jonathankoren 4y agoBesides 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.
- trekkie1024 4y agoAlso, the solution to that are external driver assistance systems, not brain scans.
- jonathankoren 4y agoThe actual talk https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2023/sessions/ready-for-brain-transparency https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-m...
- mitthrowaway2 4y agoCan we replace the link with this one?
- egberts1 4y agoI wear a 32-wire neural tap, courtesy of Johns Hopkins. 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 4y agoWhat is this and what does it do? > as long as you control the input Do you? Will you always? I'm assuming this is different from Neuralink?
- egberts1 4y agoi have 32 micro-magnetic transponders spaced micrometers apart. any attempt to get between it would only result in audible noise.
- akomtu 4y agoSmall correction: "your boss" means AI.
- 6177c40f 4y agoThe 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.
- goethes_kind 4y agoI agree with you, but I want to point out, everyone who has access to your search history can "read your mind".
- dial9-1 4y agoonly the parts you choose to
- walterbell 4y agoHeisenberg would like a word.
- lucumo 4y agoThe speaker agrees with you: https://twitter.com/NitaFarahany/status/1616461568509710337 https://twitter.com/NitaFarahany/status/1616461568509710337 > 1) I advocate a right to #cognitiveliberty over our brains and mental experiences
- unsupp0rted 4y ago> 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.
- cypherpunks01 4y agoPerhaps 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
- trekkie1024 4y ago1. GPS tracking 2. What you said above, already possible [1] 3. An electronic distance limiter on the truck itself [1] https://www.cadillac.com/ownership/vehicle-technology/super-cruise https://www.cadillac.com/ownership/vehicle-technology/super-...
- unsupp0rted 4y agoOff the top of my head, I was thinking a simplistic CAPTCHA-like device. * "Here's 2 shapes. Press the triangle." * "Here's 2 numbers. Press the bigger one." It would have to be something a trucker can easily solve at a glance, barely taking their eyes off the road. And they get a couple tries, a couple warnings, and then a loud siren and the event gets logged with their employer. 3 strikes system or something. There's a dozen ways this could fail, but it's a fun thought experiment: "how do you determine a trucker is awake and functioning, without distracting them too much, annoying them too much, getting too many false positives, or putting electrodes on their brain?"
- blep_ 4y agoI remember, many years ago, using an alarm clock on my phone that used questions like that. It was a clever solution to the problem I was having at the time, which was that I kept oversleeping because I got really good at shutting off the alarm before waking up enough to remember what alarm clocks were for.
- sschueller 4y agoUse 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]. [1] https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/de/home/datenschutz/arbeitsbereich/ueberwachung-am-arbeitsplatz/ueberwachung-am-arbeitsplatz.html https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/de/home/datenschutz/arbeits...
- seydor 4y agoThe dismissive attitude v WEF this year is interesting. The generic globalist-capitalist vision does not sell as much as in the past, it seems (for good reasons). Good signs, maybe there will be a generational shift from the gerontocracy that controlled the global agenda
- Quarrelsome 4y ago> 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.
- thatguy0900 4y agoif 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.
- Quarrelsome 4y agoImagine you're a 12 year old in 2065 forced to wear a shocking device that forces you to "pay attention" in class but for whatever reason it incorrectly identifies you as never paying attention. You could argue that it is poorly made but perhaps the model was trained in a rush because it was a cheap, knock-off produced en-masse for school-scale. Even if its well-made; imagine you're some 1 in a 1,000,000 non-typical. Who is the school going to believe, some irksome child or the system that works perfectly fine for 99.99% of other students? "Obviously" in such a case, the child is lying and just needs to learn to pay attention.
- EEBio 4y agoHopefully this will never be the case. On the other hand it can be used to detect micro sleep in drivers and there it can save lives. So yeah, as with any tech you can use it for good or bad and you should not use it for everything
- upstarter 4y agoThe boss of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, publicly said "In 2030, you will own nothing and you will be happy." Let that sink in. That's how psychopathic those people are.
- tptacek 4y agoThis 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.
- layer8 4y agoI’m counting on my brain fog to thwart this.
- klooney 4y agoThis reminds me of this science fiction story- https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo which I keep coming back to like a loose tooth.
- Kiboneu 4y agoIt 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. 0: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity12/technical-sessions/presentation/martinovic https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity12/technical... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P300_(neuroscience) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P300_(neuroscience)
- zhrvoj 4y agoPERFECT. MAGNIFIQUE. IF BOSS WILL BE FORCED TO CARRY ONE HEAD BAND SUCH AS OURS TOO. And his EEG analysis be presented to us also.