4 ms·

Is there a case for non-dystopian applications for such a project, should it succeed? I get that we're all driven by curiosity, and the brain is very mysteriou

Is there a case for non-dystopian applications for such a project, should it succeed? I get that we're all driven by curiosity, and the brain is very mysterious, but at some point I really wonder when scientists will start to taboo projects like this for ethical reasons, just like they currently taboo human cloning.

td2 7mo ago
I dont know anything about neurosience But if dreaming is related enouth to visual perception, maybe a dream recorder might be somewhat possible
- td2 7mo ago
  Edit, reading the github description, which i should have done sooner, hints at dreams.
  - bensyverson 7mo ago
    Every researcher working on this should be required to watch Until the End of the World.
katsee 7mo ago
Reconstruction of inner experience - imagery, maybe dreams & hallucinations, perceptual phenomena. Here is a recent study reconstructing the inner perception of optical illusions: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.adj3906 https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.adj3906 Methods like MVPA (decoding among finite sets of cognitive state classes) are actually widely used for insight in cognitive neuroscience. Ethical concerns are discussed within the field; most papers had explicit ethics sections and discussions long before AI conferences required them for all submissions. In practice these experiments require a participant lying motionless (≈1-2 mm range) in an MRI scanner with controlled gaze and attention for many hours, and even then zero-shot reconstruction is not really possible; the SNR requires many repetitions.
MarcelOlsz 7mo ago
Not since Americans imported the Nazis - Von Braun et al.
aspenmartin 7mo ago
Dystopian applications are extremely impractical or impossible, this is a tool for neuroscience
- pixl97 7mo ago
  "This will never be used by bad guys" says the person immediately before their tools are used by bad guys.
  - aspenmartin 7mo ago
    No, it's "this tool cannot be used by bad guys or good guys, but can be used by highly funded labs that do neuroscience". It's something that freaks people out until they gradually learn what is actually involved https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-image-decoding-meg-magnetoencephalography/ https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-image-decoding-meg-magneto... [2023] https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-research-human-communication/ https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-research-human-communicati... [last year, focuses on decoding text] ^ There's a research team at Meta that studies this. You need an MEG -- thats $2-5M + the shielded room it lives in and the experts that can operate it. EEG doesn't work due to low spatial resolution and how finicky it is to place the electrodes to get a good signal The signals from neurons are just unbelievably tiny and are in an absolute sea of noisy trash. No one is ever going to read your thoughts without your consent (or by wrestling you into a big MEG, in which case you have bigger things to worry about). No one is going to be reading your dreams with any sort of accuracy either.
    - mandolingual 7mo ago
      And computers used to fill a room and require stacks of punch cards to use.
      - aspenmartin 7mo ago
        in both cases: physics decides what's possible

td2 7mo ago

I dont know anything about neurosience But if dreaming is related enouth to visual perception, maybe a dream recorder might be somewhat possible

td2 7mo ago
Edit, reading the github description, which i should have done sooner, hints at dreams.
- bensyverson 7mo ago
  Every researcher working on this should be required to watch Until the End of the World.

katsee 7mo ago

Reconstruction of inner experience - imagery, maybe dreams & hallucinations, perceptual phenomena. Here is a recent study reconstructing the inner perception of optical illusions: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.adj3906 https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.adj3906 Methods like MVPA (decoding among finite sets of cognitive state classes) are actually widely used for insight in cognitive neuroscience. Ethical concerns are discussed within the field; most papers had explicit ethics sections and discussions long before AI conferences required them for all submissions. In practice these experiments require a participant lying motionless (≈1-2 mm range) in an MRI scanner with controlled gaze and attention for many hours, and even then zero-shot reconstruction is not really possible; the SNR requires many repetitions.

MarcelOlsz 7mo ago

Not since Americans imported the Nazis - Von Braun et al.

aspenmartin 7mo ago

Dystopian applications are extremely impractical or impossible, this is a tool for neuroscience

pixl97 7mo ago
"This will never be used by bad guys" says the person immediately before their tools are used by bad guys.
- aspenmartin 7mo ago
  No, it's "this tool cannot be used by bad guys or good guys, but can be used by highly funded labs that do neuroscience". It's something that freaks people out until they gradually learn what is actually involved https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-image-decoding-meg-magnetoencephalography/ https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-image-decoding-meg-magneto... [2023] https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-research-human-communication/ https://ai.meta.com/blog/brain-ai-research-human-communicati... [last year, focuses on decoding text] ^ There's a research team at Meta that studies this. You need an MEG -- thats $2-5M + the shielded room it lives in and the experts that can operate it. EEG doesn't work due to low spatial resolution and how finicky it is to place the electrodes to get a good signal The signals from neurons are just unbelievably tiny and are in an absolute sea of noisy trash. No one is ever going to read your thoughts without your consent (or by wrestling you into a big MEG, in which case you have bigger things to worry about). No one is going to be reading your dreams with any sort of accuracy either.
  - mandolingual 7mo ago
    And computers used to fill a room and require stacks of punch cards to use.
    - aspenmartin 7mo ago
      in both cases: physics decides what's possible