Creeping Towards Mordor
Salvo Magazine | August 22, 2023 | Daniel Witt
If you were worried about some benevolent world government lacking full access to our inmost thoughts, I have good news! In a new study, experimenters claim to have made a leap in mind-reading technology.
The study “Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings” demonstrates some ability to translate a human subject’s thoughts into words and sentences using fMRI (functional MRI) scans decoded by the GPT-1 language model and other software.
The technique was clever. Experiment subjects listened to hours of podcasts while undergoing brain scans. The AI model had access to both the brain scan data and the podcast data, and it was directed to find the correlations between the words said in the podcast and the activities of the recipient brain.
After hours of training, the AI model was then cut off from the podcast data and forced to infer sentences based on the brain data alone while the subjects listened to new podcast stories.
It worked. The AI was able to construct fairly accurate sentences based on the brain scans. For example, the podcast input:
i didn’t know whether to scream cry or run away instead i said leave me alone i don’t need your help
resulted in brain activity that was decoded as:
started to scream and cry and then she just said i told you to leave me alone you can’t hurt me anymore i’m sorry.
Next, they tested the ability of the AI to interpret imagined speech, absent any external stimulus. Again, it was successful, albeit with less accuracy than when it was analyzing perceived speech from podcasts.
Finally, they tested the ability of the AI to decode non-language-based thoughts by having the subject watch silent videos. Sure enough, the program was able to describe some of the events of the videos based only on the brain activity of the viewer.
I’m not saying my thoughts right now are on Phoebe Cates and Space Aliens..but my thoughts right now are on Phoebe Cates and Space Aliens..weird.
If They Could Read Your Mind, Now, What a Tale Could Your Thoughts Tell?
He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.
If They Could Read Your Mind, Now, What a Tale Could Your Thoughts Tell?
Expect more targeted advertising.
“Can you read me now???”
If They Could Read Your Mind, Now, What a Tale Could Your Thoughts Tell?
Wait until the readings compare Brandon to Tom Cullen.
“What happens if I click on this link???”
It just popped in there. Woohoo! The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man just destroyed New York City! Now according to Howard Dean, Texas Governor Abbott is “sending The Destructor on to Detroit, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Maricopa County, New Orleans, Austin, yaaaaaaaaaa!”
Joe Biden: “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
Hillary Clinton: Endless loop of the song “Suicide is Painless”
Jill Biden: “Al Bundy’s sofa would make a really nice outfit.”
https://youtube.com/shorts/cL02_RvqJ8E
Oh, now that I watched it [Spoiler Alert: South Park] Cartman’s right — it is just the same old crap I always imagine.
“When will CW2 finally kick off?”
On a side, reading the input sentence compared to the output sentence makes me wonder, is it off because of the machine making errors, or is it off because it flawlessly translated what the listener “heard”. I mean we’ve all been there, that conversation with someone where you’re just cod-swallupped about how they got THAT out of what you just said.
If They Could Read Your Mind, Now, What a Tale Could Your Thoughts Tell?
“I think I’ll listen to my Gordon Lightfoot Greatest Hits album.”
“How soon can we get this thing up and weaponized?” – FBI Director Wray
If They Could Read Your Mind, Now, What a Tale Could Your Thoughts Tell?
This is not new technology. “News”paper reporters have been reading Don Trumps mind for over eight years.
“What did Morosco know and when did he know it?”
If They Could Read Your Mind, Now, What a Tale Could Your Thoughts Tell?
Fifth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Fifth….
So if a politician is going to speak to the people using AI support, can it be billed as a no brainer?
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…They’d know exactly when to expect the Spanish Inquisition.