How Technology May Soon "Read" Your Mind

60 Minutes: Incredible Research Lets Scientists Get A Glimpse At Your Thoughts

(CBS)  "I always tell my students that there is no science fiction anymore. All the science fiction I read in high school, we're doing," Paul Root Wolpe, director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University in Atlanta, told Stahl.

To Wolpe, the ability to read our thoughts and intentions this way is revolutionary. "Throughout history, we could never actually coerce someone to reveal information. Torture doesn't work that well, persuasion doesn't work that well. The right to keep one's thoughts locked up in their brain is amongst the most fundamental rights of being human."

"You're saying that if someone can read my intentions, we have to talk about who might in the future be able to do that?" Stahl asked.

"Absolutely," he replied. "Whether we're going to let the state do it or whether we're going to let me do it. I have two teenage daughters. I come home one day and my car is dented and both of them say they didn't do it. Am I going to be allowed to drag them off to the local brain imaging lie detection company and get them put in a scanner? We don't know."

But before we've even started the debate, there are two companies already offering lie detection services using brain scans, one with the catchy name "No Lie MRI." But our experts cautioned that the technique is still unproven.

In the meantime, Haynes is working on something he thinks may be even more effective: reading out from your brain exactly where you've been. Haynes showed Stahl an experiment he created out of a video game.

He had Stahl navigate through a series of rooms in different virtual reality houses.

"Now I would put you in a scanner and I would show you some of these scenes that you've seen and some scenes that you haven't seen," he told her.

Stahl recognized the bar. "And right at this moment, we would be able to tell from your brain activity that you've already seen this environment before," Haynes explained.

"And so, this is a potential tool…for the police…in the case of break-ins?" Stahl asked.

"You might be able to tell if someone's been in an al Qaeda training camp before," Haynes replied.

Haynes said while U.S. national security agencies had not been in touch with him, the Germans had.

"So there are people who are considering these kinds of possibilities," Stahl commented.

And some are using them. In India last summer, a woman was convicted of murder after an EEG of her brain allegedly revealed that she was familiar with the circumstances surrounding the poisoning of her ex-fiancé.

[jbarber72001]

Paul Root Wople seems to know alot more about the state of the art then he's describing on this segment. The beam of light that he's refering to is quite real and there are potential negative side effects to these kinds of scans (like blood clots and severe migraines). The real harm here is the abuse of this technology in the hands of authorities who could care less about the sanctity of our thoughts or the preservation of our constituional rights (namely the Fourth Amendment). Wealthy individuals like Jerry Jones (the owner of the Dallas Cowboys and a principal investor in this technology) could care less about the implications of the technonolgy on our lives....he stands to make alot of money from the cellular revolution that is going to occur as a result of this!
John Barber
Denver, CO

[truthislife1]

A computer should never be the deciding factor for a jury to decide guilt or innocence. Too much information can be tampered with. It's purely speculation. There can be mis-readings and it not fair to the defending party. Interesting science though.

[azure13]

Just what we need, more ways for the rich and powerful to run our lives.

Unbelievable... So many better things for scientists to be working on.

[inachu1]

I love stories like this but each and every time these mind reading technologies come out then they go hidden or surpressed or something similar.

Even in the late 1970's or early 1980's There was a TV similar to Nimoy Lenoards tv show "IN SEARCH OF" and then a pbs NOVA report on the advancement of mind reading. The machine would pop up a picture of a cat even before the man said the word noting the machine recorded the signal for the word "cat"

Also it was stated that each humans electric signal for "cat" is different in effect that is like all our brains are different operating systems and each one is unique and you can not have one machine for all minds.

[dovestar]

Maybe we'll really know if liberals think out of the left side of their brains. We already know that liberals are not in their right mind.

[dovestar]

At last! Just what medical transcriptionists need to figure out doctors' dictation. Read his mind! They already know that a doctor's speech is as bad as his penmanship. Now we'll finally know if his brain is just as scrambled.

[dovestar]

Like all technologies this one comes with a mixed bag. Imagine being able to finally communicate with a loved one who is severely mentally retarded. Imagine being able to repair those areas in their brains which caused their retardation. This is something that this technology can lead to.

And that's not all. Imagine those who have been quadrapilegic all their lives. This technology could lead to their possibly leading normal lives like the rest of us. Pretty fascinating, huh?

But as usual, we think more about the sinister possibilities, such as government using this technology to scan our brains and "reprogram" us to the ruling party's way of thinking. Sort of like that device that lets us "see" beneath a person's clothes, now being used in some airports to discover hidden weapons.
The Fifth Amendment says that a person cannot be forced to be a witness against himself. Are you being so forced if you are forced to submit to such a brain scan? Legal scholars will be arguing this one for generations.
Bottom line: we don't trust our government or anyone else for that matter that would use such technology to manipulate us. And we'd better be on our guard, for as Pogo so eloquently said, "We have met the enemy and he is us".

[atlasbuggedbyspam]

Leslie Stahl brings us an important story, yes, but also openly parades her second-rate understanding of philosophy and politics. After regaling us with evidence of how a government might use the new tool - in America, perhaps to prove innocence, and in other nations, it could as well aid murderous repression - she then shrieks: "Scary as that is, imagine a world where companies could read our minds [for marketing purposes.]" Poor Leslie - merchandisers could find out what she wants and then...offer it to her. Oh, the horror!!

[smistretta]

Everyone is over reacting. There is no chance that scientists will ever be able to use FMRI or any other technology to read people's thoughts. The scientist in the story is a materialist and materialism has been refuted.
J. B. S. Haldane said: ?If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motion of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have not reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."

[apple2pie]

Nice for people who can't read non-verbal language.