[Infowarrior] - The brain scan that can read people's intentions

[Richard Forno]

The brain scan that can read people's intentions


Call for ethical debate over possible use of new technology in interrogation

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 9, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2009229,00.html
 
A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique
that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their
intentions before they act.

The research breaks controversial new ground in scientists' ability to probe
people's minds and eavesdrop on their thoughts, and raises serious ethical
issues over how brain-reading technology may be used in the future.

The team used high-resolution brain scans to identify patterns of activity
before translating them into meaningful thoughts, revealing what a person
planned to do in the near future. It is the first time scientists have
succeeded in reading intentions in this way.

Article continues
"Using the scanner, we could look around the brain for this information and
read out something that from the outside there's no way you could possibly
tell is in there. It's like shining a torch around, looking for writing on a
wall," said John-Dylan Haynes at the Max Planck Institute for Human
Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, who led the study with colleagues
at University College London and Oxford University.

The research builds on a series of recent studies in which brain imaging has
been used to identify tell-tale activity linked to lying, violent behaviour
and racial prejudice.

The latest work reveals the dramatic pace at which neuroscience is
progressing, prompting the researchers to call for an urgent debate into the
ethical issues surrounding future uses for the technology. If brain-reading
can be refined, it could quickly be adopted to assist interrogations of
criminals and terrorists, and even usher in a "Minority Report" era (as
portrayed in the Steven Spielberg science fiction film of that name), where
judgments are handed down before the law is broken on the strength of an
incriminating brain scan.

"These techniques are emerging and we need an ethical debate about the
implications, so that one day we're not surprised and overwhelmed and caught
on the wrong foot by what they can do. These things are going to come to us
in the next few years and we should really be prepared," Professor Haynes
told the Guardian.

The use of brain scanners to judge whether people are likely to commit
crimes is a contentious issue that society should tackle now, according to
Prof Haynes. "We see the danger that this might become compulsory one day,
but we have to be aware that if we prohibit it, we are also denying people
who aren't going to commit any crime the possibility of proving their
innocence."

During the study, the researchers asked volunteers to decide whether to add
or subtract two numbers they were later shown on a screen.

Before the numbers flashed up, they were given a brain scan using a
technique called functional magnetic imaging resonance. The researchers then
used a software that had been designed to spot subtle differences in brain
activity to predict the person's intentions with 70% accuracy.

The study revealed signatures of activity in a marble-sized part of the
brain called the medial prefrontal cortex that changed when a person
intended to add the numbers or subtract them.

Because brains differ so much, the scientists need a good idea of what a
person's brain activity looks like when they are thinking something to be
able to spot it in a scan, but researchers are already devising ways of
deducing what patterns are associated with different thoughts.

Barbara Sahakian, a professor of neuro-psychology at Cambridge University,
said the rapid advances in neuroscience had forced scientists in the field
to set up their own neuroethics society late last year to consider the
ramifications of their research.

"Do we want to become a 'Minority Report' society where we're preventing
crimes that might not happen?," she asked. "For some of these techniques,
it's just a matter of time. It is just another new technology that society
has to come to terms with and use for the good, but we should discuss and
debate it now because what we don't want is for it to leak into use in court
willy nilly without people having thought about the consequences.

"A lot of neuroscientists in the field are very cautious and say we can't
talk about reading individuals' minds, and right now that is very true, but
we're moving ahead so rapidly, it's not going to be that long before we will
be able to tell whether someone's making up a story, or whether someone
intended to do a crime with a certain degree of certainty."

Professor Colin Blakemore, a neuroscientist and director of the Medical
Research Council, said: "We shouldn't go overboard about the power of these
techniques at the moment, but what you can be absolutely sure of is that
these will continue to roll out and we will have more and more ability to
probe people's intentions, minds, background thoughts, hopes and emotions.

"Some of that is extremely desirable, because it will help with diagnosis,
education and so on, but we need to be thinking the ethical issues through.
It adds a whole new gloss to personal medical data and how it might be
used."

The technology could also drive advances in brain-controlled computers and
machinery to boost the quality of life for disabled people. Being able to
read thoughts as they arise in a person's mind could lead to computers that
allow people to operate email and the internet using thought alone, and
write with word processors that can predict which word or sentence you want
to type . The technology is also expected to lead to improvements in
thought-controlled wheelchairs and artificial limbs that respond when a
person imagines moving.

"You can imagine how tedious it is if you want to write a letter by using a
cursor to pick out letters on a screen," said Prof Haynes. "It would be much
better if you thought, 'I want to reply to this email', or, 'I'm thinking
this word', and the computer can read that and understand what you want to
do."

· FAQ: Mind reading

What have the scientists developed?
They have devised a system that analyses brain activity to work out a
person's intentions before they have acted on them. More advanced versions
may be able to read complex thoughts and even pick them up before the person
is conscious of them.

How does it work?
The computer learns unique patterns of brain activity or signatures that
correspond to different thoughts. It then scans the brain to look for these
signatures and predicts what the person is thinking.

How could it be used?
It is expected to drive advances in brain-controlled computers, leading to
artificial limbs and machinery that respond to thoughts. More advanced
versions could be used to help interrogate criminals and assess prisoners
before they are released. Controversially, they may be able to spot people
who plan to commit crimes before they break the law.

What is next?
The researchers are honing the technique to distinguish between passing
thoughts and genuine intentions.