If even your brain isn't private?

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/15/scientists-reconstruct-pink-floyd-song-by-listening-to-peoples-brainwaves

This gave me bloody goosebumps.

Scientists have measured people's brainwaves whilst they were listening to Pink Floyd and have been able to reconstruct the song.

And you can hear it in the clips (second one being clearer than the first).

And this is them just starting out.
"Restore natural speech in patients...yada yada yada..."

This is going one way, and that way is that eventually they'll be able to reconstruct your thoughts without you knowing about it.

And if my thought-dreams could be seen,
They’d probably put my head in a guillotine,
But it’s alright, Ma,
It’s life, and life only.

- B. Dylan -

@shavixmir said
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/15/scientists-reconstruct-pink-floyd-song-by-listening-to-peoples-brainwaves

This gave me bloody goosebumps.

Scientists have measured people's brainwaves whilst they were listening to Pink Floyd and have been able to reconstruct the song.

And you can hear it in the clips (second one being clearer than the first).

A ...[text shortened]... ut my head in a guillotine,
But it’s alright, Ma,
It’s life, and life only.[/quote]
- B. Dylan -

Whoa, now this is fascinating.

@suzianne said
Whoa, now this is fascinating.

I'm more inclined to say it's terrifying.

Obviously this technology could have great uses. But combine it with politics, AI and generally how we humans end up creating nuclear bombs and global warming... I don't think this is gonna end well.

Just think of the social credit system they have in China. And add algorithms (AI) and this technology into the mix. What the hell have we created?

@shavixmir said
I'm more inclined to say it's terrifying.

Obviously this technology could have great uses. But combine it with politics, AI and generally how we humans end up creating nuclear bombs and global warming... I don't think this is gonna end well.

Just think of the social credit system they have in China. And add algorithms (AI) and this technology into the mix. What the hell have we created?

I think you're worrying too much.
Sound waves won't be created by your thoughts.
I have a client who thinks in pictures, like sequencing in a dream (the steps with the join missing that your brain makes when you analyse it on waking). This client was deaf and didn't get hearing aids till age 7. Language connections with your brain are made between age 0 and 8, so this client still thinks and processes information in pictures.
No technology could recreate thoughts like that.
maybe if you talk to yourself in your head, yeah, maybe that though. But I don't even think that would. Unless you were kind of saying it to yourself because the sound comes from vibrations

@shavixmir said
I'm more inclined to say it's terrifying.

Obviously this technology could have great uses. But combine it with politics, AI and generally how we humans end up creating nuclear bombs and global warming... I don't think this is gonna end well.

Just think of the social credit system they have in China. And add algorithms (AI) and this technology into the mix. What the hell have we created?

I can't speak for the unspeakable things Republicans might do with this (Manchurian Candidate, anyone?), but my field is psychology and this is amazing to me. I'm also a musician and I can't hear the music or the words very well in these recordings. The science seems in its infancy still.

@yo-its-me said
I think you're worrying too much.
Sound waves won't be created by your thoughts.

That's exactly what's happened.
They hooked people up, got them listening to Pink Floyd (which the computer couldn't hear) and the computer reconstructed the Pink Floyd song by analysing the people's brainwaves.

@shavixmir said
That's exactly what's happened.
They hooked people up, got them listening to Pink Floyd (which the computer couldn't hear) and the computer reconstructed the Pink Floyd song by analysing the people's brainwaves.

But wasn't their brain just processing the sound waves, not creating them?

@yo-its-me said
But wasn't their brain just processing the sound waves, not creating them?

Would that be a difference?
I don't know.

@shavixmir said
Would that be a difference?
I don't know.

I don't know either, but if it's sound being processed by the brain and then processed again by a computer then we've nothing to worry about regards our thoughts.

But I just saw this from May this year:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/surges-of-activity-in-the-dying-human-brain-could-hint-at-fleeting-conscious-experiences/#:~:text=They%20found%20that%20for%20about,electrical%20oscillations%20in%20the%20brain.

"They found that for about 30 seconds after the heart stopped, the brain showed a surge in what are called gamma waves, which are the highest-frequency electrical oscillations in the brain."

Which suggests to me that our brains can make sound waves without stimuli.

@yo-its-me said
But wasn't their brain just processing the sound waves, not creating them?

They reconstructed the sound from the brainwaves. The sound was from brain activity, not actual sound waves. More like digital sound. Not bad for a first try, but I think the resolution needs to be better to actually pull sound from thoughts.

@yo-its-me said
I don't know either, but if it's sound being processed by the brain and then processed again by a computer then we've nothing to worry about regards our thoughts.

But I just saw this from May this year:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/surges-of-activity-in-the-dying-human-brain-could-hint-at-fleeting-conscious-experiences/#:~:text=They%20found%20that%20for% ...[text shortened]... ons in the brain.[/i]"

Which suggests to me that our brains can make sound waves without stimuli.

Of course. You have sound in dreams, yes?

We're still a long ways away from Brainstorm (1983).

@yo-its-me said
I don't know either, but if it's sound being processed by the brain and then processed again by a computer then we've nothing to worry about regards our thoughts.

But I just saw this from May this year:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/surges-of-activity-in-the-dying-human-brain-could-hint-at-fleeting-conscious-experiences/#:~:text=They%20found%20that%20for% ...[text shortened]... ons in the brain.[/i]"

Which suggests to me that our brains can make sound waves without stimuli.

What I understand of it is that the person(s) were listening to the pink floyd song, and that as you listen to a song, you think about the song and these thoughts (basically brainwaves) were picked up by electrodes on the person's skull.

A song is more easily recognisable than individual thoughts, but that ultimately, they'll be able to register thoughts and put it through a voice box, so someone with severe neurological damage will be able to talk again.

@suzianne said
Of course. You have sound in dreams, yes?

I don't really know tbh. I have feelings and threads of thoughts and join together when I wake up but I don't think they're joined till I look at them.
But- yeah- I don't know.

@shavixmir said
What I understand of it is that the person(s) were listening to the pink floyd song, and that as you listen to a song, you think about the song and these thoughts (basically brainwaves) were picked up by electrodes on the person's skull.

A song is more easily recognisable than individual thoughts, but that ultimately, they'll be able to register thoughts and put it through a voice box, so someone with severe neurological damage will be able to talk again.

i wouldn't want to be a person whose thoughts were automatically put into words!
But if it's only when you register the thoughts, that sounds better, like if it's only thoughts you push into the box somehow.

@shavixmir said
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/15/scientists-reconstruct-pink-floyd-song-by-listening-to-peoples-brainwaves

This gave me bloody goosebumps.

Scientists have measured people's brainwaves whilst they were listening to Pink Floyd and have been able to reconstruct the song.

And you can hear it in the clips (second one being clearer than the first).

A ...[text shortened]... ut my head in a guillotine,
But it’s alright, Ma,
It’s life, and life only.[/quote]
- B. Dylan -

I guessed it was "Another Brick in the Wall."

I was right.

...We don't need no thought control...