Facebook Said It's Developing A Tool To Read Your Brain (buzzfeednews.com) 81
Facebook told employees this week that it's developing a tool to summarize news articles so users won't have to read them. It also laid out early plans for a neural sensor to detect people's thoughts and translate them into action. From a report: [...] He [Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer] also detailed a neural sensor to read commandments from people's brains. Having acquired neural interface startup CTRL-labs in 2019, Facebook demonstrated its progress in the field with a sensor that takes "neural signals coming from my brain, down my spinal cord along my arm, to my wrist" and allows a user to make a physical action. Schroepfer noted that it could be used for typing, holding a virtual object, or controlling a character in a video game. "We all get the privilege of seeing the future because we are making it," he said. Still, Facebook's chief technology officer seemed to anticipate any criticisms of the products -- or past failures -- by touting safety measures. "We have to build responsibly to earn trust and the right to continue to grow," he said. "It's imperative that we get this right so that people around the world get all these amazing technologies ... without experiencing the downsides."
Fuck no, keep your shit (Score:5, Insightful)
See subject
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Great (Score:2)
Yeah, you may need to, um relieve yourself before playing that MMO.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, many article "summaries" here on Slashdot are just three paragraphs of intro text lifted directly from the article. Though the present summary is a notable exception. In any event, I think an automated article summarizer would make slashdot a lot more readable, if it actually does a good job at summarizing.
Possibility for password with a dead man's switch? (Score:2)
Assuming that you could otherwise be legally compelled to surrender a password upon demand, if wetware ever does become viable, if a password was somehow keyed to your own brain patterns, and a mechanism existed in password validation to read your mind to ensure that you had not been compromised and were actually only entering the password to allow other people to access what it protects, then anybody asking you for your password or asking you to enter it for them would be pointless.
I mean, it may still
Ready Player Two (Score:1)
Well substitute Facebook for OASIS and we have a shockingly similar plot. I think I'll pass on an ONI from Facebook.
Genre blindness, textbook example. (Score:2)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pm... [tvtropes.org]
Are they completely oblivious of what they represent to humans, or what? :D
Perhaps this is just verification (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not so much a "brain reader" as an emotion reader. It'll measure how outraged you are for a given news story, and if you're not sufficiently outraged, it'll show you ever more outlandish stories until you're positively seething. Then, it'll show you a cat video and measure how much you calm down.
In the future, they'll keep you at a gentle simmer the whole time you're online. Just enraged enough to consume the shit that makes them some money, but not so much that you pop a blood vessel or decide to unpl
Um, no. (Score:3)
I don't need a virtual poindexter to second guess me, and that I have to constantly battle and do end run-arounds to get to what I want. And this is the shitfest this kind of crap always ends up being.
This is part of the reason I am using Duckduckgo more. Not so much because of fear of telemetry, but because it works like Google did a few years ago, before they started their robo-psychoanalyzing bullshit that fucks with my search results.
Re: Um, no. (Score:2)
And DDG isn't tainted with keyword dropping bullshit-
"Missing (one of my fucking keywords I'm sure I didn't put there by accident) Must include..."
[click]
"Missing (ANOTHER one of my fucking keywords I'm sure I didn't put there by accident) Must include..."
Re: (Score:2)
Simple, powerful, and flexible is often mistaken for complexity by the naive.
That's why so much modern UI/UX design is terrible. They've gone beyond the point of simplicity, right into stupidity--and forced everyone to work even harder than the original solution, just to make the "easy" way work right.
Who really believes this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not the tech advancement Schroepfer is talking about - that'll probably come to pass - but the bullshit motherhood qualifier: "We have to build responsibly to earn trust and the right to continue to grow," he said. "It's imperative that we get this right so that people around the world get all these amazing technologies ... without experiencing the downsides."
I wish corporations would stop jizzing all over us about how committed they are to fairness and equality and responsibility and 'getting it right'. Anybody who believes that is already a hard-core fanboi Kool-Aid drinker whose credulity doesn't need topping up, and the rest of us just get sick and tired of hearing the same obvious propaganda over and over.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly.
The only reason Facebook wants this is because it provides Facebook with honest to goodness engagement information - more data for advertisers.
You see an ad, you click it away, and Facebook learns about it. You choose to ignore it, but Facebook really knows you saw it and you reacted.
Face it, the tool is just for Facebook to be able to target you more successfully by seeing how your brain reacts.
Privacy rapists.... (Score:4, Insightful)
... gonna rape.
Nope. No. And no way. (Score:3)
Sorry, no matter how carefully the engineering team thinks through the possible downsides, eventually marketing will step in and use this shit to tap into something so they can track thoughts and more properly target ads. Fuck that shit. It's bad enough already with them tracking every move you make on the web. I'm not giving Facebook rights to read my damn neurons and synapse response.
It's working already! (Score:4, Funny)
"We have to build responsibly to earn trust and the right to continue to grow," he said. "It's imperative that we get this right so that people around the world get all these amazing technologies ... without experiencing the downsides."
Can you detect what I'm thinking when I read this? Most of it probably violates FCC regulations, but that's another can of worms.
Re: (Score:2)
You've had 3 thoughts about ... TITS ... in the last minute. Would you like to buy: ... TITS ... TITS ... TITS
- books about
- pictures of
- videos of
GOOD NEWS: Soon, Facebook will beam your purchase directly into your brain. The future is Facebook.
So, let me get this straight Slashcensor. (Score:2)
I can't write the word "N@zi" here, and yet you publish this mind-fucking shit?
Facebook: "We all get the privilege of seeing the future because we are making it"
Translation: "Welcome to the future internet. You will enjoy the stay we make for you. Please login to your Facebook account to continue."
Woof... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The simplest solution is to just redefine, "good", to be whatever Facebook does.
Enjoy your newspeak....
Unlimited, sale, buy, purchase, own... all these words have been redefined.
Re: (Score:2)
It only works on the neocortex, not the lizard brain.
create your own dreams (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Nah. What it will do is create yet more media zombies by being able to direct pipe thoughts to the "cloud" where they can be analyzed and then used to target direct brain interface ads.
In between virtual porn sessions, that is.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that dreams would appear as incomprehensible noise to the conscious mind. One theory of about dreams is that that absent other stimulation, the brain is just interpreting its own regular activity as sensory input. Any appearance of something recognizable would be akin to seeing recognizable shapes in clouds, or a face in the moon. It''s only because the meat computer between our ears is so good at recognizing familiar patterns that this even happens, and it doesn't stop when we are asleep.
Facebook users beware! (Score:1)
Must be blind (Score:2)
"We all get the privilege of seeing the future because we are making it"
I'm sure your children will thank you for the wonderful future you have created.
Alpha bullshit (Score:3)
Facebook is developing alpha bullshit. More of it. To be specific, this project does not read thoughts, it reads relatively superficial signals that result from thoughts. We still don't know at the physiological level what the fuck thoughts are much less have even the slightest clue how to read them. But Facebook is ok to bullshit that they have it all figured out, what's new about that, and when did they ever have an honest bone in their pustulant corporate body?
Re: (Score:2)
If they can convince their advertisers that they can read people's thoughts, they can make up reactions that advertisers want to hear and raise their rates.
And that is the only thing this is about.
Kernel (Score:2)
Bryan Johnson's latest startup Kernel already beat them to the punch. They basically shrunk a room sized cryogenic scanning machine into a thin helmet. It's pretty cool, kind of funny how it hardly made news - could be their focus is more brain research and health than invasion of privacy and gaming (implications for gaming are fun to consider, though).
Quadriplegics (Score:2)
This would be great for quadriplegics so we must support the development of this technology. Obviously oppose it being installed involuntarily .. but as a lifeform we have the right to advance ourselves. None of you fools can tell someone else not to augment themselves, it's not your right.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't disagree.
I think it's going to be ugly. Without a well-established right to the privacy of the content and workings of our own bodies and minds, governments will seize upon this at the first opportunity.
It's a long, hard slugfest from that point on to secure what I believe to be a universal, fundamental right of conscious beings.
Yes, FB is exactly whom we should trust with this. (Score:2)
Who better to trust with your thoughts than the people that have used their privacy invading tool to let liars pick the people that are most susceptible to there lies and made money giving them access to it.
Re: (Score:2)
Only if ... (Score:2)
Today's Problems in a nutshell (Score:2)
Summarization of what is happening in the world today: ftfy: ... users won't ... read.
But if you put it in a tiktok vertical video they will watch it...
Re: (Score:2)
%$#%$#@ vertical video syndrome... [youtube.com]
The Scientific Eye (Score:1)
Read my thoughts and translate to action? (Score:2)
Isn't that what my hands and feet are for?
If I stick it in my butt.. (Score:1)
Forget the read (Score:2)
I just want something that will correct spelling errors.
Hurry Facebook (Score:2)
Just "reading" is not the feature to have though... quietly Writing suggestions and instructions, ideas to the brain a.k.a. mind control is the more important feature to have.
It's not just that advertisers will love it.... the mind control feature is necessary in order to put a stop to threats from regulators. Must get into their brains and make some configuration updates, before it's too late.
they've... invented the mouse? Again? (Score:2)
Facebook demonstrated its progress in the field with a sensor that takes "neural signals coming from my brain, down my spinal cord along my arm, to my wrist" and allows a user to make a physical action.
Good stuff (Score:2)
a neural sensor to read commandments (Score:2)
Why bother? (Score:1)
Déjà vu (Score:2)
Step 1. Facebook acquires a VR company
Step 2. Facebook develops neural sensors
Step 3. Facebook opens "Sword Book Online" [wikipedia.org].
slim pickings (Score:1)
About time (Score:2)
Oh look at the time - it's time for Facebook to fuck right off.
Ohhh Hells No! (Score:1)
Just what we need now! (Score:2)
While glossed over in the teaser, the news summary Facebook plans to offer is disturbing. Every step distanced from the original news source makes critical thinking even less likely to occur. By adding another filter to news, Facebook is ensuring their devoted audiences become more uninformed, and more committed to blindly accepting all Facebook pronouncements as divinely revealed truth.
On the other hand, Facebook will find mind reading of those same devoted audiences is not a huge technological challenge.
Time to buy (Score:1)
Time to buy stock in tin hat companies.