
Facebook has a mysterious team working on tech that sounds like mind reading - pmcpinto
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-building-8-working-on-brain-computer-communication-platform-2017-1?
======
nom
I don't think so.

Unless they figure out a non-invasive technique that spatially samples brain
activity with a high resolution at high speeds (think sub-millimeter @ several
kHz), that is also cheap and wearable, there is NO way you can extract any
high level information. It just doesn't work.

Current non-invasive methods mostly involve EEG - electrodes that measure the
electrical potential across the brain surface. The potentials are a mix of the
activity of every single neuron - almost all information is lost and you can't
get much out of it at all, even with infinite computing power.

It's comparable to the task of reading the contents and activity of a CPU by
attaching sensors to the surface - but without knowing the type of CPU, OS,
what programs are running, what the user is doing etc. It's clear that it
can't work.

Mind reading simply sounds sooo good in a news article and makes people dream
of a sci-fi-esque future, I don't expect it to go away soon.

~~~
cryoshon
>It's comparable to the task of reading the contents and activity of a CPU by
attaching sensors to the surface - but without knowing the type of CPU, OS,
what programs are running, what the user is doing etc.

but you could easily map the bulk EEG data of an individual person in
different brain states. just have them go through a calibration routine where
they are prompted "think about apples" and then you record what comes back.
now, you know what it looks like when they're thinking about apples in an
intentional way. it's a start.

there's still plenty of noise, but the signal is going to look the same every
time, if you can find it. the other question is whether your detection
apparatus is going to be able to tease out the difference between "thinking
about apples" versus "thinking about oranges". at present, my guess is no,
which speaks to your point.

i get the feeling these problems are going to be solved as time goes on...

~~~
nom
"... where they are prompted "think about apples" and then you record what
comes back. "

What if you, one day, bite into an apple that has a worm in? You'll probably
feel different about apples after that and you calibration data is now
useless.

As I said, just consider the sparse information you get out of an EEG or FMRI
and compare it to the vast information that make up your thoughts, memories,
feelings etc. It's simple mathematics, it won't work unless you find a way to
extract much more data non-invasively. Upon that, you most likely won't get
away with a single calibration.

Yes there are awesome results, like controlling a cursor or artificial limbs
with your brain. But that only works because your brain learns how to control
it - not the other way around.

Continuing that thought, I can imagine a system where the user can learn how
to express certain emotions to a computer - but that still leaves open the
question of how to induce them into another user, which is a completely
different task that we even haven't touched yet at all.

~~~
neuromantik8086
> As I said, just consider the sparse information you get out of an EEG or
> FMRI and compare it to the vast information that make up your thoughts,
> memories, feelings etc. It's simple mathematics, it won't work unless you
> find a way to extract much more data non-invasively.

This reminds me of a study I just found where some researchers, as a thought
experiment, tried to reverse engineer a 6502 MOS Tech CPU using the same
techniques used in neuroscience. Their argument seems to be that if we can't
even reverse engineer a totally known system with our tools, we can hardly
claim to be able to reverse-engineer a system whose core 'design' we don't
even really have a concept of:

[http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jou...](http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005268)

------
mseebach
Is there a "someone's razor" for sensational, speculative "news"?

Chances are they are looking at something like this
([http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-
environment-12990211](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12990211)
\-- control a mouse cursor with your thoughts anno 2011) to make a better
interface for the Oculus Rift than (I can't believe this is a quote) "the mind
reading and telepathy of science fiction movies".

~~~
chuckgreenman
I'd like to propose "Abstract Jumping" as the term here. We see it a lot when
journalists just read the abstract of a scientific paper or the overview of a
project and then draw conclusions.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Yeah that needs to be a term. It's a pattern I'm sure many of us have seen in
scientific studies too:

Facebook post: "Scientists prove X causes Y"

Various layers of science news: "Scientists link X and Y"

Abstract: "We observed a moderate correlation between X and Y. The results are
surprising because they contradict previous studies of similar populations."

6 months later and there are new-age parenting guides about why you belong in
jail if you let your kids anywhere near X.

------
rrggrr
Something to ponder for a future generation: How important really is our
physical being? Reproduction, social interaction and sustenance are
transitioning from physical necessity, to augmentation, toward replacement. We
talk of AI as replacing humanity, but it could be they are inexorably merging
and will evolve along their own path that really belongs to them. One would
have expected the neanderthal to have experienced existential stress about the
emergence sapiens. It may be that in evolutionary terms, bipedal man's time
may very slowly be nearing an end.

~~~
JPLeRouzic
I am very pleased by this post. I am 60, people around me age and it is
sometimes a not very pleasant experience. What is important when you are very
old and impotent? I think that is to, still be able to interact with other
people. The time we spend on social networks, including this one, shows that
interaction is what matters. Here it is very limited, but what if we would be
able to couple HN with some kind of "social network butler" to interact with
the physical world. It would fulfill both the need of social interaction and
the capacity to do stuff. After that, the need for a physical body, at least
for the people who are very old, would not be so important. And if young
people can enjoy living in the fast lane, I am sure some new experiences can
be created in virtual worlds, that would match, if not replace, experiences
brought by the physical body.

~~~
rrggrr
What I really like about your post is the reminder that virtual/cyber
interactions are meaningful and supportive of the human condition for people
whose ability to interact may be limited by age, geography, health, etc.

------
thieving_magpie
This reads like a big joke. I do not think Facebook could get remotely close
to figuring out this technology. But watch me get quoted in a post in 2022
about how naive we were.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _I do not think Facebook could get remotely close to figuring out this
> technology._

Why not? Their money hires engineers the same as anyone else's.

~~~
floathub
I suspect there are an awful lot of very good engineering types who would
never go and work for Facebook. No matter how much you paid them (well, let's
say bounded at the upper end by a very, very large number).

Although (nearly?) everyone has their price, few people with _serious_
technical chops want to play on Facebook's side of the garden wall. I suspect
Facebook worries about this.

[edit to remove oops; double negative]

~~~
ironchef
"few people with _serious_ technical chops want to play on Facebook's side of
the garden wall"

I fear you suffer from some form of bias. Or maybe I do; however, I know some
folks there who, in the devops or data engineering world, get it. I mean you
had Taner (who also lent his hand to building battle.net's infrastructure),
Keith Adams, JPC, David Reiss, John Allen, eric huang, sam rash, etc.

Their largest hadoop cluster has _several_ hundred PB of data. You don't
manage / run things on that without having some chops. Period. If you read the
under the hood series, you might be able to see a different viewpoint.

~~~
LunaSea
The ethical viewpoint is very clear though. They just chose to be morally
bankrupt.

------
seltzered_
Surprised they didn't mention Mary-Lou Jepsen, who worked as a Facebook VP but
is now working on her own startup related to mind reading with opnwatr.io .
Here's a talk she had at media lab recently which hints at this:
[https://youtu.be/VS810aV_PW4](https://youtu.be/VS810aV_PW4)

Forgot there's a tedx talk that's more focused on it:
[https://youtu.be/BP_b4yzxp80](https://youtu.be/BP_b4yzxp80)

~~~
azinman2
Exactly. I have a very strong hunch this is what they're referring to.

------
brilliantcode
While I was reading 1984, I had to put it down because it was so depressing.
It would be the end result of our experimentation with surveillance state
coupled with AI management that outperforms even the smartest human being.

In the end, it won't be our willful submission to AI overlords but economies
of scale heavily valued by our capitalist economy that will be our undoing.

but this also means untold riches that build & sell the new AI driven
economies of scale. we've previously seen titans arise from the industrial
revolution by doing the same thing.

It's no time to be a Luddite.

~~~
malux85
I think one way to help with this is the democratisation of A.I. It's not a
silver bullet to the problems you describe, but a step in the right direction.
They key is that the technology is available to everyone very cheaply.

Having worked with hundreds of data scientists and data engineers over the
last couple of years the common theme is that they want to get into A.I. but
configuration hell or poor documentation has stopped 50-80% of them from being
able to experiment.

So I built SignalBox - a Deep Learning web platform with a set of "blueprints"
for common tasks. It deploys to a bulk standard linux platform and once
deployed has a web interface for generating neural networks, evaluating them,
training them in parallel. Coupled with common ingestion patterns and data
collectors, and from any point you can jump into iPython and start modifying
the code for yourself. This gives newbies a pre-built, optionally GPU
accelerated platform that they can play with, but also the flexibility of
jumping to code so they can grow.

You know what I would love? 10 million pounds. Yes I am dreaming. But then I
would release SignalBox for free, but due to the capitalistic nature of
society I'm forced to sell it, which I am doing.

If I had 10 million, I would pursue some of the advances in computational
chemistry for drug discovery, I do this for fun when I'm not working on
platform, did you know that about it's estimated 10^8 molecules have been
synthesised, whereas the range of potential drug like molecules is estimated
at between 10^23 -> 10^60. I think there's real potential here, also I would
like to explore epistasis modelling which I have been reading a lot of papers
on too, and auditing some code from some PhD students I am mentoring, it's
showing some good promise.

I dont want to work for a living, I want to spend 100% of my time working on
using AI to help large numbers of people, but I've set my goal at 10 million
first, that should be enough for me to never have to worry about money ever
again, and buy enough GPU servers to advance state of the art

~~~
brilliantcode
I have no idea why your comment was downvoted, I thought it was highly
relevant and reflected on what I had written.

First of all, I'm super curious about your product, I've reached out using my
email in my profile. You are right on the money in that documentation and
heterogenous nature of configuring and getting ML/DL packages up and running
is a large blocker. Personally for me, the training, setting up just to
_begin_ experimenting was a frustrating experience.

I think democratization is already taking place with open source alternatives
like [https://deepdetect.com/](https://deepdetect.com/), I've only been able
to install and play with the API and I'm trying to evaluate it further by
building an app with it. But it hits that pain point in that it actually
enables me to be in a position where I can now begin experimenting without
having to deal with configuration and documentation noise.

$10 million pounds ($12m USD) is certainly not impossible and I think you are
on your way. I'd love to have $28 million USD, I think I could live a
comfortable life without having to work. The marginal utility really falls off
beyond 70,000 USD / year according to stats multiplying by 40 years, it yields
$2.8m USD not adjusted for inflation, so just to be safe, I multiply it by 10.
I'd love it if it could be a 100x or even 1000x but the probability of that is
pretty damn slim (but _not impossible_ ).

Here's to both of us for a successful 2017!

------
thrusong
Does anyone know why "8" seems to be such an important number at Facebook (f8,
Building 8, and I believe way back when they were using Fedora 8 the first
time they stated their server operating system, though that is probably
coincidental)?

~~~
josephmx
Facebook has 8 letters?

~~~
guptaneil
I'm fairly sure this is the primary reason, just like a11y is shorthand for
accessibility and i18n is short for internationalization. It also helps that
F8 looks like "FB" and sounds like "fate" but those were likely just bonuses.

------
rudolf0
>“One day, I believe we’ll be able to send full rich thoughts to each other
directly using technology," Zuckerberg said during a June 2015 Q&A. "You’ll
just be able to think of something and your friends will immediately be able
to experience it too if you’d like."

This sounds like a real possible future, but how could this be implemented so
you only transmit the thoughts you want transmitted? Some sort of internal
dialogue with an implant like "OK Facebook", "OK John, please end your thought
by imagining a pound sign"?

~~~
burkaman
In the same way that lifting your arm is different than thinking about lifting
your arm, I imagine you could train your mind so that transmitting a thought
is different than thinking a thought. And hopefully it would turn off if you
fall asleep.

~~~
rudolf0
I could see that happening, but I feel like slip-ups or crossovers ("oh shit,
I meant to think that, not think and transmit it") could still happen
sometimes. Also, I wonder what it'd be like for someone with a psychotic
mental disorder...

But yeah, who knows, maybe the two processes will be so distinct that it's not
an issue.

~~~
burkaman
I guess a better analogy would be talking. You can think about talking or you
can talk, and I'm not sure anyone could really explain what the difference is,
but it is relatively unusual to speak by accident while you're conscious. I
can imagine training myself to add a new mode of "talking" that actually
transmitted a thought.

Slip-ups would definitely still happen, but I think they would be more
expected and less of a big deal with such a fluid communication system. And
maybe you could build in a delay that reads your thought back to you before it
sends.

------
RichardHeart
This doesn't sound ominous at all. At least facebook doesn't have a history of
experimenting on changing it's users minds for them.
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/02/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/02/facebook-
sorry-secret-psychological-experiment-users)

------
nooron
Along these lines, has anyone heard of Neurable?
[http://neurable.com/](http://neurable.com/)

They raised some money ([https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/21/neurable-seed-
funding-brai...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/21/neurable-seed-funding-
brain-computer-interface/)), and are from my town.

------
svkkfnisgkcn3ta
Relevant:

Eben Moglen - Why Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media and Why Free Media
Require Free Technology

Video [0] [https://archive.org/details/EbenMoglen-
WhyFreedomOfThoughtRe...](https://archive.org/details/EbenMoglen-
WhyFreedomOfThoughtRequiresFreeMediaAndWhyFreeMedia)

Transcript [1] [https://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-
of-...](https://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-thought-
requires-free-media)

------
apeacox
Next step: Thought Police

------
jordache
what's so breakthrough about this? scientific community have already
demonstrated the ability to map brain wave patterns to thoughts, or specific
words.

------
known
aka fMRI

~~~
neuromantik8086
fMRI is not mind reading. Not even close. Functional fMRI is making repeated
observations of a proxy for neural activity (blood flow) until you have enough
data to potentially localize task-specific actions to some part of the brain.
Resting-state fMRI is trying to extrapolate basic, enduring networks in a
given individual or group's brain while trying to silence all the noise from
breathing, head motion, etc. Did I mention that not all slices in a functional
scan are acquired at the same time, so you also have to make interpolations so
that the data looks like it's all acquired at once?

So no, not mind reading at all. Only in the vaguest sense at best.

~~~
Hydraulix989
This proxy argument can also be applied to EEG.

Anyways, the signal you get from fMRI is enough to reconstruct sequences of
images:

[http://news.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-
movies/](http://news.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/)

EEG can't even come close.

