[smusamashah]

This is the most pessimistic take on this tech here. You can view anything with the same lens.

[consumer451]

I ain't young. I have seen this all play out before. It's just extrapolating based on what we did with cookies, browsing history, cell tower data, etc... unless we pass very strict neural privacy laws, why wouldn't it go the same way?

The decent news is that if you search "neural privacy laws," you will find some states are already on top of it, a bit. We need national laws, in every country ASAP. This needs to happen before there are billions in economic inertia behind BCIs.

[moolcool]

I’m trying to not be snarky here, but it is difficult to have an optimistic take about an advertising company working on mind reading technology. At some point we have to call a spade a spade, I think.

[robwwilliams]

Share your concern.

One point is that this is not “mind reading”. This is “motor command reading”. This is really no different than placing recording electrodes near motor neurons that direct vocalization. Or in terminal nerve fibers that move finger and wrist muscles.

For Meta this is a PR stunt of the type that I saw staged at a Human Brain Project demo in Budapest in 2012 in with an EEG-instrumented operator tried to move a robot around the stage with HBP leaders trying to narrate the “wonders of it all”. Sadly it was one of those classic demo failures in front of 200 neuroscientists and EU science bureaucrats. Didn’t stop the EU from funding the application the next year. About 1 billion euros not well spent.

[Georgelemental]

The way to not get the most pessimistic outcome is to work for a better one, and to do that you have to first recognize the danger

[otikik]

I agree in that it is pessimistic. I strongly doubt it is the most pessimistic take.

[ImPostingOnHN]

Saying "this is the most pessimistic take" doesn't make for good discussion.

Something can have "good takes" but still run an unacceptable risk of ending badly

[rcxdude]

You should probably view anything meta does through the same lens. They can make great tech but they utterly ruin it with their creepiness.

[trueno]

at this point i feel like its just painfully obvious that if this for whatever became feasible/widespread/scalable, it would absolutely be implemented by the powers that be and willed into fruition by gaslighting, fear mongering and misinformation. i dont know how much more proof this world needs that ruling classes can and do want to just subjugate the hell out of everyone & enforce their world view on the world around them