What is a "purpose"? Something people wish something would only be used for, right? How does it relate to, what influence does it have on what something will end up being used for?
> The synthesized clips line up with what each region is known to care about, faces for FFA, places for PPA, bodies for EBA, motion for MT, patterns for V1 / V3A, and lively social scenes for pSTS / aSTS
Explain the potential to exploit strong stimulation of specific visual regions for evil. "Oh, I very much detect a face/place/body/motion/pattern/human", says the subject. What are you going to do with that, startle them?
Do you know that strongly triggering these regions at the same time/repeatedly/in various patterns doesn't have any effect on your mood, wants, needs and so on due to experience in the field? Or why are you just discounting the idea?
IMO it's terrifying to imagine that adtech companies could plug this stuff into their optimizers and just run an experiment on broad swaths of the population to figure out if there's any effects.
Apply the same technology several layers deeper. Stimulate the novelty or sexual attraction or general reward neurons. Stimulate the thirst center in a Pepsi ad.
Oh you are right. Let's just end neuroscience altogether. Also computer science, aerospace, and biology in general. In fact, let's go full Amish. Wait, no. Someone might use a buggy cart to run people over.
This isn't about "might", this is about "obviously will", and the sheer fact that questions that were 101 of scientific discussion now lead to instant freaking out and accusations, i.e. stupid cultish bullshit, show me we need to be more serious about it, not less. If that's not to your liking, is it okay for you if other people ponder such questions? Can you maybe stim your brain into believing they don't?
(STS seems to be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_temporal_sulcus in the temporal lobe, so I guess it's the "I sense a presence" region.)
Explain the potential to exploit strong stimulation of specific visual regions for evil. "Oh, I very much detect a face/place/body/motion/pattern/human", says the subject. What are you going to do with that, startle them?