Explore Topics:
AIBiotechnologyRoboticsComputingFutureScienceSpaceEnergyTech
Artificial Intelligence

Reading People’s Actual Thoughts With a Machine

SingularityHub Staff
Jan 08, 2009
Reading People’s Actual Thoughts With a Machine

Share

60 Minutes just ran an excellent segment on how fMRI is being used by the Brain Image Analysis Research Group at Carnegie Mellon and elsewhere to literally read people's minds. The video below is a must see:

For those without the time or interest in watching the entire video, a short summary:

1.  Put someone's head in an fMRI machine and we can tell with increasing accuracy:

Be Part of the Future

Sign up to receive top stories about groundbreaking technologies and visionary thinkers from SingularityHub.

100% Free. No Spam. Unsubscribe any time.
  • the object they are thinking of (hammer, window, etc.)
  • determine whether a person has seen a location before (such as a crime scene) by showing them a picture of the scene and monitoring them under fMRI
  • extract certain macro thoughts such as lying, love, etc

2.  Court cases seem soon to come in which the legality of mind reading for lie detection and other uses will be confronted

3.  They're trying to develop now a beam of light that would be projected onto your forehead. It would go a couple of millimeters into your frontal cortex, and then receptors would get the reflection of that light. And there's some studies that suggest that we could use that as a lie detection device, or perhaps even thought detection device without you even knowing it was happening.

SingularityHub chronicles the technological frontier with coverage of the breakthroughs, players, and issues shaping the future.

Related Articles

Forget Code: AI Is Learning to Hack Society

Forget Code: AI Is Learning to Hack Society

Edd Gent
Collage of torn up magazine pages with words on them

AI Collapses on a Classic Psychology Test. What It Reveals Could Stall Human-Level AI.

Shelly Fan
A collage of circuit boards interwoven with aerial photographs of water treatment facilities, agricultural lands, industrial sites and mining machinery.

How to Tame AI’s Voracious Appetite for Energy

Katarina Zimmer
Forget Code: AI Is Learning to Hack Society
Future

Forget Code: AI Is Learning to Hack Society

Edd Gent
Collage of torn up magazine pages with words on them
Artificial Intelligence

AI Collapses on a Classic Psychology Test. What It Reveals Could Stall Human-Level AI.

Shelly Fan
A collage of circuit boards interwoven with aerial photographs of water treatment facilities, agricultural lands, industrial sites and mining machinery.
Energy

How to Tame AI’s Voracious Appetite for Energy

Katarina Zimmer

What we’re reading

Be Part of the Future

Sign up to receive top stories about groundbreaking technologies and visionary thinkers from SingularityHub.

100% Free. No Spam. Unsubscribe any time.

SingularityHub chronicles the technological frontier with coverage of the breakthroughs, players, and issues shaping the future.

Follow Us On Social

About

  • About Hub
  • About Singularity

Get in Touch

  • Contact Us
  • Pitch Us
  • Brand Partnerships

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
© 2026 Singularity