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New brain scan can read intent
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by Kaitlin | February 9, 2007 at 01:49 pm
356 views | 10 Recommendations | 1 comment
The potential for application of this technology--for people who are paralysed, for example--is very exciting. But there is also potential for invasion of privacy...
Brain scans have been developed which it is claimed can predict what a person is about to do.German, British and Japanese scientists were able to "read minds" using sophisticated functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) and computer programs.
Current Biology reported people were asked to think about adding or subtracting - scientists were able to read intentions in 70% of cases.
A UK expert advised caution, but said such technologies would develop.
Professor Colin Blakemore, director of the Medical Research Council, said: "We shouldn't go overboard about the power of these technologies at the moment.
"But what you can be absolutely sure of is that these will continue to roll out and we will have more and more ability to probe people's intentions, minds, background thoughts, hopes and emotions."
He added: "Some of that is extremely desirable, because it will help with diagnosis, education and so on, but we need to be thinking the ethical issues through.
"It adds a whole new gloss to personal medical data and how it can be used."
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at 14:11 on February 9th, 2007
At NowPublic, this is high praise from NowPublic editors!
This sort of thing is keep-you-up-at-night scary. Enough people waiting long enough in a slow enough airport queue and you wind up with a whole lot of "terrorists".
Your story is now on the home page for awhile, and everywhere else the “good stuff” box shows up. Many thanks for your great work.