A candidate who would change his Assistant system to a more permissive setting would let others take a genuine glimpse at how his mind works. This would lower the voters’ risk of being misled and make this candidate more electable. It might even lead to a “race towards openness” that only slows down when it makes group leaders become too predictable for the opponents of this group.

However, trustworthy does not necessarily mean “in the best interest of the species” as citizens do not necessarily agree what that should be. Here is an example: Assume that members of a religious sect honestly believe that the world can on by be saved when their religion has been established everywhere. They use selective mind links to find a good leadership team: very smart, fair according to internal rules, no trace of nepotism, certainly no hidden business interests, honest belief in the purpose of their religion, will not hesitate to use fire and sword on disbelievers, will not go soft when victory requires high sacrifices, will not spare themselves… The sect might indeed get “pure-hearted” leaders that deserve their trust, but their goals will certainly differ from that of the mainstream citizen. One can imagine similar arrangements among other political groups and after mind selective mind-linking has taken out much of the intra-group friction, the inter-group clashes might become even more intense.

I think the potential of dystopic threats will exist so long as we continue to accept and sustain faulty leadership (i.e., leadership that is not operating in the best interest of the species). Therefore, what we need is a technology that can enable us to discern intention/thought/emotion in a way that provides us the intel to select optimal leadership based on their subjective and/or neurological qualities, in addition to other important factors. By ensuring we always have optimal leadership, we can eliminate or greatly reduce the emergence of potential dystopic futures. Because it’s only a faulty/suboptimal leadership [that abuses/misuses technology] that could create a dystopic future in the first place.

Mind links from individuals can be achieved by various types of scanning. Mind links to individuals might require solutions like the nanoparticles described by Freeman Dyson. Direct links to our minds are likely to shape our thinking much more than conventional medial and our structure for handling these links will determine the way our societies work. Debates about this structure might benefit from a simple concept that captures the essence of the problem and indicates at least the general nature of a solution. Here is a draft for discussion.

It might be useful to imagine mind links as divided into three parts: the Interface part that either converts neural activity to electrical signals or uses electrical signals to stimulate certain neurons (think of headbands and pills to swallow), the Assistant system that converts these person-specific signals into general signals that can be communicated to others and vice versa (think of mobile phones) and the Web including other users and services (think search engines). The Interface is likely to consist of standard hardware and its drivers. The Web is open to friend and foe. The Assistant systems will be the key to control.

Let’s assume that the Assistant systems are just very smart pieces of software that have no hidden agendas. Individuals controlling their own Assistant systems could then determine what they reveal to whom and what kind of signals can reach them, making them fairly resistant to direct monitoring and subconscious influences. If the Assistant system communication is well enough encrypted to make bulk surveillance unaffordable, watchful citizens might be able to pool their resources and arrange appropriate sousveillance before their government can silence them. This would favour a stable democracy. Obviously, once authoritarian systems have gotten control of enough Assistant systems, they could shape the minds of their citizens and create a stable system as well.

There may be no steering wheel — not because it was replaced with a thought controller but because there is no car, or at least, not in the sense we think of a car today. And people understand that just as there are fail safes, coded key combinations and other barriers to entry for weapons systems, those systems will not engage without an appropriate and standardized method of access.

Instead of publishing articles that say “NO” to something that is inevitable, let’s look at it from a more guided perspective to help build the new systems and protections we will need in the new world.

The future will happen but instead of turning into the Krell, we can learn from Morbius and survive.

I would reasonably expect that any CMR most likey would be attemptring to interpret highly synchronous brain activity usually strongly correlated with information being processed by short-term memory (STM). This interpretation only recently has gained the attention of the neuroscience community at large. E.g., see some press releases on work I’ve been involved in since circa 1980: http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR041414_short_term_memory.html
and http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/the_mechanism_of_short_term_memory , where the reporter leans on some recent info from NIH.

At least one issue presented is just how faithful is the info being processed by STM a true or strong indicator of intent or actual thought processes along a chain of thought processes that may lead to similar or dissimilar thought processes or actions?

Since many people train their memories to string patterns of information via visual (most common), auditory or somatic (as Einstein was quoted) associations/overlaps, clearly many people could train to have patterns of pretty weird associations represent their “true” thoughts, even if only for the purpose of confounding CMR? There likely will always be some counter-measures some people can employ with such new technologies, thereby leading to even less social transparency, further decay of morality, and generally make Earth more like Hell?

Of course, on the “bright” side, given that CMR sensors could be employed by individuals to communicate with themselves as well as other people via languages both more personal and universal than today’s languages (numbering perhaps a couple of thousand?), great new worlds of deeper and more meaningful interactions and growth may become possible and realized.

Such familiarity developed using CMR may lead to enhanced contempt or compassion — there always are so many choices to make … :)! I think the reasonable argument always put forward concerning new technologies is that, since we really cannot predict the ratio of Good over Evil developed in the future as a direct result of applications of these technologies, we might as well go forward …