Reading your mind: The future of brain privacy

A still shows a man wearing neurorights technology. Thomson Reuters Foundation

It’s been over a hundred years since scientists discovered how to record the electrical signals from our brains. But recent advances in AI have made it so that these noisy signals are now increasingly intelligible. 

Brain-reading devices anyone can buy on the internet can decipher your moods, your focus, and in the not so distant future, maybe even the words you are thinking.

And they are loosely regulated, if at all. 

Such advances carry incredible promise for medicine, wellness, and consumer electronics. But they could also usher in a dystopian future where our thoughts are no longer our own.  

In recent years, a growing group of scientists, lawyers, and ethicists have been trying to come up with a legal framework to steer these innovations in a way that respects fundamental human rights.

Will they be able to agree on a way forward - and get politicians onside - before it's too late? 

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