craig@utcs.utoronto.ca (Craig Hubley) (02/15/91)
In article <16410@milton.u.washington.edu> matth@mars.njit.edu (Matthew Harelick ) writes: > > Wouldn't the development of neural interfaces be dangerous. If you develop >equipment that can "read minds" , you could develop equipment that can read >specific parts of a persons brain, thereby invading his privacy etc. Could be. Depends on who controls the information. I, for one, would have no qualms whatsoever about each and every detectable aspect of my body+head+ hand motion/voice/brainwaves/EKG/galvanic-skin-response/body-temperature/ heartbeat/bloodstream chemical content being detected and recorded by microsensors that *I* own, *I* control, and *I* (to whatever degree is practical) configure and program. So long as this information goes only into, say, a Walkman I'm carrying, and is used for *my* purposes. It goes without saying that I don't want every room I walk into to be gathering this information for me, which is why I don't believe in the "media room" interface - not only is it non-portable, it's almost impossible to keep private. If the room needs to know anything about me, it can query my Walkman and it will tell the room as much/as little as I think is necessary to configure the room to my liking. If we break down the physical privacy barriers that have existed by default due to our limited sight/hearing/memory etc., we must erect new, consensual, electronic ones. Already, with urine tests etc., we are being forced to restate exactly what we mean by "privacy". It is true that the collection of information tends, in time, to expose it. Imagine if everyone's wristwatch recorded their pulse, for perfectly legit reasons like telling them they had reached their aerobic target zone, or celluar-phoning the nearest hospital if they had a heart attack. Now imagine that an insurance company offers very cheap life insurance to anyone proving, via randomly transmitted pulse-checks, that they are in good cardiovascular health. Soon there would be two groups: those that were willing to trade their privacy in exchange for lower premiums, and another group that consisted of those in poor cardiovascular health plus those who refused to give up their privacy for other reasons. So long as that second group remained large enough, there would be economic incentive to continue to serve it. However, if it gets too small, then the price of insurance for that group goes through the roof, and the premium of privacy gets very high. Like most things, it is a question of social checks and balances, and who has enough of an interest in the information to apply economic leverage to dig it out. Gathering a lot more information on people, as we do today, simply means that we can no longer rely on default physical definitions of privacy (e.g. I'm alone in my room therefore what I do is private) and have to develop some new ones. This, in my opinion, is what groups like EFF are trying to do, based on non-physical models of privacy rights that already seem to work, like the Bill of Rights. Of course, there is a lot to this topic. That is why conferences on the topic of privacy alone have been held, why there are discussion groups for it on the net, etc.. I think in general people have become aware of the problem in recent years. Craig Hubley "...get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert." Craig Hubley & Associates------------------------------------Henry Ford Sr. craig@gpu.utcs.Utoronto.CA UUNET!utai!utgpu!craig craig@utorgpu.BITNET craig@gpu.utcs.toronto.EDU {allegra,bnr-vpa,decvax}!utcsri!utgpu!craig 28 First Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4M 1W8 Canada Voice: (416) 466-4097