Mankind's previously recognized rights, such as the privacy of even our innermost thoughts, will become an artifact of history if we don't consider how to protect ourselves against AI managed by corporations and governments.

Researchers have used AI to decode images and strings of text seen by volunteers, as well as stories they hear or imagine.

The technology–based on EEG, MEG, and fMRI machines–is still nascent. Nonetheless, its quick evolution underscores the urgent need for a renewed emphasis on human freedom and dignity, especially as it pertains to mind-reading and privacy.

Our Thought Privacy Is On The Line

In the not-too-distant future, tinfoil hats could become a fashion trend out of necessity; that is if we don't put proper AI standards and practices into place.

There are two main approaches to managing the risk posed by mind-reading technology intruding on our thoughts, and they complement one another.

The first way is called embedded ethics, which brings ethical reasoning to computer science and technology.

This might work in various manners. For instance, perhaps companies create ethics departments to see to it that ethical considerations are made as part of the process of launching new products or designing new software. (There is a purpose for that philosophy degree, it turns out, after all).

Companies might, on their own, decide to integrate safeguards into neuro-devices during the design and production stage.

The second way to curtail threats posed by AI entails lawmakers, officials, and other civil society actors working together to develop domestic laws and international standards to safeguard the thoughts in our heads.

Harvard took a big step toward incorporating this approach into its educational practices by embedding ethicists into its computer science curriculum so developers could learn to think rationally about the ethics of technology.

The recognition of mental privacy as an extension of good old-fashioned privacy, rather than a new right for which people must fight, is essential to help AI titans and lawmakers think about how to approach mind-reading AI.

Lawmakers might consider legislation that requires informed consent (without coercion) when it comes to brain data. Moreover, data protection laws should make it clear that mental data falls under the category of sensitive personal information.

Mental Privacy Is Central To Individuals and Society

Presently, mind-reading technology requires the cooperation of individuals who are able to resist the technology’s mind-reading capabilities at present–but that is ever so quickly changing as the world undergoes an AI revolution.

State actors could one day commandeer the technology to obtain information from interrogees. In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, protagonists Winston and Julia both believe that the thoughts in their minds are free from the all-pervasive surveillance in their reality.

“They can make you say anything–anything–but they can't make you believe it,” Julia tells Winston.

Winston believes that “with all their cleverness, they had never mastered the secret of finding out what another human being was thinking.”

Toward the end of the book, Julia and Winston learn the state can, in fact, read the minds of its subjects as O’Brien, Winston's captor, can recite Winston’s thoughts right back to him, like when Winston feared his backbone might snap.

“You are afraid,” says O'Brien while keeping his eyes focused on Winston, “that in another moment, something is going to break. Your special fear is that it will be your backbone.” There are other instances where Orwell illustrates mind-reading capabilities in the hands of evil.

“Then why bother to torture me?” Winston wonders bitterly. Orwell writes:

O'Brien checked his step as though Winston had uttered the thought aloud.

“You are thinking," he said, "that since we intend to destroy you utterly so that nothing that you say or do can make the smallest difference--in that case, why do we go about the trouble of interrogating you first? That is what you were thinking, was it not?"

Winston: "Yes.”

Our freedom depends on our inner cognition being our own and available to no one else. A dual approach of embedded ethics and jurisprudence will be key to safeguarding the future of our precious human rights on Earth.