A proof-of-concept neural brain implant providing speech

Curious how much intentionality is required from the user to produce sounds. It would be unfortunate if this device just started firing off speech for what would otherwise be thoughts one would not say out loud. I suppose that depends on the mechanism required to activate the neurons to which the device is connected.

I hope it's something better than "Hey Siri, say..."

Otherwise, yeah, that would be a new sort of hell where you had no private inner monologue

Without having RTFA, I'd guess/predict that it will be possible to learn to only do this intentionally, much like we can think about raising our arm without actually raising it.

Even without this device there's been some consideration to the thought that the conscious brain is merely an observer since it appears to activate after the unconscious brain takes actions. You just go along with what the unconscious mind did in actions and speech and you convince yourself you meant to do that after the fact.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3746176/

So here it could indeed just fire off speech and you know what? We'd probably convince ourselves that we absolutely meant to do that. In fact it could be a very interesting experiment (with willing participants). Mess with the inputs the device receives so it's not really the person activating it, let it do it's thing and see if they notice when they do/don't have control of it.

The brain is incredibly adaptive, I guarantee eventually it would learn to avoid firing the neurons the device is probing when you don't want your inner monologue spoken aloud as long as there's a feedback loop where you experience negative emotions when something you didn't want spoken aloud was broadcast.

Funny, I was just pondering this last night - how I often realize this phenomenon immediately after it occurs, and feel helpless when I realize it. It's like two minds, one that is moving my hands to pile mangoes into my face, as the other is telling me to save some mangoes for later (they're very hard to stop eating). But on a more serious note, now that I realize I realize it, I realize it a lot.

I once got too enthusiastic about eating mangoes and my face learned that the skin contains urushiol like poison ivy.

I find this simultaneously fascinating and disturbing; once you have someone using this, they become a hitherto-impossible human-AI hybrid, where their mind is now a fusion between the two, completely unnoticed to the user.

It’s intentional and requires quite a lot of focus.

The original paper [0] mentions electrodes are placed over Broca’s area (speech production, translates words to mouth movements) and motor area (adjusts the mouth movements). It’s attempted speech, not thoughts.

There is a lot of fear in mainstream media and populace of devices decoding thoughts, but that is a significantly harder problem, at this moment on the level of sci-fi of Civilisation Type II on Kardashev scale. There is a reason why the electrodes are not over Wernicke’s area instead (language comprehension and production).

0: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06377-x

Even though the conscious brain doesn't always directly control motor skills, I wouldn't call it "merely an observer". It's your consciousness that decides your goals and beliefs; the rest of the body "learns" those things and is then preconditioned to react accordingly.

But they are separate systems. Harsh experiences (traumas) can teach your body some bad lessons in such a way that not even your conscious mind can overcome. In these situations, you can't "think your way out" of these traumatic consequences in, say, a talk therapy session; you need to deal with the body directly/somatically to recover instead.

> It's your consciousness that decides your goals and beliefs; the rest of the body "learns" those things and is then preconditioned to react accordingly.

Quotation needed.

Very excellent point. One simple possibility I could imagine to mitigate this would be having an additional device/button one had to physically press in order for the thoughts to be vocalized. I think that would be an extremely simple but clear indication of intentionality.