neurotechnology

You like Ologists. Ologists write books. You like books, so let’s dive into a new, curated sampler platter from your favorite guests’ books.. Fill your ears with dark carnivals, boney catacombs, Rocky Mountain bears and wolves, flies you should love, maggots that make you beautiful, fungus that might be evil, why you should not care what other people eat, queer dolphins, invisible moose, monkey facts, fitness/mental health tips, and how to save money at the salon. Let this melange of literary snippets serve as a refresher of favorite episodes, a teaser for ones you haven’t heard, or just a gentle nudge toward a bookshop. (Or the link below to buy online.)

Links to these books (& the Ologists’ episodes)

2019’s Audiobook Mixtape 1 Episode

2021’s Audiobook Mixtape 2 Episode

A donation went to 826LA.org

Smologies (short, classroom-safe) episodes

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Transcripts and bleeped episodes

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Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions

Managing Director: Susan Hale

Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth

Transcripts by Emily White of The Wordary

Website by Kelly R. Dwyer

Theme song by Nick Thorburn

We are on the cusp of an explosion of cheap,  consumer-ready neurotechnology - from earbuds that gather our behavioral data,  to sensors that can read our dreams. And it’s all going to be supercharged by AI. This technology is moving from niche to mainstream - and it has the same potential to become exponential. 

Legal scholar Nita Farahany talks us through the current state of neurotechnology and its deep links to AI. She says that we urgently need to protect the last frontier of privacy: our internal thoughts. And she argues that without a new legal framework around “cognitive liberty,” we won’t be able to insulate our brains from corporate and government intrusion.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology by Nita Farahany

The Battle for Your Brain offers a path forward to navigate the complex dilemmas that will fundamentally impact our freedom to understand, shape, and define ourselves

Computer Program Reveals What Neurons in the Visual Cortex Prefer to Look At

A study of macaque monkeys at Harvard generated valuable clues based on an artificial intelligence system that can reliably determine what neurons in the brain’s visual cortex prefer to see

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshall McLuhan

An influential work by a fixture in media discourse

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES 

The Three Rules of Humane Tech

Talking With Animals… Using AI

How to Free Our Minds with Cult Deprogramming Expert Dr. Steven Hassan

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

Machine poets. ChatGPT fails. Neurological surveillance. Brain implants that treat depression. Is it scary? Cool? Let’s firehose some questions at Duke Law professor, neuro and bioethicist, author and TED speaker Dr. Nita Farahany. She explains the history of AI, the dawn of chatbots, what’s changed recently, the potential for good, the possible perils, how different lawmakers are stepping in, and whether or not this is scary dinner party conversation. Do you have feelings about AI and brain implants? Hopefully, and we talk about why. 

Buy Dr. Nita Farahany’s books: The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology (2023) and The Impact of Behavioral Sciences on Criminal Law (2009)

Dr. Farahany’s 2023 TED Talk: Your right to mental privacy in the age of brain-sensing tech

Follow Dr. Farahany on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter

A donation was made to Human Rights Watch

More episode sources and links

Smologies (short, classroom-safe) episodes

Other episodes you may enjoy: Field Trip: A Hollywood Visit to the Writers Guild Strike Line, Neuropathology (CONCUSSIONS), Attention-Deficit Neuropsychology (ADHD), Molecular Neurobiology (BRAIN CHEMICALS), Radiology (X-RAY VISION), Futurology (THE FUTURE), Gizmology (ROBOTS), Diabetology (DIABETES)

Sponsors of Ologies

Transcripts and bleeped episodes

Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month

OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, masks, totes!

Follow @Ologies on Twitter and Instagram

Follow @AlieWard on Twitter and Instagram

Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media and Mark David Christenson 

Transcripts by Emily White of The Wordary

Website by Kelly R. Dwyer

Theme song by Nick Thorburn

Nita Farahany (@NitaFarahany) is a law professor at Duke University; a leading expert on the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging technologies; and the author of The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology.

What We Discuss with Nita Farahany:

• Consumer technology that can track, decode, and even manipulate what goes on in the brain is no longer just a plot device in some far-flung sci-fi novel — it's already beginning to come to market.
• An ALS patient recently set a record for communicating through a brain implant at 62 words per minute (in comparison, ALS-afflicted physicist Stephen Hawking was only able to communicate at about 15 words per minute by the time of his death in 2018).
• Though still in its infancy, consciously transmitted brain-to-brain communication has proven successful in the laboratory.
• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans can accurately sense political bias from subjects' unconscious thoughts.
• Brain scans reveal that a significant percentage of coma patients who can't speak or move are aware of the world around them and can communicate through electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors.
• And much more...

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/810

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Precision Neuroscience’s Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer joins Molly to discuss how the brain communicates with the body (7:08) and the breakthroughs that allowed companies like Precision to exist. (12:52) Then, they discuss Precision’s founding principles, the process of getting FDA approval for its neural interface, and much more. (28:55)

(0:00) Molly kicks off the show

(1:27) Dr. Rapoport’s origin story

(7:08) How the brain communicates with the body

(11:22) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://Squarespace.com/TWIST

(12:52) Breakthroughs in neuroscience

(22:37) Contra - a commission-free marketplace for freelancers and independent creators. Get $500 off your first hire at https://contra.com/twist 

(24:06) The tension between public and private institutions

(28:55) The founding principles of Precision Neuroscience

(33:21) The Layer 7 interface and preparing for FDA approval

(40:39) LMNT - Get a free sample pack with any purchase at https://DrinkLMNT.com/TWIST

(42:07) Minimizing risk

(45:25) Interfacing with different areas of the brain

(47:06) Medical infrastructure and the business model of med-tech

CHECK OUT Precision Neuroscience: https://precisionneuro.io

FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis

FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood

While hackers and malware can certainly cause a great deal of damage and misery, these dangers can’t hurt us physically, right? In this episode of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast, Robert and Joe are sorry to say you’re wrong -- and as more biotechnology and brain-computer interface creeps into our lives, the risk will only go up. Tune in for a discussion on inherent vulnerability, looming technology and what needs to happen to protect us. (Originally published June 1, 2017)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Explore the inner workings of the human mind, the mysteries of memory, The Matrix, deep learning, the ethics of driverless cars, ELIZA, and much more with Neil deGrasse Tyson, comic co-host Chuck Nice, and neuroscientist Dr. Gary Marcus.
NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/cosmic-queries-minds-and-machines/
Image Credit: metamorworks/iStock.

If mind control is possible, whether enabled by hard neurotechnology or good old fashioned social and linguistic suggestion, what does it feel like? What is it like to be controlled by a will other than your own? Would you even know it was happening? Robert and Joe explore in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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The future of brain-machine interaction will expand human intelligence and forever alter our experience of reality, but where are we now and how long till neurotechnology elevates us to higher human form? Find out in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.