this Ted talk features professor, lawyer and author Neeta A. Farahani recorded live at Ted Salon. The next Wave. 2018. In the months following the 2009 presidential election in Iran, protest erupted across the country. The Iranian government violently suppressed what came to be known as the Iranian Green movement, even blocking mobile signals to cut off communication between the protesters. My parents, who emigrated to the United States in the late 19 sixties, spend substantial time there where all of my large extended family live. When I would call my family and Tehran during some of the most violent crackdown of the protest, none of them dare discuss with me what was happening. They are, I knew too quickly steer the conversation to other topics. All of us understood what the consequences could be off the perceived dissident action.

But I still wish I could have known what they were sinking or what they were feeling. What if I could have or more frighteningly, what if the Iranian government could have? Would they have arrested them based on what their brains revealed? That day may be closer than you think, with our growing capabilities in neuroscience artificial intelligence and machine learning. We may soon know a lot more of what's happening in the human brain. As a bioethicist, Ah, lawyer ah, philosopher and an Iranian American. I'm deeply concerned about what this means for our freedoms and what kinds of protections we need. I believe we need a right to cognitive liberty as a human right that needs to be protected, if not our freedom of thought, access and control over our own brains and our my mental privacy will be threatened. Consider this.

The average person thinks thousands of thoughts each day as a thought takes form like a math calculation or a number A word. Neurons are interacting in the brain, creating minuscule electrical discharge. When you've a dominant mental state like relax ation, hundreds and thousands of neurons are firing in the brain, creating concurrent electrical discharges and characteristic patterns that could be measured with electroencephalogram fee or E e. G. In fact, that's what you're seeing. Right now you're seeing my brain activity that was recorded in real time with a simple device that was worn on my head. Where you're seeing is my brain activity. When I was relaxed and curious to share this information with you. I wore one of the early consumer based E E G devices like this one, which recorded the electrical activity in my brain in real time. It's not unlike the fitness trackers that some of you may be wearing to measure your heart rate or the steps that you've taken, or even your sleep activity.

It's hardly the most sophisticated neuroimaging technique on the market, but it's already the most portable and the most likely to impact our everyday lives. This is extraordinary there a simple, wearable device we can literally see inside the human brain and learn aspects of our mental landscape without ever uttering a word. What we can't reliably decode complex thought to just yet, We can already gauge a person's mood. And with the help of artificial intelligence, we can even decode some single digit numbers or shapes or simple words that a person is thinking or hearing or seeing. Despite some inherent limitations in E e G. I think it's safe to say that with our advances and technology, more and more off what's happening in the human brain can and will be decoded over time, already using one of these devices, An epileptic can know they're gonna have an epileptic seizure before it happens. Ah, paraplegic can type on a computer with their thoughts alone. Ah,

U s based company has developed a technology to embed these sensors into the head rest of automobiles. So they contract driver, concentration, distraction and cognitive load while driving Nissan insurance companies and Triple A have all taken note. You can even watch this. Choose your own adventure movie the moment which, with an e e g headset, changes the movie based on your brain based reactions, giving you a different ending every time your attention wanes. This may all sound great, and as a bioethicist, I am a huge proponent of empowering people to take charge of their own health and while being by giving them access to information about themselves, including this incredible new brain decoding technology. But I worry. I worry that we will voluntarily or involuntarily give up our last bashed in of freedom our mental privacy that we will trade or brain activity for rebates or discounts on insurance or free access to social media accounts, or even to keep our jobs.

In fact, in China, the train drivers on the Beijing Shanghai High speed rail, the busiest of its kind in the world, are required to wear E E G devices to monitor their brain activity while driving, according to some new sources. In government run factories in China, the workers are required to wear E E G sensors to monitor their productivity and their emotional states at work. Workers Air even sent home if their brains show less than stellar concentration on their jobs or emotional agitation. It's not gonna happen tomorrow, but we're headed to a world of brain transparency, and I don't think people understand that that could change everything. Everything from our definitions of data privacy toe are lost our ideas about freedom. In fact, in my lab at Duke University, we recently conducted a nationwide study in the United States to see if people appreciated the sensitivity of their brain information.

We asked people to rate their perceived sensitivity of 33 different kinds of information from their Social Security numbers, thio the content of their phone conversations, their relationship history, their emotions, their anxiety, the mental images in their minds and the thoughts in their mind. Shockingly, people rated their Social Security number as far more sensitive than any other kind of information, including their brain data. I think this is because people don't yet understand or believe the implications of this new brain decoding technology. After all, if we can know the inner workings of the human brain, our Social Security numbers are the least of our worries. Think about it in a world of total brain transparency, who would dare have a politically dissident thought or a creative one? I worry that people will some self censor in fear of being ostracized by society.

Or the people will lose their jobs because of their waning attention or emotional instability, or because they're contemplating collective action against their employers. That coming out will no longer be an option, because people's brains will long ago have revealed their sexual orientation, their political ideology or the religious preferences well before they were ready to consciously share that information with other people. I worry about the ability of our laws to keep up with technological change. Take the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech. Does it also protect freedom of thought? And if so, does that mean that we're free to alter our thoughts however we want. Or can the government or society tell us what we can do with our own brains? Can the n s a spy on our brains using these new mobile devices? Can the companies that collect the brain data through their applications sell this information to third parties Right now? No laws prevent them from doing so. It could be even more problematic in countries that don't share the same freedoms enjoyed by people in the United States.

What would have happened during the Iranian green movement if the government had been monitoring my family's brain activity and had believed them to be sympathetic to the protesters? Is it so far fetched to imagine a society in which people are arrested based on their thoughts of committing a crime, like in the science fiction dystopian society Minority report already in the United States? In Indiana, an 18 year old was charged with attempting to intimidate his school by posting a video of himself shooting people in the hallways. Except the people were zombies and the video was of him playing an augmented reality video game, all interpreted to be a mental projection off his subject of intent. This is exactly why our brains need special protection if our brains are just a subject to data tracking an aggregation as our financial records and transactions. If our brains can be hacked and tracked like our online activities are mobile phones and applications there were on the brink of a dangerous threat to our collective humanity. Before you panic, I believe that there are solutions to these concerns. We have to start by focusing on the right things when it comes to privacy protections. In general, I think we're fighting a losing battle by trying to restrict the flow of information. Instead, we should be focusing on securing rights and remedies against the misuse of our information.

If people had the right to decide how their information was shared and, more importantly, had legal redress is their information was misused against them, say, to discriminate against them in unemployment setting or in health care and education. This would go a long way to build trust. In fact, in some instances, we want to be sharing Maura of our personal information. Studying aggregated information could tell us so much about her health and our well being. But to be able to safely share our information, we need special protections for mental privacy. This is why we need a right to cognitive liberty. This right with secure for us, our freedom of thought and rumination, our freedom of self determination.

And it would ensure that we have the right to consent to or refuse access an alteration of our brains by others. This right could be recognized as part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has established mechanisms for the enforcement of these kinds of social rights. During the Iranian green movement, the protesters used the Internet and good old fashioned word of mouth to coordinate their marches, and some of the most oppressive restrictions and Iran were lifted as a result. But what if the Iranian government had used brain surveillance to detect and prevent the protest with world Have ever heard the protesters cries? The time has come for us to call for a cognitive liberty revolution to make sure that we responsibly advanced technology that could enable us to embrace the future while fiercely protecting all of us from any person, company or government that attempts toe unlawfully access or alter our innermost lives. Thank you for more Ted talks go to ted dot com,