August 25, 2008

Uncle Sam Wants Your Brain

Drugs that make soldiers want to fight. Robots linked directly to their controllers' brains. Lie-detecting scans administered to terrorist suspects as they cross U.S. borders.

These are just a few of the military uses imagined for cognitive science -- and if it's not yet certain whether the technologies will work, the military is certainly taking them very seriously.

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One potential use involves making soldiers want to fight. Conversely, "How can we disrupt the enemy’s motivation to fight? [...] How can we make people trust us more? What if we could help the brain to remove fear or pain? Is there a way to make the enemy obey our commands?"

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"I think most reasonable people, if they imagine a world in which all sides have figured out how to control brains, they'd rather not go there," he said. "Most rational human beings would believe that if we could have a world where nobody does military neuroscience, we'll all be better off. But for some people in the Pentagon, it's too delicious to ignore."


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