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A key House Democrat warned Thursday that the Chinese government is intent on developing mind-reading technology, and he said Beijing won’t limit its experiments to its soldiers and officials.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Democrat urged Americans to take the threat seriously as he detailed the House Select Committee on the China’s work digging into human experiments. He said the Chinese scientists are conducting a range of research to create biologically enhanced soldiers and is even experimenting with mind-control tools.
“By some reports, it’s even researching mind-reading software to ensure [Chinese Communist Party] officials remain loyal to the party. You can’t make this stuff up,” Mr. Krishnamoorthi said at a committee hearing. “And the CCP is not content to simply experiment on its own soldiers or read the minds of its own officials. They are collecting large quantities of genetic data from Americans.”
Mr. Krishnamoorthi cited claims from Chinese scientists two years ago contending they have made progress with artificial intelligence for mind-reading tech that measured brain activity and facial expressions to determine people’s loyalty to the regime. The lawmaker said such new tech could let the Chinese leader “supercharge” their surveillance capabilities.
The committee’s top-ranking Democrat is not the only U.S. official worried about China’s mind-control tech programs.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Mark Wess expressed concern last year about China’s experiments with brain-machine interfaces and said Beijing has far less concern for the tech’s reversibility and people’s well-being than do U.S. researchers.
Writing for the U.S. Naval Institute, he urged the U.S. to consider the threat that the new technology could one day carry out a complete mapping of brains so that neurons could be identified as attached to memories.
“Can a person’s BMI be hacked to extract information from a mind?” Lt. Cmdr. Wess wrote. “Could someone be interrogated merely by hooking them up to a BMI?”
The Defense Department blocked Lt. Cmdr. Wess from speaking with The Washington Times last year.
Researchers around the world are searching for answers to such questions. There is considerable debate about exactly what capabilities China’s government and others have created.
“Intention-detection” technology powered by AI models has attracted the interest of many governments, including China. In 2019, China’s Tianjin University and China Electronics Corp. said they created a “Brain Talker” device capable of decoding a subject’s mental intent through electrical signals.
The CCP BioThreats Initiative, a private research group, published a study in December saying China’s military was at the forefront of incorporating brain-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence and biological weapons into its strategy, including tools for sleep-inducing biological weapons and devices linking brains to powerful tech capable of influencing a person’s decision-making.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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