Dr. Tom Keenan FCIPS, I.S.P., Professor Faculty of Environmental Design & Dept. of Computer Science University of Calgary THE SAFETY OF NANOTECHNOLOGY USED FOR CRYONIC REVIVAL July 20, 2010 Copyright 2010, T.P. Keenan Preserving Privacy Across Cryonic Revival The Risks of a Retrospective Lifelog Some big assumptions People will be revived from cryonic suspension They will retain aspects of their memory, personality, etc. (see Rothblatt paper in 2007 proceedings on Testably Defining Consciousness and Self-Consciousness Scale) They will be helpless for some period of time They will proceed to live their lives and have the same rights as pre-suspension What is fMRI? Scan that measures changes in blood flow Non-invasive No radiation Based on a 1990 discovery by Ogawa Relies on advances in physics and of course neuroanatomy Functional MRI (fMRI) is becoming a routine tool in medical research fMRI of people while hallucinating When people have these simple geometrical hallucinations, the primary visual cortex is activated. When images are formed, a higher part of the visual cortex is involved in the temporal lobe. And in particular, one area of the temporal lobe is called the fusiform gyrus. (Sacks Ted Talk) fMRI to assess inner speech Alain Morin, PhD, Mount Royal UniversityLeft Inferior Frontal Gyrus Did meta-analysis of studies of various activities, from recognizing yourself in a mirror to forming conclusions about yourself Enter the Villains fMRI lie detector companies Lawyers (Brian Dugan case) Neuropundits and Journalists (Hilary Clinton activated the disgust center in the brain) Neuromarketers US Military (psychiatric neuroimaging) Image courtesy dicts.com DARPAs real busy in this area Funded a contest to predict reactions to third season of TV sitcom solely from MRI data Augmented Cognition, to sense if a soldier is too tired to fight or perhaps too angry to search a civilian Lifelog chip to record everything you sense Even how we walk is being studied Human gaits, for example, can provide a lot of information about peoples intentions. At the American Armys Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, a team of gait analysts and psychologists led by Frank Morelli study video, much of it conveniently posted on the internet by insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Economist, October 23, 2008 The Problem is People We Want Things to be Simple As cognitive neuroscientists who use the same brain imaging technology, we know that it is not possible to definitively determine whether a person is anxious or feeling connected simply by looking at activity in a particular brain region. This is so because brain regions are typically engaged by many mental states, and thus a one-to-one mapping between a brain region and a mental state is not possible. Adam Aron, Ph.D. & 16 others, NY Times The Problem is People We Can Have Terrible Judgment What if this was Your Son? /1 02/08/ :50 AM LEV****K, JACOB 02/27/ BURGLARY- STRUCTURE The Problem is People We Want Technology To Solve Everything I am 100% certain that fMRI will be horribly mis-used Since there is every reason to expect future misuse of memories... The privacy risks should be disclosed to those considering cryonic suspension (as part of informed consent) The suspension contract should contemplate, as much as possible, the data mining from people revived from suspension Access to brain dumps by law enforcement, governments, data collection firms, etc. may need to be regulated. Thank you! Dr. Tom Keenan, FCIPSThis image courtesy Elise Pelchat