You wouldn't want a computer to unquestioningly act on what's inside your head.
Photograph: Getty Images/Science Photo Library
Resist the mind probe. Thicken your skull. Staple a doormat around it if necessary.
Ever since about 1998, when humankind began fast- forwarding through the gradually-unfolding history of progress, like someone impatiently zipping through a YouTube clip in search of the best bits, we've grown accustomed to machines veering from essential to obsolete in the blink of a trimester. VHS, the Walkman, fax machines, CD-Roms, pagers, dial-up modems . . . all consigned to the same wing of the museum housing the mangle and the horse-drawn plough.
The junk mountain grows by the day. If your home is anything like mine, it contains several rarely explored crannies stashed full of archaic chargers, defunct cables, and freshly antiquated gizmos whose sole useful function in 2011 is to make 2005 feel like 1926, simply by looking big and dull and impossibly lumpen. Everyone's opened a drawer and been startled by the unexpected discovery of an old mobile phone that now resembles an outsized pantomime prop. To think you used to be impressed by this clunky breezeblock. You were like a caveman gawping at a yo-yo.
Now it's almost time to hurl another outmoded device down the historical garbage chute: your body. Last week, researchers at Washington University unveiled a new mind-control computer system. Traditional mind-control systems – and the fact that any mind-control system can be referred to as "traditional" shows you how nuts-deep into the future we already are – require the user to don an EEG skullcap before thinking very hard about specific actions. The resultant brainwaves are then crudely interpreted and the device reacts accordingly. But practical use is severely restricted thanks to the human skull, which muffles some signals and amplifies others. It's like trying to work out what your neighbours are up to by pressing your ear against the wall: fun, but often wildly misleading.
Which is where electrocorticography comes in. Electrocorticography basically means "sticking sensors directly on to the surface of the brain". Once you've done that, you get a far more reliable signal. Already they've had volunteers controlling an onscreen cursor by imagining different vowel sounds. As soon as they refine it further, giving the user the ability to steer the pointer around and click on things, the days of mass-market Wi-Fi mind-controlled iPads will be upon us before you can smother your kids in their sleep to protect them from precisely such a future.
But is this really so sinister? All computers are mind-controlled already. My hand may steer the mouse and my fingers may punch the keys, but none of this takes place without my mental say-so. My brain runs things round here. Surely all a mind-controlled interface does is cut out the corporeal middleman, leaving your fingers free to do something more useful, such as plugging your ears so you can't hear the horrified screams spontaneously exploding from your facehole? What's the problem?
The problem is that the body is the final, crucial buffer between the skittish human mind and the slavish machine servant. Think of how many furious email responses you've composed in haste, only to halt and reflect at the final moment as your finger hovers over the "send" button. The simple fact that a small physical action is required to actually deliver the damn thing is often enough to give pause for thought.
When mind-controlled computers become a commonplace reality, you'll have typed and sent that message in the time it takes to stub a toe; as quick as pulling a facial expression, but more detailed, and full of swearwords.
And while your brain might be great at controlling machines, how great are you at controlling your brain? What if, 10 years in the future, you're watching a cartoon on your futuristic 3D computer television, and the cartoon's got a rabbit in it, and the rabbit's slightly coquettish and flirty, and the knowing way it flicks that cotton tail as it hops makes you think about sex momentarily, and before you know it, your brain's retrieved some disgraceful bestial rabbit porn from the very worst corners of the Ultranet, and is relaying it on the display in lurid 96-inch holographic guttervision just as your wife and kid come back from the shops? And then, drunk on self-destructive power, your computer-mind takes a four-second video-snapshot of your own child's horrified gasping face and mischievously scribbles a load of penises and swastikas all over it, and uploads this vandalised looping portrait to your 3D holographic Facebook page accompanied by a headline screaming WITNESS MY NADIR – JUDGE ME! JUDGE ME! JUDGE ME ONE AND ALL!
Let's face it, if you're honest, there's a whole world of shit routinely fizzing and popping around in your head that you wouldn't want a computer to unquestioningly act on. Remember: when they triumphantly unveil an iPhone that lets you dial your sweetheart simply by thinking about their face, don't be fooled into thinking it's wonderful. It's a slippery slope. Resist the mind probe. Thicken your skull. Staple a doormat around it if necessary. Keep those thoughts trapped inside where they belong. Because if the imp of the mind ever sidesteps the body and gets its hand directly on the steering wheel, humankind can look forward to six months of unpredictable chaos, then doomsday.
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