Speaker 0:  your brain is literally broadcasting a magnetic signal right now, and scientists have finally figured out how to tune in. we're talking about technology that can turn your thoughts into text and the hidden danger of magnetic smog building up in our heads. every time a neuron fires, it creates a tiny magnetic field, and new research shows that we can now use super sensitive sensors to decode those fields to see what you're picturing, what you are about to say, and even how you're feeling. it's the closest thing we've ever come to true mind reading, but it also reveals a scary link between city air pollution and brain health. what's going on here, john?

Speaker 1:  yeah. so in neuroscience and ai research, especially at meta's fair lab, scientists have been developing models that decode information from brain activity without invasive implants. okay. so by using techniques like meg, magneto i can't even pronounce it. and eeg, which measure the brain's magnetic and electrical fields at millisecond resolution. ai is trained to map these signals to sentences or images people are thinking or typing. so for example, in one published study, a model successfully decoded the letter someone typed using meg data with surprisingly high accuracy. we're talking up to 80% under certain conditions. so this demonstrates that rich information about moment to moment cognitive processes is present in the global fields generated by neural activity. now the article then leaps to speculation. k? so since the brain naturally emits electromagnetic fields as neurons fire, and ai can decode these external measurements, perhaps the brain itself could, in principle, read its own field as a global summary signal. and the author cites examples from biology where organisms sense magnetic fields to suggest evolution might similarly harness electromagnetic signals as part of neural coordination. so they also reference the existence of magnetic mineral particles, which is magnetite in human brains, which have been observed in neuroscience research and could hypothetically interact with internal fields. so just to kind of build on that, the piece proposes a speculative feedback loop. so magnetic crystals in the brain might detect the overall magnetic field pattern and influence local, neuronal responses and also trigger systems like the locus corallis, which releases norepinephrine and plays a role in arousal, attention, learning, and cognitive flexibility. so in this view, the brain would be using its own field as kind of like a real time compressed summary to coordinate large scale functional state changes. that's pretty deep. what, like, what did you get out of this? what are your thoughts on this, craig? i think there's a lot of great implications if this is true.

Speaker 0:  yeah. so i think of it as your brain like a high powered computer, just like a laptop gives off a tiny bit of heat and electromagnetic while it works, your brain leaks magnetic signals. scientists use the magnetic encephalograph, to basically a giant super sensitive antenna to pick up that so it's a breakthrough because it's noninvasive. like, we're not drilling holes in the brain like, neuralink. we don't need to put chips in your head to understand what's happening inside, and it helps doctors right now at least find the exact spot causing a seizure or can help a paralyzed person communicate by thinking. so i really think this is cool because, you know, this could have some really interesting impacts on our life mind to text feature. we could allow you to type an email just by thinking your words. better mental health doctors could see glitches in your brain's magnetic signature to catch issues like alzheimer or depression years early. we know that your breathing in traffic exhaust puts magnetic junk in our brains that can cause inflammation, and, being able to detect this at an environmental awareness and seeing what's happening there might, allow us to treat it better. so they say, for consumer level, mind reading headsets are likely five to ten years away.

Speaker 1:  which isn't that far, because, like, you look at neuralink and things like that, which are more invasive. right? if you can kind of extrapolate the data that they're coming out with, which i don't know if they're releasing, and use that for this, that could certainly help. but, i think that there's there's a lot of great potential applications for this as far as, like, a feedback loop for your brain to help with maybe dopamine or addictions or different things like that?

Speaker 0:  absolutely. but this does definitely get scary in, a lot of ways. like, your brain is now officially hackable. if we can decode your thoughts into text and medical for medical reasons, the door is open for privacy nightmares where company could theoretically ping your brain's magnetic state for data. and critics are terrified of the pollution brain link. we've discovered that magnetic nanoparticles from the car exhaust actually entering our brain through our noses, potentially accelerating dementia and alzheimer's. also, you could just extrapolate that, you know, military are generally wearing helmets or hats all the time. every one of our soldiers would have one of these going on all the time. so, some field commander somewhere could make sure that everything's fine mentally with our soldiers. and then once we understand the brain better, you know that it'll be interfering and making changes. this is the okay. let's stimulate different areas of the brain to reduce pain, to make people happier, to do this, to make people more compliant, whatever. yeah. so we're just that far away. and do we really want these things reading our minds? like, i i you and i both have adhd at different levels, and, you know, our thoughts are all over the place. and i'm always concerned as to what inside my head conversation are you actually gonna pick up because i got six of them going on right now. exactly. and, you know, it's hard for me to shut them all down and focus on one because right now, i'm thinking about the things i have to do after this event, this call. like, i'm thinking about everything else as i'm trying to focus on this because that's how my brain works. i'm trying to push it away. and so when you have something like that sitting on there, what happens? like, is it a muddled cloud? does it clearly get the strongest conversation? does it so there's some thoughts around that. but, from a input and, human computer, cyborg y kind of interaction, there's people who definitely wanna move in this direction. and i guess if you can't type and can't speak on this kind of thing, would be great interaction tool to accelerate your interactions with, the computers with, while being completely noninvasive. so, you don't have to have the brain surgery to move this stuff around. so there's definitely benefits in that area. and the more we know about the brain, the benefits we'll have over, science and medical and whatnot. and maybe, you know, we'll be able to treat prisoners and people with mental disabilities better. i don't know. but when you start thinking about that, that's a slippery slope as well. so i'm a little scared and love it at the same time.

Speaker 1:  yeah. and then there's there's also once we interpret private brain data, well, we're gonna need some robust legal safeguards. right? so

Speaker 0:  yeah. so, we're moving into an era where our thoughts are no longer private, but the same tech might be the key to curing most uncurable brain diseases over time. so would you wear a headset that lets you type with your mind if it meant a tech company had your thought data? you know? right now, companies are putting keyboard trackers and all sorts of trackers on your devices, so they can track what remote employees. working? are they typing? what's going on? but when your camera and the heat signal and whatever in your computer can actually, detect whether you're thinking favorably about the company or not, we're in a different kind of world. so let us know, what your take is on this. i'd love to hear it.

Speaker 1:  yeah.