‘Oh Really?’ Hints of new law in ‘Inception’
In ‘Oh, Really?’ the Biederman Blog’s editors — voracious consumers of all matters pop culture — cast a curious, skeptical, fun and smart end-of-the-week eye on popular productions, sharing their keen observations about legal matters these raise. While complex interactions with the human brain such as those seen in the four-Oscar Award winning movie Inception are still far from scientific capability, the development of brain-computer interfaceshave become less science fiction and closer to reality. What potential legal issues could arise from interacting with the human brain on such a rich level, inputting and outputting from the deepest repositories of the brain? In Inception, Cobb (played by Leonard DiCaprio) can enter the dreaming mind of another person to steal his secrets. Are we capable of seeing what a brain is dreaming? Matthew Wilson at MIT used implants in a rat’s brain to see how neurons fire, revealing patterns as the rat is moving through the maze. Using the implant and an attached computer, Wilson recorded particular patterns corresponding to specific parts of the maze as the mouse ran the maze. Then Wilson recorded nearly identical patterns while the rat was sleeping. Apparently, the rat was dreaming about running the maze. This is a far cry from the what we saw in Inception. However, this relatively low resolution interface to the rat’s brain is likely just a preview of the interfaces...
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