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Your Right to Mental Privacy in the Age of Brain-Sensing Tech | Nita Farahany | TED

Neurotechnology, or devices that let you track your own brain activity, could help you deeply understand your health. But without privacy protections, your innermost thoughts, emotions and desires could be at risk of exploitation, says neurotech and AI ethicist Nita Farahany. She details some of the field’s promising potential uses — like tracking and treating…

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Neurotechnology, or devices that let you track your own brain activity, could help you deeply understand your health. But without privacy protections, your innermost thoughts, emotions and desires could be at risk of exploitation, says neurotech and AI ethicist Nita Farahany. She details some of the field’s promising potential uses — like tracking and treating diseases from depression to epilepsy — and shares concerns about who collects our brain data and how they plan to use it, ultimately calling for the legal recognition of “cognitive liberty” as we connect our brains and minds to technology.

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35 Comments

35 Comments

  1. Educate me

    May 30, 2023 at 11:56 am

    Why should I listen to a lawyer about dangers of technology?

    • Michael Withington-Walsh

      May 30, 2023 at 12:30 pm

      because it’s about the laws surrounding it, dunce.

  2. cypher

    May 30, 2023 at 12:13 pm

    neuralink?

  3. Cody Rall MD with Techforpsych

    May 30, 2023 at 12:33 pm

    Great presentation Nita!

  4. Chirag Garg

    May 30, 2023 at 1:32 pm

    Demanding mental privacy will itself get labelled as a mental disorder by the people who misuse such information.

    • Lissanne

      May 30, 2023 at 6:16 pm

      You’re right on this one. Great care must be in place before the data misuse, and “labeling” of people can happen.

    • St8Genesis

      May 30, 2023 at 8:49 pm

      Wtf no, no one is calling that a mental disorder, stop spreading bs

    • Fine Artist Kelli Jean Stretesky

      June 1, 2023 at 3:25 am

      Absolutely true, while pros like her deny the tech exists as if that’s ethical, and legal to help with terrorism.

  5. bergstrom oliver

    May 30, 2023 at 1:51 pm

    Mental Privacy.

  6. Steve Jaross

    May 30, 2023 at 2:00 pm

    I never had my right for mental privacy. People always invade in secrecy. All I had is denial and sweet old lies. I came to accept that freedom is a man made delusion. We will be always serving the laws of physics and nature.

  7. NIL

    May 30, 2023 at 2:32 pm

    get over it, psychics do this all the time, and you know what_ YOU ARE BORING AS HECK

  8. Haz Matman

    May 30, 2023 at 3:07 pm

    How long before the rich get metal plates implanted in their skulls to shield from brain scans?

  9. LethiuxX

    May 30, 2023 at 4:02 pm

    I find it astonishing that we as people still need to agree to all of these legal policies when consuming products.
    The companies should be agreeing to policies and we should just be able to consume the products without worrying about all of the terrible crap they could do with our private information.

  10. Maya Shankar

    May 30, 2023 at 5:15 pm

    Great job Nita!! I loved watching this live :):)

  11. Youbewb

    May 30, 2023 at 5:17 pm

    “….if people can confidently share their brain data privately…” ….Sigh… so unfortunately naive….

  12. Dojchin Stanojkov

    May 30, 2023 at 5:47 pm

    Condolences for your daughter. We also lost a child, and it is not easy …. Life goes on, and God help us all in such moments

  13. Lissanne

    May 30, 2023 at 6:08 pm

    We need to work harder on privacy rights. Before the bad compromised data is stolen and misused.

    • Ango Nuts

      May 31, 2023 at 1:24 am

      One thing I don’t get is: can you make a simple example of an instance where MY ( my individual brain data) can be misused against me?

      One single example. Because I can’t think of any.

    • Md Atif

      May 31, 2023 at 4:35 pm

      @Ango Nuts Your brain data, when combined with other personal information available online, could be used to create detailed psychological profiles without your knowledge or consent. These profiles could be used for various purposes, such as targeted manipulation, harassment, or even identity theft.

    • Lissanne

      May 31, 2023 at 4:41 pm

      “If” AI could eventually track the electrical patterns of the brain, a person’s specific pattern could show mild schizophrenia or mental issues that a person doesn’t want anyone to know about. This information could keep a person from a job., or force then into treatment that is expensive and not needed. The examples at this point are endless.

  14. Leanne

    May 30, 2023 at 6:09 pm

    If it can be misused and abused, it will be – a tale as old as time.

  15. Janelle S

    May 30, 2023 at 8:25 pm

    Does this mean tinfoil hats might become actually useful?

    • Demon Z

      May 30, 2023 at 9:51 pm

      no.

  16. St8Genesis

    May 30, 2023 at 8:48 pm

    Thankfully, our bodies have a good at of adapting to its surroundings. I believe the brain is still vastly more powerful and will devise a way to keep thought private even from those mind reading machines

  17. Rick Dworsky

    May 30, 2023 at 10:28 pm

    Surveillance plus AI will end Freedom of Thought. Don’t buy into the cheap art, or the hype.

  18. uju is my universe

    May 31, 2023 at 1:20 am

    Cognitive liberty

  19. Md Atif

    May 31, 2023 at 1:46 am

    I feel like leaving this all tech stuff and going back to ancestry tools. Maybe agricultural now. This world has gone too far to digest now.

  20. Agada Victor

    May 31, 2023 at 2:59 am

    Absolutely thought provoking!

  21. Levente More

    May 31, 2023 at 6:34 am

    how about leaving alone this obsession to try to control other people’s brain by any possible LIE that you can cobble you minions…………

  22. PonyCar Resurrection

    May 31, 2023 at 9:51 am

    Or- you can create AI controlled meat bots to fight wars, Police Civilians, collect taxes.

  23. SayRay

    May 31, 2023 at 11:38 pm

    Has 1984 arrived?

  24. MrJeffrey938

    June 1, 2023 at 5:13 pm

    Here I was all paranoid about tech reading my thoughts as I lusted over Nita’s perfect face, then she takes a hard left turn into child death. Got me to sit up and listen. Good talk.

  25. hyi yime- #NeverForget tech pigs dont prefer human

    June 1, 2023 at 5:40 pm

    There are hackers with Ai enslaving people as free victims

  26. Striped Goat

    June 3, 2023 at 9:48 am

    The western world is on a completely wrong path… Trying to play God…

  27. Evelyn Song

    June 4, 2023 at 5:52 pm

    the social and ethical issues of human brain – surveillence ‘cognitive liberty’ very inspiring talk

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How to Invite Creativity into Your Life | Rose B. Simpson, Debbie Millman | TED

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What do you hear when you sit in silence? For artist Rose B. Simpson, that question is the beginning of all art. She comes from a line of ceramic artists stretching back generations and, as part of her multidisciplinary work, she also builds custom lowrider cars. (If that sounds like a contradiction, that’s kind of the point.) In conversation with “Design Matters” podcast host Debbie Millman, Simpson invites you to find your own aesthetic — not by searching, but by listening. (Recorded at TEDNext 2025 on November 10, 2025)

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Meet the World’s Fastest Steam-Powered Rocketbike

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Go behind the scenes with Force of Nature, the world’s fastest steam-powered rocketbike.

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4:20 Post-Race Analysis & Chasing Records

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