"The brain scan that can read people's intentions" The Guardian 思考解読機器開発の倫理を問う

-- Call for ethical debate over possible use of new technology in interrogation


A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act….

The research builds on a series of recent studies in which brain imaging has been used to identify tell-tale activity linked to lying, violent behaviour and racial prejudice.

The latest work reveals the dramatic pace at which neuroscience is progressing, prompting the researchers to call for an urgent debate into the ethical issues surrounding future uses for the technology. If brain-reading can be refined, it could quickly be adopted to assist interrogations of criminals and terrorists, and even usher in a "Minority Report" era (as portrayed in the Steven Spielberg science fiction film of that name), where judgments are handed down before the law is broken on the strength of an incriminating brain scan….

"These techniques are emerging and we need an ethical debate about the implications, so that one day we're not surprised and overwhelmed and caught on the wrong foot by what they can do. These things are going to come to us in the next few years and we should really be prepared," Professor Haynes told the Guardian.

Barbara Sahakian, a professor of neuro-psychology at Cambridge University, said the rapid advances in neuroscience had forced scientists in the field to set up their own neuroethics society late last year to consider the ramifications of their research, “…we're moving ahead so rapidly, it's not going to be that long before we will be able to tell whether someone's making up a story, or whether someone intended to do a crime with a certain degree of certainty."

Professor Colin Blakemore, a neuroscientist and director of the Medical Research Council, said: "…what you can be absolutely sure of is that these (techniques) will continue to roll out and we will have more and more ability to probe people's intentions, minds, background thoughts, hopes and emotions…but we need to be thinking the ethical issues through.”

…The technology could also drive advances in brain-controlled computers and machinery to boost the quality of life for disabled people. Being able to read thoughts as they arise in a person's mind could lead to computers that allow people to operate email and the internet using thought alone, and write with word processors that can predict which word or sentence you want to type. The technology is also expected to lead to improvements in thought-controlled wheelchairs and artificial limbs that respond when a person imagines moving.

"You can imagine how tedious it is if you want to write a letter by using a cursor to pick out letters on a screen," said Prof Haynes. "It would be much better if you thought, 'I want to reply to this email', or, 'I'm thinking this word', and the computer can read that and understand what you want to do."

· FAQ: Mind reading

What have the scientists developed?
They have devised a system that analyses brain activity to work out a person's intentions before they have acted on them. More advanced versions may be able to read complex thoughts and even pick them up before the person is conscious of them.

How does it work?
The computer learns unique patterns of brain activity or signatures that correspond to different thoughts. It then scans the brain to look for these signatures and predicts what the person is thinking.

How could it be used?
It is expected to drive advances in brain-controlled computers, leading to artificial limbs and machinery that respond to thoughts. More advanced versions could be used to help interrogate criminals and assess prisoners before they are released. Controversially, they may be able to spot people who plan to commit crimes before they break the law.

What is next?
The researchers are honing the technique to distinguish between passing thoughts and genuine intentions.

Sample, Ian. "The brain scan that can read people's intentions." theguardian.co.uk. 8 Feb. 2007. Guardian News and Media Ltd.

Full Text:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/feb/09/neuroscience.ethicsofscience]

Mayer,"The Experiment -- The Military Methods Misused At Guantanamo?" 米軍の拷問実験

A Pentagon-funded program known as SERE, which stands for “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape” was created by the Air Force, at the end of the Korean War, to teach pilots and other personnel considered at high risk of being captured by enemy forces how to withstand and resist extreme forms of abuse. After the Vietnam War, the program was expanded to the Army and the Navy. Most details of the program’s curriculum are classified…

…after September 11th several psychologists versed in sere techniques began advising interrogators at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. Some of these psychologists essentially “tried to reverse-engineer” the sere program, as the affiliate put it. “They took good knowledge and used it in a bad way,” another of the sources said. Interrogators and bsct members at Guantánamo adopted coercive techniques similar to those employed in the sere program. Ideas intended to help Americans resist abuse spread to Americans who used them to perpetrate abuse. Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at the University of Virginia, is a scholar of state-sponsored experiments on humans. He says, “If you know how to help people who are stressed, then you also know how to stress people, in order to get them to talk.”

….James Mitchell worked for years as a SERE administrator…According to a counter-terrorism expert familiar with the interrogation of the Al Qaeda suspect, Mitchell announced that the suspect needed to be subjected to rougher methods. The man should be treated like the dogs in a classic behavioral-psychology experiment, he said, referring to studies performed in the nineteen-sixties by Martin Seligman and other graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania. The dogs were placed in harnesses and given electric shocks that they could not avoid; they were then released into pens and shocked again, but this time they were given a chance to escape the punishment. Most of them, Seligman observed, passively accepted the shocks. They had lapsed into a condition that he called “learned helplessness.” The suspect’s resistance, Mitchell was apparently saying, could be overcome by inducing a similar sense of futility. (Seligman, now a psychology professor at Penn, has spoken at a SERE school about his dog research.)

Mitchell’s position was opposed by the counter-terrorism expert, who had not spent time at a SERE school. He reminded Mitchell that he was dealing with human beings, not dogs. According to the expert, Mitchell replied that the experiments were good science. The expert recalled making the argument that the U.S. should not “do things that our enemies do, like using torture.” When asked about this incident, Mitchell confirmed that he admired Seligman’s research.

At SERE, trainees in the Level C course are given the choice of seeing a Bible desecrated or revealing secrets to interrogators. “They are challenging your faith,” the SERE affiliate explained. “The Holy Book is torn up. They say they’ll stop if you talk. Sometimes they rip the Bible and throw it in the air.” The goal is to make detainees react emotionally to the desecration. Some trainees who are devout Christians become profoundly disturbed during the exercise.

On the blog, the graduate offered a detailed account of a SERE training exercise. (He confirmed the account’s details with me.) He wrote, “One of the most memorable parts of the camp experience was when one of the camp leaders trashed a Bible on the ground, kicking it around, etc. It was a crushing blow, even though this was just a school.”…

The graduate wrote that his experience with the “Bible trashing” took place “towards the end of the camp experience, which was 2-3 days of captivity…He brought out the Bible and started going off on it verbally—how it was worthless, we were forsaken by this God, etc. Then he threw it on the ground and kicked it around.

 

…..According to Falkoff’s (a lawyer defending several Guantánamo detainees) clients, a mass suicide attempt at Guantánamo, in August, 2003, in which two dozen or so detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves, was provoked by instances of Koran mistreatment—including one in which the text was allegedly wrapped inside an Israeli flag and stomped on.

Although the sere affiliate said that many of the program’s officials were careful and dedicated people, he said that “some of the folks” associated with the program seemed to enjoy using manipulative techniques. “They’d play these very aggressive roles, week after week,” he said. “It can be very seductive.” Although there is no scientific basis for believing that coercive interrogation methods work better than less aggressive ones, the affiliate said that some of the sere psychologists he knew believed that to get someone to talk “you have to hurt that person.”

     Retired Army Colonel Patrick Lang… had attended a sere school as part of Special Forces training, and had found the experience disconcerting: “Once, I was on the other side of the exercise, acting as captor and interrogator,” he said. “If you did too much of that stuff, you could really get to like it. You can manipulate people. And most people like power. I’ve seen some of these doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists who really think they know how to do this. But it’s very easy to go too far”….

….Another sere technique that has apparently surfaced at Guantánamo is the use of “noise stress.” The sere affiliate told me that trainees often think that the interrogation portion of the program will be the most gruelling, but in fact for many trainees the worst moment is when they are made to listen to taped loops of cacophonous sounds. One of the most stress-inducing tapes is a recording of babies crying inconsolably. Another is a Yoko Ono album. Detainees at Guantánamo have reportedly been subjected to blaring audiotapes of loud music, cats meowing, and human infants wailing.
….Banks (a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi) replied, “I’m not saying people don’t do some stupid things sometimes. Some people who received sere training may have sometimes done things they shouldn’t because they misunderstood what the training was about. I’m not going to tell you it didn’t happen. I can’t say that someone didn’t say, ‘Hey, let’s try waterboarding’ because they’d seen it at sere.” In fact, the problem was pervasive enough so that, last year, Banks introduced a new requirement at sere: graduates must sign a statement promising not to apply the program’s counter-resistance methods to U.S.-held detainees. “We did this when we learned people were flipping it,” he said.

Mayer, Jane. "The Experiment -- The Military Trains People to Withstand Interrogation. Are Those Methods Being Misused At Guantanamo?" New Yorker, July 11, 2005, 60.

Original Text:

[ http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact4?printable=true ]

Personality Disorders 人格障害

【反社会性人格障害】

Antisocial personality disorder

A) There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others :

1.      failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;

2.      deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;

3.      impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead;

4.      irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;

5.      reckless disregard for safety of self or others;

6.      consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;

7.      lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;

A.他人の権利を無視し侵害する

(1)法にかなう行動という点で社会的規範に適合しないこと。これは逮捕の原因になる行為を繰り返し行うことで示される。

(2)人をだます傾向。これは自分の利益や快楽のために嘘をつくこと、偽名を使うこと、または人をだますことを繰り返すことによって示される。

(3)衝動性または将来の計画をたてられないこと。

(4)易怒性および攻撃性。これは身体的な喧嘩または暴力を繰り返すことによって示される。

(5)自分または他人の安全を考えない向こう見ずさ。

(6)一貫して無責任であること。これは仕事を安定して続けられない、または経済的な義務を果たさない、ということを繰り返すことによって示される。

(7)良心の呵責の欠如。これは他人を傷つけたり、いじめたり、または他人のものを盗んだりしたことに無関心であったり、それを正当化したりすることによって示される。

　　

　　【自己愛性人格障害】

Narcissistic personality disorder

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy:

1.      Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

2.      Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

3.      Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

4.      Requires excessive admiration

5.      Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

6.      Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

7.      Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

8.      Is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her

9.      Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

1.　自己の重要性に関する誇大な感覚。
2.　限りない成功、権力、才気、美しさ、あるいは理想的な愛の空想にとらわれている。
3.　自分が"特別"であり、独特であり、他の特別なまたは地位の高い人たちにしか理解されない。または関係があるべきだ、と信じている。
4.　過剰な賞賛を求める。
5.　特権意識。つまり特別有利な取り計らい、または自分の期待に自動的に従うことを理由無く期待する。
6.　対人関係で相手を不当に利用する、つまり、自分自身の目的を達成するために他人を利用する。
7.　共感の欠如：他人の気持ちおよび欲求を認識しようとしない。またはそれに気づこうとしない。
8.　しばしば他人に嫉妬する、または他人が自分に嫉妬していると思い込む。　
9.　尊大で傲慢な行動、または態度。

[ The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition]

「精神障害の分類と診断の手引き」

Glick, "War at Home" 警察が主導する集団ストーキング "コインテルプロ"

Glick, Brian. War at Home: Covert Action against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1989. Print.

A total of 2,370 officially approved COINTELPRO actions 

were admitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and thousands 

more have since been uncovered. 

 【コインテルプロの４つの主な手口】

Four main methods have been revealed: 

 【１．潜伏】

1. Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on 

political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their 

very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential sup- 

porters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists 

as agents. 

【２．心理戦術】

2. Psychological Warfare From the Outside: The FBI and 

police used myriad other "dirty tricks" to undermine progressive move- 

ments. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and 

other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged cor- 

respondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone 

calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up 

pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated 

or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and 

others to cause trouble for activists. 

【３．法律を濫用した嫌がらせ】

3. Harassment Through the Legal System: The FBI and police 

abused the legal system to harass dissidents and make them appear to 

be criminals. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented 

fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprison- 

ment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government 

regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, "investigative" inter- 

views, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and 

silence their supporters. 

【４．非合法な暴力行使、殺傷】

4. Extralegal Force and Violence: The FBI and police 

threatened, instigated, and themselves conducted break-ins, vandalism, 

assaults, and beatings. The object was to frighten dissidents and disrupt 

their movements. In the case of radical Black and Puerto Rican activists 

(and later Native Americans), these attacks — including political assas- 

sinations — were so extensive, vicious, and calculated that they can 

accurately be termed a form of official "terrorism."(10)

 
［人種差別政策機関としての米警察］

The most intense COINTELPRO operations were directed against 

the Black movement, particularly the Black Panther Party. This was to 

some extent a function of the racism of the FBI and police…

［黒人以外も標的にするコインテルプロ］

COINTELPRO's targets were not, however, limited to Black 

militants. Many other activists who wanted to end U.S. intervention 

abroad or institute racial, gender, and class justice at home also came 

under attack. Cesar Chavez, Fathers Daniel and Phillip Berrigan, Rev. 

Jesse Jackson, David Dellinger, officials of the American Friends Service 

Committee and the National Council of Churches, and other leading 

pacifists were high on the list, as were projects directly protected by the 

First Amendment, such as anti-war teach-ins, progressive bookstores, 

independent filmmakers, and alternative newspapers and news ser- 

vices.  Martin Luther King, Jr., world-renowned prophet of non- 

violence, was the object of sustained FBI assault. King was marked, 

barely a month before his murder, for elimination as a potential "mes- 

siah" who could "unify and electrify" the Black movement (11).

［公権力による不法侵入、器物損壊］

Government Burglaries and Vandalism: Former agents confessed to

thousands of “black bag jobs” in which the FBI broke into dissidents' offices,

 homes, and cars. Some of these burglaries were carried out stealthily,

 to copy records, steal papers, sabotage machinery, or plant bugs, drugs, or guns,

 without the targets' knowledge.  In one operation, FBI agents broke in

 to steal the personal diary of a member of the Progressive Labor Party, 

forged entries to set up a snitch jacket, and then broke in again

 to plant the incriminating evidence.

                Many other bag jobs were blatantly crude, designed to intimidate

 activists and their supporters. Government infiltrators later admitted numerous

 other acts of vandalism, ranging from broken windows to fire-bombings (61).

［非合法な暴力行使に対処するための指針］

Guidelines for Coping with Extralegal Force and Violence: 

…4. Make a public issue of any form of crude harassment. Contact 

your congressperson. Call the media. Demonstrate at your local FBI, 

police, or right-wing organization's office. Turn the attack into an oppor- 

tunity for explaining how domestic covert action threatens fundamental 

human rights. 

5.  Keep careful records of break-ins, thefts, bomb threats, raids, 

brutality, conspicuous surveillance, and other harassment. They will 

help you to discern patterns and to prepare reports and testimony. 

6. Share this information and your experiences combatting such 

attacks with the Movement Support Network and other groups which 

document and analyze repression and resistance countrywide. (See 

resource groups listing in back of book.) 

7. If you experience or anticipate intense harassment, develop 

contingency plans and an emergency telephone network so you can 

rapidly mobilize community support and media attention. Consider 

better locks, window bars, alarm systems, fireproof locked cabinets, etc(64).

［大手マスコミや有識者も共謀し被害者の風評をでっちあげ］

             While freely applying its own massive armed force to crush oppo- 

sition movements at home and abroad, the U.S. government has maneu- 

vered to discredit the legitimate use of force by those who have no other 

way to resist genocide and fight for freedom. It has colluded with the 

major media and the academic establishment to cover up official vio- 

lence and provocation while promoting exaggerated and fabricated 

accounts which smear movement militancy as "terrorism.'' This propa- 

ganda sets up dissidents for blatant repression and isolates them from 

the support they need to withstand it. 

 
［政略目的に暴力を行なう米警察こそテロリストといえる］

…Taking into account the political beatings, shootings, and vandalism

 by the FBI and police, their aid to right-wing vigilantes, their provocation

 and incite- ment of brutal assaults on activists, and their outright ssassination

 of movement leaders, these government agencies are far and away 

the primary source of political violence in the United States. It is they who 

systematically and aggressively initiate the use of force and intimidation 

for political ends. Under the guise of combatting terrorism, the FBI and 

police are — in this fundamental sense — the real terrorists. 

               The government's secret use of force and fraud to crush political 

opposition is antithetical to any accepted concept of democracy. In the 

name of protecting our fundamental freedoms, the FBI and police have 

in fact subverted them.

WAR AT HOME 

 
［各国の秘密警察は米政府からその手口の指導や資金援助を受けている］

               Most people in the United States rightly condemn the secret police 

(often trained and financed by our government) who terrorize dissident 

movements in many other countries. Applying the same standards to the 

FBI and its allies in and out of government, it is hard to escape the 

conclusion that the situation is not all that different here at home, 

especially for people of color. The FBI and its associates together 

perform all the classic functions of a secret police… They interro- 

gated, detained, slandered, lied, vandalized, tortured, maimed, and 

killed. What would they do if millions of people demanded basic change?

［権力犯罪を行なう米警察こそが民主主義と国家の法治を脅かしている］

In the United States today, it is the political police, not the radical activists,

 who pose the threat to democracy and the danger to law and order (69).

FBI records reveal repeated maneuvers to generate pressure on dissidents from their parents, children, spouses, landlords, employers, college administrators, church superiors, welfare agencies, credit bureaus, and the like... They may try to threaten or intimidate you by pretending to have information about you: We know what you have been doing, but if you cooperate it will be all right.

『ポジティブ病の国、アメリカ』"Bright-sided"

バーバラ・エーレンライク (著), 中島由華 (翻訳)　河出書房新社
【原書】 Ehrenreich, Barbara. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009. Print.

      精神活動によって物質世界に影響を及ぼす方法は、たしかに一つだけ存在する。だが、それにはテクノロジーを介する必要がある。人は、バイオフィードバックという技術を用い、試行錯誤をくりかえせば、脳内に電気を発生させて、コンピューターモニター上のカーソルを動かすことができるようになるのだ。・・・脳波計--によって脳内の電気信号をとらえ、増幅して、コンピューターに接続されたインターフェースに送信する。これは、たいてい、重度の麻痺患者との意思伝達のために用いられる方法だ。(p.p.82-83)

セリグマン自身は、たしかに右派寄りである・・・米軍のSERE（“Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape” 生存、回避、抵抗、脱走の頭文字）の訓練をほどこす学校の一つで、犬を用いて「学習性無力感」の実験をした・・・こういう学校の目的は、もともとは捕虜になって生き延びる方法を兵士たちに教授することだったが、九・一一テロ事件ののち変更され、テロの容疑者を拷問する新しい方法を考案することになった。(p.206)