July 31, 2024

When "the Prison Of the Mind" is too Literal

Hello, all!

Before we get into the latest scif-research-adjacent subject that’s got me all riled up, please allow me to remind you that, since you are subscribed to this newsletter, you have access to my novella Doll’s Eye View, which is a soft story from Martin’s point of view, which takes place between Secondhand Origin Stories and Names in Their Blood. Also, Names in Their Blood is out now! More purchase options to come, but here’s the options for both books so far.

Those of you who follow me on Tumblr or Bluesky may have seen me grinding my teeth about an article claiming that Hashem Al-Ghaili has unveiled “plans” for a “futuristic” prison that would implant years worth of false memories, complete with artificially induced feelings, into convicted criminals brains in order to rehabilitate them faster, cheaper, and more effectively than traditional prisons. The idea was to place realistic but AI generated fake memories of being a victim of the crime the person was convicted of would cause them to be more empathetic and remorseful, thus rehabilitating them.

The news understandably caused quite the stir.

So let me lay out plainly- Al-Ghaili is not a neurologist, does not appear to have a doctorate, is not building this and is not even seeking investors to build this. His whole shtick appears to be making videos that realistically mimic the sorts of videos we might imagine someone might make to generate buzz or funding, in order to create some bleeding edge tech- but the video is all he’s making.

Again- he imagines a provocative but wholly imaginary product, and then makes a video about it as if it was real.

He calls himself a “science communicator”, and says his work is meant to ignite conversation.

Now, I do love society-level conversation about the ethics of emerging technologies. If I didn’t think those conversations were worth having I wouldn’t be writing scifi- much less near future scifi.

But I do have a hard time taking Al-Ghaili’s self-assigned title seriously since after going to the original video, social media, and multiple articles from a variety of “news” sites all clearly reporting off the same press release, it’s clear that Al-Ghaili never actually explains that that’s what he’s doing. He is proposing this with a straight face, just like he did with his product video for artificial wombs a few years back. The videos do get a lot of attention and do start conversations- but they’re conversations based on misinformation.

I have to imagine this gets him significant ad revenue.

If I’m wrong about his character and his actions, I’m truly sorry, but whatever he’s put online to counter my impression is far less available than the material I was able to access.

So I’m not including a link to this proposed futuristic prison, because I am miffed, but it’s all very easy to look up if you want to.

Ok, now that we’ve established that this is not presently happening, let me also outline why it can’t happen, and then why even if it could happen, it’s a terrible idea.

Let’s start with the brain.

In order to implant false memories in a brain you would need an incredible amount of personalized mapping.

Some structures and function in the brain are fairly reliably in the same spot. Broca’s area, for example, controls the movement necessary for forming speech. It’s up in your left temple.

Usually. Except for people for whom it’s in their right temple.

The occipital lobe is right at the back of your scull- the bit you’ll smack if you fall backwards too hard. It’s responsible for processing data from your eyes- color, movement, etc.

Unless you’ve been blind from a young age, in which case neuroplasticity will commandeer all that lovely available brain space and use it for processing other data, instead.

But basically, mostly, these areas are pretty standardized. If you do whack the back of your head super hard and damage your brain your neurologist will have a decent guess what’s mostly likely to be impacted.

But now, let’s say I want to implant a memory. Let’s keep it simple. I want to give you a false memory of seeing a cat on a windowsill.

To start, I need to find “cat” in your brain. But there isn’t any particular, standardized slot in your brain for the concept of “cat”. Every one of us is storing our concept of a cat in a unique location.

And we do not have a neuron labeled “cat” in some mental file folder. Instead, the concept of a cat is stored in a diffuse network of neurons, holding all the information we have about how cats look, feel, smell, behave, where we have seen them, cats we have known, etc. And every one of those data points is also a network of neurons, rather than a single cell. Each of those neurons will also be connected to thousands of other neurons and so impacting untold numbers of concepts. for example- cats have fur. Fur neurons will also be attached to other animals you know have fur. I once tried to explain to a very angry three year old why a chihuahua was not a cat and let me tell you, it was not easy. There is a lot of overlap in those schema.

If I want to implant a memory, I’m talking about activating every neuron related to every concept in that memory, in perfect order, without activating incorrect related neurons, in an organized fashion that creates a specific narrative.

For scale, you have an estimated 10 billion neurons firing every second.

We don’t know for sure because right now we don’t even know what’s an average number of neurons to have.

We are unimaginably far from anything like implanting false memories in anyone’s head. You can rest assured the government is not going to be able to implant fake traumas in your psyche. They will have to settle for causing actual trauma if they wish to inflict damage.

Which of course brings me to the other aspect of this imaginary prison- the concept that people do criminal acts because they are somehow ignorant of causing harm, and if you give them sufficient trauma they will see the error of their ways and go on to be good, safe, tax paying community members.

Most of the people angry at the imaginary future prison could identify that giving people trauma via implanted memories wouldn’t work. That may be partly the circles I hang out in online, though, since our actual, current criminal justice system works basically on the same principle.

The rate of assault, severe neglect, and general trauma in prison is astronomically high. I won’t go into the specific numbers but they are truly dismal, even by the estimation of the US’s own Department of Justice. If you go looking, expect that you may ancounter just about any trauma trigger you could name. You could also listen this podcast, by actual inmates, for some real life stories if you want to know more.

I will say that in all my years working with formerly incarcerated people I never met one who was left un-scarred by the experience of having their agency, their safety, and their support network stripped away, left wholly at the mercy of the system designed to punish.

Besides which, many of the people in prison had lives filled with trauma before being arrested. The vast majority didn’t do what they did because they’re ignorant of pain and suffering.

These added traumas do not, overall, make people gentler, kinder, and more remorseful. Like most trauma, they are more likely to push people into being less trusting, more hostile in order to try to defend themself from the pain they have endured, and less likely to be able to hold down the kind of steady employment and community that will help them avoid repeat offenses.

This is not to say that everyone who comes out of prison has been cemented into permanently evil and dangerous characteristics. My point is that if they’re still able to access safety, trust, focus, sobriety and community it’s in spite of what they have been through, not because of it.

We already know that prison doesn’t prevent crime. Prison sentences actually make people more likely to break the law in the future. Making prison more traumatic would in no way make it more effective.

So, it’s very good we are nowhere near being able to realize Al-Ghaili’s imaginary prison. Because there are still far too many people in this country who care a lot more about punishment and righteous retribution than they do about efficacy or safety in our communities.

I still hold out hope that that’s changing.

Till next month!

Lee Brontide