The inventor is an american, studied at Harvard. His name is Han Bicheng, and his start-up BrainCo. His invention is sensors that by resting on the forehead “catch electrical signals” of the frontal lobe, transforming them, through complex machine learning algorithms into other types of signals that allow the operation of electronic machines (such as robots) remotely.
But the widespread application of his invention takes place (experimentally since last year) in classrooms in china. The “headbands” that the students wear, with a LED in front, “read” these signals and divide them into useful educational categories: close attention, less attention, indifference (“his mind is elsewhere”) – in different colors. These signals also end up in a laptop at the teacher’s desk, where the teacher has a simulation of the classroom and can know at any time which student is engaged in the exercise or just hides behind the front one to fool around.
Is it a pleasant technological development worthy of the 4th industrial revolution that will save the classrooms (in contrast with “home schooling”…) and also the jobs of the concerned educators? Or is it another step of digital surveillance and discipline with many prospects?
You can imagine BrainCo selling out such systems for use at work, whether it is for classic offices or for work from home. An advanced device like that could also (why not?) trigger an alarm if the subject is “thinking wrongly”… You can imagine anything you want – but the machines of the 4th Industrial Revolution will surpass your imagination…