Blockchain Archives - The Self Awareness Project

How AI and neuroscience can save our children’s mental health and well being.

AI can be our worst enemy or our best friend, but we do have a choice. Humans have a bias towards fear induced decisions, what do I mean by that? Our brains have evolved over millions of years, but have only been hit with technology in the past hundred years or so. Our brains are still geared to preservation, sexual reproduction and just plain survival.

To paraphrase the words of the famous physicist Niels Bohr who was referring to quantum physics ‘If you are not shocked by the prospect of AI and its effect, on the human race you have not understood it.’

To make matters worse we are still governed by an outmoded system of political and religious conformity that impinges on our education and culture. AI has no bias, but only seeks truth.

To quote Demis Hassibis of Googles Deep Mind, “Its amazing how Deep Mind teaches us that all of our conditioning takes us down the wrong paths.”

There are a number of complex factors that are creating an unparalleled movement towards individual freedom of expression versus a complete shutdown of free thinking. It is like the immovable object meeting an irresistible force. Whatever your views on this subject, one thing is certain – we are facing a tsunami of technologies that mean – we can never go back to the caveman or cavewoman of the past – we have to adjust, evolve or we die. Unfortunately as a consequence of the amount of self destruct technology such as nuclear weapons, this remains a true possibility, if mankind has a hand in creating the doomsday button.

Here are a few examples where AI can have a health benefit to our our children’s thinking. According to the New York Times our ability to spot suicide tendencies in young people is limited by our lack of understanding or prediction of who is going to self harm. There is no certain way of assessing this outcome until now. The Crisis Text Line is a suicide prevention hotline in which people communicate through texting instead of phone calls. AI technology has analysed more than a 100 million texts. You might think that words like ‘suicide’ or ‘die’ might indicate who is the most vulnerable? In fact it is words like ‘ibuprofen’ or crying emoticons that indicate the most urgent cases, they are up to 14 times more likely to self harm or take suicidal action.

Many words are frequently used such as ‘always’ or ‘never’ or ‘anymore’ to indicate stress. There are also the tones that can help us identify vulnerable people. The use of phone texts where there is a staccato of expressions rather than a continuous flow of communication, again are also giving AI algorithms that help to identify the people most needing help.

When we worked with counsellors at the Samaritans they had to very quickly assess the risk in the conversations they had, with this type of information they could stand a better chance of identifying those who need the most help, especially in relation to young people.

Did you know for instance that research reveals that children respond better to Avatars than humans? This presents a whole new wave of opportunities for the role of AI in education. Rather than ask yourself why this fact indicates a liking for Avatars – we perhaps should be asking why we don’t respond as well to human interaction?

AI is not a panacea for everything, but if we do not learn how to overcome our prejudices and fears we may be stuck in outdated forms of a one size fits all type of education.

I can visualise a day when we get the best out of our children by allowing them to learn at their own pace and for each child to feel free to express themselves with respect and integrity for others. Our education system can and should be customised for every individual, we should get rid of this idea of treating children like automatons that are all exactly the same. One size fits all does not work. Machine learning will be able to identify the educational needs of children – where the gaps in the learning are, so that teachers can put in the resources that the child needs to reach their own individual potential. With IoT and Cloud based technologies such as the Darwin Matrix, pupils can learn thousands of miles away – rather than seeing learning as just a school based activity.

The most exciting development that can enhance the prospect for the Darwin Matrix is the potential for AI integration for learning algorithms, whereby each student would have their own Matrix and could learn at their own individual pace.

With electronic headsets (EEG) we are moving closer to full integration of AI with IoT and the future of engaging and accessing Wikipedia for instance, or Google – just by thinking about it. Whether this is a positive or negative outcome is a debate that all of society should engage.

Tan Le is a member of the world economic forum, she is also head of Emotiv which produces non invasive brainwave headphones. Passive control can help us to work with AI – where the project of individual experiences can be enhanced., for example – if we need to feel calm – we might have ‘suggested’ music. The ultimate customisation? Tan Le believes that our brains thrive on novelty and with a better understanding of neuroplasticity this will help us to rehabilitate or heal ourselves. Our health, wellness, cognitive skills can increase, optimising education and well being – tailoring content to suit the individual needs.

Neurotechnology is wide open to innovation – the therapeutic applications can be powerful and help society reach new beneficial heights that are less influenced by human fears and doubts. Technologies such as AI, Blockchain and IoT can create a new sense of consumer power that embraces integrity and compassion as a core intrinsic value, a positive evolution for humankind, as each technology empowers and democratises society as a whole.

The commercial application of brainwave technologies will help us to understand how we might understand our own thinking in a better way. At the moment we use them in focus groups to help marketers understand behavioural characteristics and their customers unconscious preferences for product likes or dislikes. It has certainly helped businesses gain a competitive edge. In Houston, Texas – we used algorithms to help find patterns in the way scientists were thinking, so that we could use their subconscious thoughts to produce aligned concepts to guide us to innovation and produce brand new patents. This is great for new technologies, as we have found, but it has a healthier prospect I believe in helping us to understand what contributes to our well being, what motivates us and how. Neuroscientist Pranav Yadav observes that all our decisions are made in the subconscious, we just need to make them conscious. This research will help in that quest for clarity and offer robust scientific scrutiny. Please get in touch, if you wish to help or would like to collaborate,

The Darwin Matrix visual process means that you only see the data that’s important to you, and you can retrieve it more easily rather than experience data overload – this can be as Adam Stafford (see Video) said “it’s an absolute goldmine for us, it’s what innovation is” The bigger picture is to create an entrepreneurial eco-system that encourages self belief and a ‘can do attitude’ in society as a whole. For more information about the benefits of the Darwin Matrix and its integration with AI and Neuroscience and Neuroplasticity please contact [email protected] We are conducting research, working with scientists and technologists using brainwave imaging to help determine algorithms that help with our education, health and well being.

See the cloud based Darwin Matrix promo video below which demonstrates the basics of the visualised modelling tool that can be accessed in real time, anywhere in the world, developed by Strawberry Fields, digital innovators and business strategists.

We are launching a website within a couple of weeks (watch this space) that is and will become a free resource to help with education, mental health and well being for people of all ages, this includes helping to create a ‘future ready workforce’ that will be able to embrace these new technologies, such as AI, IoT and Blockchain with less fear and a more informed and enlightened view rather than an apprehensive (fear induced) viewpoint. We will also offer ‘Transformational Leadership’ courses to prepare business and organisations for the 4th Industrial age. We will be postulating questions such as how will AI, Blockchain, IoT and fast 5G will affect industry and how should the workforce respond or adapt? Are these technologies a threat or could they be our salvation and free us to be creative, emotionally developed and more capable as individuals? What mental health issues could arise with the advent of these new technologies? It is an exciting time, but we must be emotionally prepared as well as intellectually. Our ‘cave brain’ is more comfortable with predictive outcomes, that is why we must prepare our minds for the challenges ahead and not leave it to chance, as Darwin said, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent that survive, but the ones that are more responsive and that can manage and adapt to change.”

The ‘awareness project’ website will be comprehensive and include videos, blogs, world speakers, podcasts and eventually a forum that will be similar to the Crisis Text Line but will respond to the algorithms, so that people are not just signposted – but can get help directly through an avatar that will be able to identify the needs of vulnerable adults and children. We are actively seeking funds for this amazing project, that will be called the ‘awareness project’ – in the meantime we are launching this with our own private funds, simply because there is a genuine need for help, and because we believe as a society, we are all responsible for our children’s future mental health and well being.

If you would like to know more or get involved please contact John Rainford, Chief Executive of Strawberry Fields. +44 (0) 7940 872434

To make matters worse we are still governed by an outmoded system of political and religious conformity that impinges on our education and culture. AI has no bias, but only seeks truth.

To quote Demis Hassibis of Googles Deep Mind, “Its amazing how Deep Mind teaches that all of our conditioning takes us down the wrong paths.”

Here are a few examples where AI can have a health benefit to our our children’s thinking. According to the New York Times our ability to spot suicide tendencies in young people is limited by our lack of understanding or prediction of who is going to self harm. There is no certain way of assessing this outcome until now. The Crisis Text Line is a suicide prevention hotline in which people communicate through texting instead of phone calls. AI technology has analysed more than a 100 million texts. You might think that words like suicide or die might indicate who is the most vulnerable. In fact it is words like ibuprofen or crying emoticons that indicate the most urgent cases, they are up to 14 times more likely to take suicidal action.

Many words are frequently used such as ‘always’ or ‘never’ or ‘anymore’ to indicate stress. There are also the tones that can help us identify vulnerable people. The use of phone texts where there is a staccato of expressions rather than a continuous flow of communication again are also giving AI algorithms that help to identify the people most needing help.

When we worked with councillors at the Samaritans they had to very quickly assess the risk in the conversations they had, with this type of information they could stand a better chance of identifying those who need the most help, especially in relation to young people.

Ai is not a panacea for everything, but if we do not learn how to overcome our prejudices and fears we may be stuck in outdated forms of one size fits all type of education.

I can visualise a day when we get the best out of our children by allowing them to learn at their own pace and for each child to feel free to express themselves with respect and integrity for others. Our education system can and should be customised for every individual, we should get rid of this idea of treating children like automatons that are all exactly the same. One size fits all does not work. Machine learning will be able to identify the educational needs of children – where the gaps in the learning are, so that teachers can put in the resources that the child needs to reach their own individual potential. With IoT and Cloud based technologies such as the Darwin Matrix pupils can learn thousands of miles away – rather than seeing learning as just a school based activity.

With electronic headsets (EEG) we are moving closer to full integration of AI with IoT and future of engaging and accessing Wikipedia for instance, or Google – just by thinking about it. Whether this is a positive or negative outcome is a debate that all of society should engage.