Implanting Fake Memories Programmatically: Take 2 - Solving Obesity by Fake Memories

In September 2004 Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, had shown that elaborate false memories - for instance, of being lost in a shopping mall as a child - can be implanted in people’s minds (New Scientist, 6 September 2004, p 42). Subjects even go on to embellish these fictitious events with their own details. Now she has taken a step further - demonstrated creating false memories for behavior modifications like tackling with overweight problems.

In her latest work, her team convinced volunteers that they had been sick after eating strawberry ice cream as a child. Loftus and her colleagues gave 228 undergraduate students questionnaires about food. The volunteers subsequently received feedback on their questionnaires that suggested they had had an unpleasant experience related to food in the past. The researchers told them this conclusion had been generated by a sophisticated computer program. A control group of 107 received no feedback.

It was found that 41 per cent of the first group took on the false childhood memory and were more averse to eating strawberry ice cream afterwards (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0504869102).

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I am very concerned about the possibilities. Now we cannot trust our fond memories too. Maybe someone has implanted them and manipulating us. This is yet another instance where reality follows science fiction.

The range of unethical uses of this technology are immense.

Imagine how easy it would be to use this technoloy to implant reasons for deep-rooted hatred in young minds and convert them to terrorists.

Imagine how much certain people from red states of US would like to use this technology to implant false memories of a certain savior in the minds of inhabitants of blue states of America.

The use of a sophisticated computer program to alter memories brings the possibility of manipulation even using a computer virus.