“Do you prefer to serve 10 years in prison or 10 minutes of artificial memories?”. It is not the incipit of a story by Philip K. Dick: it is the premise of Cognify, a controversial project that wants to replace traditional prison with a re-education system based on the implantation of false memories.
Earlier this week, a short film showing what the "prison of the future" will apparently look like was shared on Instagram, and most people didn't like what they saw. An interesting solution to the problems of prison overcrowding or yet another step towards a disturbing dystopian future?
The virtual prison that rewrites the mind
In the not-too-distant future, steel bars and concrete walls may give way to high-tech pods and advanced algorithms. Cognify, the revolutionary "prison of the future" concept, proposes to replace traditional prison sentences with a re-education experience based on the implantation of artificial memories in the brains of convicts.
An idea that challenges our conceptions of justice, punishment and rehabilitation, while raising profound ethical and philosophical questions. How does the “mental” prison work?
From cell to capsule: how Cognify works
The process begins with a high-resolution brain scan of the inmate, which allows a detailed map of his brain to be created. This map is then used to "inject" artificial memories, personalized based on the subject's specific brain structure. The target? Making the convicted person experience the crime from the victim's point of view, stimulate emotions such as remorse and repentance, and ultimately influence her future behavior.
Create and implant artificial memories directly into the prisoner's brain.
This is the basic premise of Cognify, a concept that sounds like pure science fiction but, surprisingly, has its roots in real, current scientific research.
The scientific basis of Cognify
Cognify's proposal does not arise from nothing, but is based on a series of recent scientific discoveries in the field of neuroscience. Scientists have already succeeded to implant false memories in mice and others modify memories scary into happy. In 2018, researchers have even managed to transfer a memory from one sea snail to another.
These advances, combined with AI developments like OpenAI's text-to-video model, Sora, form the technical basis on which the Cognify concept is based. A concept that, as science fiction as it may seem, may not be far from technical feasibility. Ethical questions, however, have a completely different density.
Prison as an instrument of transformation
The idea behind Cognify, as mentioned, was born from the observation of the limits of the current prison system: overcrowding and recidivism above all. Cognify presents itself as a radical solution, with a more effective path towards social reintegration.
But at what price? The idea of manipulating a subject's memories and emotions, however criminal, raises inevitable ethical questions. Are we talking about re-education or a sophisticated form of brainwashing? Shouldn't the right to one's mental integrity be inviolable, like the right to physical integrity?
There are concerns about consent, privacy, and potential unintended psychological consequences of altering memories.
Hashem Al-Ghaili, the filmmaker and science communicator behind the idea of Cognify.
The prison of the future and “neurorights”
The Cognify concept raises complex questions in the emerging field of “neurorights.” Some are rehashes of old questions: How can we ensure this technology isn't abused? Who will monitor the controllers? The possibility of manipulating a person's memories and emotions opens up disturbing scenarios of social control and repression.
It is the perfect example of how technological advancement can offer innovative solutions to age-old problems, but at the same time raise problems that were not there before. Just like memories that appeared out of nowhere.
