(NewsNation) — A new prison concept would allow criminals to serve their entire sentence in just a few minutes.
But it probably won't feel like a few minutes to them: With Cognify, inmates can be hooked up to machines that will fill their brains with artificial memories for years, essentially forcing them to relive what their victims went through.
Subjects will be given the choice between a 10-year prison sentence or an AI-generated memory implant, said Dubai-based project leader Hashem Al-Ghaily, a biotechnologist and science communicator.
“Synthetic memories are customized depending on the crime committed and the individual's brain structure and psychological profile,” Al-Ghaily told MSN.
His so-called “prisons of the future” could be used to house those guilty of crimes such as domestic violence, hate crimes, embezzlement, theft, and discrimination. Each criminal's past would be taken into account when generating the artificial memories.
“Violent offenders may experience memories designed to elicit empathy and remorse by seeing their crimes from their victims' perspective and feeling their pain and suffering firsthand,” Al-Ghaily said.
“Cognify's concept has the potential to revolutionize the criminal justice system by significantly reducing the need for long-term incarceration and its associated costs,” Al Ghaily said.
After experiencing the artificial memories and undergoing AI-assisted rehabilitation “therapy,” Al-Ghairy said prisoners could be able to reintegrate into society in days instead of years.
Moral concerns about the technique include the possibility that wrongly accused and convicted people could be forced to re-experience trauma they never caused, and the potential for artificial memory implants to be misused for malicious purposes.
