I'm not pleased with the tenor of this sort of research either, but I think it may lead to serious discoveries which, I believe, outweigh the risks.
For the first time in history, it may soon be possible to listen in on the demonic voices schizophrenics hear.
Aside from the possibility of alleviating this terrible condition, the advances in out knowledge of consciousness and identity might be revolutionary.

I must also, point out that the secret police agencies probably have their own research programs and even labs which they believe will eventually enable to engage in the sorts of abuses you are worried about.
Remember the book, Acid Dreams, which detailed the C.I.A.'s program of drug research?
That was 50 - 60 years ago.
How far might such efforts have come since then?

OK, RT-TV is not the most reliable source, but this is still ominous...

OK, this is terrifying. These mad scientists get a total wet kiss from Bloomberg March 6 about how "Deep-Brain Stimulation" can be used to treat anorexia—without the slightest intimiation that there could be a downside to this technology. Which is essentially giving technicians the power to control human emotions.

God help us all.

We wish we were joking. From Recode, April 19:

Facebook is developing a way to read your mind. Seriously.
"What if you could type directly from your brain?"

That was the question Facebook executive Regina Dugan, who runs the company’s secretive research and hardware lab Building 8, posed to the audience Wednesday at the company’s annual F8 developer conference in San Jose.

The question was not meant to be rhetorical. Dugan and Facebook are actually making technology intended to do just that.

Facebook is building what it calls a "brain-computer speech-to-text interface," technology that's supposed to translate your thoughts directly from your brain to a computer screen without any need for speech or fingertips.

The idea is that this technology will be able to take what you’re thinking to yourself in silence, using non-invasive sensors that can read exactly what you intend to say, and turn it into readable text.

More at Gizmodo...

From The Independent, April 26: 

New computers could delete thoughts without your knowledge, experts warn
New human rights laws are required to protect sensitive information in a person’s mind from 'unauthorised collection, storage, use or even deletion'

"Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind," wrote the playwright John Milton in 1634.

But, nearly 400 years later, technological advances in machines that can read our thoughts mean the privacy of our brain is under threat.

Now two biomedical ethicists are calling for the creation of new human rights laws to ensure people are protected, including "the right to cognitive liberty" and "the right to mental integrity"....

The ethicists, writing in a paper in the journal Life Sciences, Society and Policy, stressed the "unprecedented opportunities" that would result from the "ubiquitous distribution of cheaper, scalable and easy-to-use neuro-applications” that would make neurotechnology “intricately embedded in our everyday life".

However, such devices are open to abuse on a frightening degree, as the academics made clear.

They warned that "malicious brain-hacking" and "hazardous uses of medical neurotechnology" could require a redefinition of the idea of mental integrity.

"We suggest that in response to emerging neurotechnology possibilities, the right to mental integrity should not exclusively guarantee protection from mental illness or traumatic injury but also from unauthorised intrusions into a person’s mental wellbeing performed through the use of neurotechnology, especially if such intrusions result in physical or mental harm to the neurotechnology user," the ethicists wrote.

"The right to mental privacy is a neuro-specific privacy right which protects private or sensitive information in a person’s mind from unauthorised collection, storage, use, or even deletion in digital form or otherwise."

I'm sorry, do we really have to pretend that there is some supposed social good to be derived form this technology that justifies the risks described above? And while we thank these ethicists for raising the alarm, posing the question in these terms makes them in a profound sense part of the problem.

When you think a sentence in your head, your brain sends signals to your mouth and jaw. MIT Media Lab has developed a headset that reads those signals with 92% accuracy, CNet reports in a chipper account that makes no note fo the grim implication of this technology for human freedom.

We're doomed.

China is "mining data directly from workers' brains on an industrial scale." Government-backed surveillance projects are deploying brain-reading technology to detect changes in emotional states in employees on the production line, the military and at the helm of high-speed trains. At Hangzhou Zhongheng Electric, workers wear caps to monitor their brainwaves, data that management uses to adjust the pace of production and design workflows. The technology is also in use at State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power, where it has boosted company profits by about 2 billion yuan ($315 million) since it was rolled out in 2014, according to an official overseeing the emotional surveillance program. (SCMP)

From Science Alert, Oct. 2:

Scientists Have Connected The Brains of 3 People, Enabling Them to Share Thoughts
Neuroscientists have successfully hooked up a three-way brain connection to allow three people share their thoughts – and in this case, play a Tetris-style game. The team thinks this wild experiment could be scaled up to connect whole networks of people, and yes, it's as weird as it sounds.

It works through a combination of electroencephalograms (EEGs), for recording the electrical impulses that indicate brain activity, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), where neurons are stimulated using magnetic fields.

The researchers behind the new system have dubbed it BrainNet, and say it could eventually be used to connect many different minds together, even across the web.

From PetaPixel, Aug. 23:

In an article published in Nature, researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands revealed the results from an experiment where they showed photos of faces to two volunteers inside a powerful brain-reading functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner...

As the volunteers looked at the images of faces, the fMRI scanned the activity of neurons in the areas of their brain responsible for vision.

The researchers then fed this information into a computer’s artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm which could build an accurate image based on the information from the fMRI scan.

As the results of the experiment show, the fMRI/AI system was able to almost identically reconstruct the original images that the volunteers were shown.

AI researcher and a cognitive neuroscientist, Thirza Dado, who led the study, believes that these highly impressive results demonstrate the potential for fMRI/AI systems to effectively read minds in future, according to the Mail Online...

Dado’s work is focused on using the technology to help restore vision in people who, through disease or accident, have become blind, reports the Mail Online.

“We are already developing brain-implant cameras that will stimulate people’s brains so they can see again,” Dado says.

Right, always in the name of bettering humanity and curing disease, so anyone who dissents can be dismissed as a misanthropic reactionary.

From Science Alert, July 30:

Scientists 'Mind Controlled' Mice Remotely in Extraordinary World First

At the mere flick of a magnetic field, mice engineered with nanoparticle-activated 'switches' inside their brains were driven to feed, socialize, and act like clucky new mothers in an experiment designed to test an innovative research tool.

While 'mind control' animal experiments are far from new, they have generally relied on cumbersome electrodes tethering the subject to an external system, which not only requires invasive surgery but also sets limits on how freely the test subject can move about.

In what is claimed to be a breakthrough in neurology, researchers from the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Korea have developed a method for targeting pathways in the brain using a combination of genetics, nanoparticles, and magnetic fields.

They call the technology Nano-MIND, an acronym for Magnetogenetic Interface for NeuroDynamics. And while mind-control is a coarse but relatively accurate way of describing it, the system in its current form is intended to provide researchers with a means of remotely activating neural circuits for a range of research applications.