The other day, I was discussing the upcoming trip with my wife, and barely an hour later, my phone began showing advertisements from travel portals and a handful of airlines.
It’s no secret that our smartphones are actually very smart — always eavesdropping, quietly learning, and constantly listening.
But believe me, our generation is still fortunate. Our phones may listen to what we say, but our thoughts are our own — at least for now. The generations that follow may not be as lucky.
There are already laboratories working on technology that allows physical actions to be controlled by thoughts. It sounds miraculous — a breakthrough that can change lives, especially for those with limited mobility. Recently, on October 27, 2025, the world celebrated when the UK’s first Neuralink patient successfully controlled a computer with his thoughts. And rightfully so.
But behind that celebration lies a quiet unease.
We are beginning to open the door to our own minds. Once that door is open — once machines learn to read and interpret our neural signals — can we really be sure it will stay a one-way exchange?
What begins as medical innovation may soon find itself in the marketplace, where ethics have another meaning. From thought-controlled devices, it’s only a short step to thought-analyzed advertising, thought-monitored workspaces, and thought-influenced behaviour. The lines that separate what we do, what we say, and what we think are blurring faster than we realize.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning thrive on data — and there is no data more personal than our thoughts. The idea that our unspoken feelings, private reflections, or quiet fears could someday be interpreted, stored, or even predicted by a machine should make us pause.
We once feared that technology would read our messages.
Now, it may one day read our minds.
I’m not against progress. Every great leap forward carries both promise and peril. But somewhere in this pursuit of innovation, I hope we remember to preserve a corner of our personal self — a small, silent space where our thoughts remain untouched, where they can still breathe freely, without algorithms listening, measuring, or manipulating.
Because the day we lose that, we may gain convenience — but lose something far more precious:
the sanctity of our inner world.
Thank you for reading. If this reflection resonated with you, do share your thoughts below — while they’re still your own.
