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Batteries and wires. Then you can type ALL you want without moving a muscle.

Of course you won't have the will to type anything, but that's besides the point.

Batteries and wires. Then you can type ALL you want without moving a muscle.

Of course you won't have the will to type anything, but that's besides the point.

Ahh, replying to self - but worth while. Link to the relevant excerpt on Wireheading from from Larry Niven's "Ringworld Engineers" - I didn't realize it was from that series, one of my favorites.

It might not be permanent debilitation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/magazine/22SAVANT.html?pagewanted=1

http://wireheading.com/brainstim/savant.html

http://wireheading.com/wirehead.html

They should just combine the pigeon and the roboroach. http://www.wireheading.com/roboroach/index.html

More like Louis Wu.

http://wireheading.com/wirehead.html

http://wireheading.com/wirehead.html

..this story falls in the category of "sh#t that's never gonna happen".

I'm going to have to strongly disagree with you. I've been studying neuroscience for a while and specifically, neural simulations in software. Our knowledge of the brain is quite advanced. We're not on the cusp of sentient AI, but my honest opinion is that we're probably only a bit over a decade from it. Certainly no more than 2 decades from it.

There's been a neural prosthetic for at least 6 years already. Granted, it acts more as a DSP than a real hippocampus, but still, it's a major feat and it won't be long until a more faithful reproduction of the hippocampus can be done.

While there are still details about how various neural circuits are connected, this information will be figured out in the next 10 years. neuroscience research won't be the bottleneck for sentient AI, however. Computer tech will be. The brain contains tens to hundreds of trillions of synapses (synapses are really the "processing element" of the brain, more so than the neurons which number only in tens of billions). It's a massive amount of data. But 10-20 years from now, very feasible.

So, here's how computers get massively smarter than us really fast. 10-20 years AFTER the first sentient AIs are created, we'll have sentient AIs that can operate at tens to hundreds of times faster than real time. Now, imagine you create a group of "research brains" that all work together at hundreds of times real time. So in a year, for example, this group of "research brains" can do the thinking that would require a group of humans to spend at least a few hundred years doing. Add to that the fact that you can tweak the brains to make them better at math or other subjects and that you have complete control over their reward system (doing research could give them a heroin-like reward), and you're going to have super brains.

Once you accept the fact that sentient AI is inevitable, the next step, of super-intelligent AIs, is just as inevitable.

Where in TFA does it state that it causes pain? Perhaps the pigeons are controlled by rewarding them with pleasure, as in the mice experiments from the SUNY? http://www.wireheading.com/roborats/ratbots.html

Or alternatively if you could take control of your own pleasure system you could train your brain to learn anything. Like if I had to learn something particularly boring I could switch my brain into a happy state so that it associates a happy tag to this particular event and so would be desirable to repeat the event in future. Though you've got the difficulty of the brain associating happy states to pressing the happy button, I suppose you could avoid that by having an external operator.

Also the potential for abuse is too great.

Try reading this page, but beware of optimistic writing style: http://www.wireheading.com/ Wire Heading.

This is a siginficant technology upgrade from the roboroach. Still, I'll wait until SP1 just to make sure all the bugs are out of the system. :P

Why build artificial insects when you can remote control cockroaches?

http://www.wireheading.com/roboroach/index.html Notice the date (2001), so why again are r.c. cockroaches with audio/video feeds such a stupid idea? /would think the most difficult part would be the audio/video feed

Well, they already had RC roaches back in 2001: 1, 2.

The equipment on both of those looks off-the-shelf and testing-mode rather than optimised for size. Granted, those are big roaches, but you can betcha that 5 years on things have got a lot smaller; and if it goes towards use, then it'll be better funded and use smaller components.

Well, they already had RC roaches back in 2001: 1, 2.

The equipment on both of those looks off-the-shelf and testing-mode rather than optimised for size. Granted, those are big roaches, but you can betcha that 5 years on things have got a lot smaller; and if it goes towards use, then it'll be better funded and use smaller components.

So Japan controls cockroaches, then women/people, and now we have sharks and a number of groups around the world that have gained ethical approval to develop implants that can monitor and influence the behaviour of animals, from sharks and tuna to rats and monkeys.

It is easy to decry the abuse of the animals in question.
It is equally easy to see the potential benefits to the relatively small number of humans (globally) who have nerve damage.
But why no hue and cry on the potential abuse of this technology on humans?
Guns, germs, and chemicals may kill you. This can enslave you.

Actually, and what is not mentioned fully in the article, scientists have been implanting electrodes in humans brains before. And, via remote control, been able to at least rudimenty control these peoples activities. One of the front people of this "scientific" field is José RM Delgado. He conducted a lot of these experiments, like implanting electrodes into a womans brain and >making> her throw a guitar in the ground, from just a second ago playing it. I found an article http://www.wireheading.com/delgado/brainchips.pdf but I haven't read it. Delgado visioned a psycho-civilized society, in wich unwanted behaviour should be moderated by authorities, via remote control (to brain implants).

Somehow I am reminded of this: http://www.wireheading.com/roboroach/

Hmmm, snips of their antennae and uses the stubs to lead them around? That sounds familiar...

Remote controlled roaches

Although I think that roaches will eventually rise up and rebel using their roach controlled robots.

It's probably the moral implications of the question being asked. If you can remote control a frog (or a cockroach), it won't be long before someone can remote control a human. I noticed that a lot of science instructors are incapable or unwilling to discuss how science can be used for both good and evil.

Japanese research is showing an interesting or disturbing trend. This article was only about cockroach control. The real goal is now more apparent.

Ah, the Wire.

Its already here:
Remote Controlled Cockroaches
http://www.wireheading.com/roboroach/
Remote Controlled Rats
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/05/05 01_020501_roborats.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/12 07_041207_brain_interface.html http://www.wireheading.com/misc/implant.html Combine the two interfaces and we don't need keyboards anymore!! That would be something worth researching!

So it's come to this.

Going along that line of 'fun', anyone read Larry Niven's Engineers of Ringworld?

An Excerpt talking about Louis Wu being a wirehead (one who is addicted to current coming into their head, stimulating the pleasure centers of the brain). This gives us brights, how about a new drug?

Spying cyborg animals, huh?

Well, they are coming.

<a href="http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php? id=160">Researchers Use Lab Cultures to Create Robotic 'Semi-Living Artist'</a>
<a href="http://www.wireheading.com/roborats/hybrots. html"> Wired to the Brain of a Rat, a Robot Takes On the World</a>

Researchers Use Lab Cultures to Create Robotic 'Semi-Living Artist'
Wired to the Brain of a Rat, a Robot Takes On the World

OK this is cool You send the coachroaches out into an area where there is WMD. How do you check the yeast? Have the coachroacges on a really long leash? :)

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), is now in full swing with a "Biodefense project" that seems to be a mixture of Star Trek meets Private Ryan. In an article featured at Guerrilla News, author Cheryl Seal criticizes the program which seems to have terms like 'Brain Interface Program' and 'Engineered Tissue', and there is an extensive write up on the ethics of this sort of testing on animals titled 'Roborat Ethics'. Browsing over DARPA's site I found BIODYNOTICS aka Biologically Inspired Multifunctional Dynamic Robots. According to DARPA the BIODYNOTICS Program represents a new thrust area for DSO that will comprise a multidisciplinary, multi-pronged approach with far reaching impact on robotic capabilities for national security applications. Borgs anyone?

What I want is cameras attatched to those tanks, that image broadcast back to my computer, and for one hell of a death match going on, with my house and its furniture being the battle arena.

If you could define the parameters/dimensions of the battlefield, you could easily place virtual powerups, viewable through your monitor, perhaps some kind of radar system. It could be the ultimate in toys. Now instead of tanks, lets use radio controlled, flying cockroaches and you have the potential for one hell of a game.

See intracranial self-stimulation.