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Controlling Your Computer with Your Brain
The B1FFMaN sent this article in - I'm not sure how to title it. It's /not/ about your computer controlling your brain or anything. What it is about is
some interesting research that has gone on into detection of brain activity, and interpretation of that. So, that could mean sitting in front of your machine and thinking what you wanted to type, or open, or whatever - it could also mean that people stricken with certain types of paralysis could use computers more easily.
Yes, and they're called 'dead neurons'. Neurons are eliminated (or rather, commit suicide) when they aren't used -- there's no reason to invest the resources needed to support them if they aren't doing anything. The only way to do this would be to reallocate neurons, which is certainly possible, in theory (the brain does it all the time), and accept the results. The problem is that if you choose a body part that is used for anything you run the risk that it will happily take back your interface neurons (which the brain also does all the time). Neural Darwinism in action.
Assuming you could do it, though, you still can't just use one neuron, or a small set. The dexterity needed to type requires lots of neurons. Neurons that your toe simply doesn't have. If you can't already type with your pinky-toes, don't expect to be able to just because you have a neural interface instead of a foot on one end of the nerve fibers.
AFAICT, the bottleneck on typing isn't finger speed, anyway; it's processing speed. I can make typing motions with my fingers a helluva lot faster that I can type, because I can't keep up with what it is that my fingers are doing.
Finally, while I'm doing my rain dance, reading brain waves -- by which I assume you mean all non-invasive technologies -- has already been demonstrated to work (poorly) as an interface. It's also non-invasive, meaning far less risk, and can be scaled down to work with small numbers of neurons.
-jcl
Seems to me the crowd proclaiming Quake's causing murders might have more of a case when they people playing the game are actually controlling their character through direct murderous thoughts directed at other people.
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Just think of the future implications: what if you get paralyzed by watching another round of thoughtless, contentless drivel by Jon Katz ? Then, you sit in front of the monitor, unable to move, your mouth drooping, hands limp at your sides - and all you can think of is "Katz". This is all Katz' fault. Now, the device interprets your thoughts, deciding that you want more of Katz - and brings dozens of browser windows into the foreground, each one displaying a different Katz article. Can you imagine the torment ? You try to scream, but no sounds can be produced..
Just horrible.
Computers are basically an easy way to do things that are hard with our default hardware. Spreadsheets are easy to grasp conceptually, but hard to do on paper. Word processing is not a strange concept, it's just that there's never been a way to implement it before.
A direct computer interface would break down the barriers even more. Wouldn't it be nice to have an address book you could access just by wanting it? All of a sudden, "mental note" would no longer be just a catch phrase.
Need directions? Browse to mapquest and look at a map, without ever taking your eyes of the road.
Waiting in the doctor's office? Well isn't it lucky that you just installed Quake 7?
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First of all, it's critical to emphasize that this isn't mindreading. It's a subtlely intelligent choice of a signal to detect: Whether an intended sound is heard, a desired action is queued for command, or whatnot, the common element is that all the mental systems that were tied into modifying the environment such that a given state was implemented fire on the success--they now all need to go into state change and act upon the success.
These researchers are not reading their success signal, and for god's sake folks they're not fabricating a success signal(that's what drugs are for). They're looking for *a* success signal coming out of the hyperconnected neural network.
It's really quite slick, if you ask me.
Where things get *really* interesting is if they can start differentiating between error or disappointment types. "No I didn't want that at all" vs. "Yes, I wanted that thing to do something, but not that." might be an interesting place to start.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
It'll be the ESP ISP...
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
Suddenly, there'd be no more need for special effects. For a good movie, you'd just need to hire someone who can stay focused for a few minutes at a time.
Or it might be terrifying to see our own thoughts. What if we did it in realtime, would we get feedback and start blowing synapses?
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