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Give That Monkey Brain A Robotic Arm!
jeffsenter writes: "The NYTimes (free reg. req.) has a short story about the craziest science since the story on decoding a cat's vision. A monkey at Duke has had its brain wired up to control a robot. However, the robot is at MIT and the signal goes over the Internet. The research offers some hope to paralyzed people."
story at cnn which requires no sign-in... http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/11/15/monkey.brain/ index.html
Link to an interesting story about how humans are actually using thoughts to manipulate objects, and in the case of quadripalegics (sp?) regain the use of their hands and arms.
54% Slashdot Pure
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Wonder if it`s possible to spank a monkey with a robotic arm ?
Step 1: New, Improved E-Monkey(tm) patent pending
Step 2: Monkey Linux
Step 3: Fle et of unmanned aircraft
Step 4:Pick Target
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
This might have some medical value and indeed scientific value. As long as the brain controlling the arm doesn't belong to a female monkey, I predict a good chance of success. Thanks, Graham Thomas
The NYTimes is response to the massive demand from slashdot readers for more stories about circuts and monkeys has written a better story.
Does there really something to be gained by torturing monkeys like this? Is there something to be gained by having your mind "downloaded" out of your body and into a computer?
For more interesting thoughts read: In the Absence of the Sacred, by Jerry Mander
No sig for the moment.
Why does this look, sound and smell exactly like a recent item titled "Monkey Think, Robot Do" ?
6 &mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/15/16123
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Some prices are too high to pay for research. The Nazi's "experiments" on humans were one. Our "experiments" on animals are no better.
this is totally cool. i can see cool prosthetics coming into play. i don't understand why they have it over the internet? what's the purpose of that variable? It would be a whole lot easier to experiment if you didn't have as many variables involved. i love the experiment though. another question is....how do they know that the monkey's making it do what it wants it to do? hmmmmm.
-"Hey, Baby. It's not a rash, it's textured love."
If this was being done to a dog
I'm sure this kind of stuff is done to cats and dogs all the time, but that wouldnt be reported on because it would leave a bad taste in the readers mouth.
I'm conflicted. I do see how a lot of good could be accomplished by animal experiments but I do suspect that a lot of frivilous experiments are conducted on animals too. I feel really bad for these suffering creatures, both the animals and the researchers who have become desensitized.
I wonder how eager scientists are to go right to the lab animal rather than putting it off until the last minute. It would be nice if there was something like a animal experiments ethics department where you had to apply to get a higher animal like a cat or monkey. They would review you experiment for readiness for an animal subject, the suffering you will inflict, and the justification you have for using a live subject. Of course this department would probably end up being corrupt.
Sneakemail is to spam filters what an ounce of prevention is to a pound of cure.
hell, why not the Moon or Mars?
I'll tell you exactly why. Latency. Noone ever seems to stop and think about the latency in these kinds of systems.
It takes radio waves travelling at the speed of light (the speed limit of the univese) several minutes (can't remember exactly) to get from Earth to Mars and back. Now every time you do any action, your poor brain has to wait several minutes for feedback on that. You try putting your foot down to take a step, but don't feel the pressure of the ground on the sole of your foot until a few minutes later. I'm sorry, but that's just not going to work, no matter how much you want it to.
You know those fun things they have at science expos, where you speak into the microphone and it plays it back to you with a 1 second or so delay? Those things are really hard to use, because your brain is used to near-instantaneous feedback. With practice, you can train it to ignore the feedback and just speak.
But this is just speech, you don't really need that feedback (eg. deaf people can speak, particularly if they weren't born deaf). For anything requiring a vague level of dexterity, such as walking, looking, playing sport, music, and doing just about anything with your hands and fingers, I suspect that even 500ms of latency is too much for your brain to handle. Thus it might just work for halfway-round-the-world comms (landline only, no satellites)... maybe.
Telepresence is a nice idea, but should be thought of more as an extension to videoconferencing than as the elaborate setup you're envisaging.
Since you are 'here', communicating with 'there' takes some unavoidable time... The only way to beat that is to go there.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I remember an article a couple of years ago that did a similar think with mice. They recorded the brain activity of a mouse pushing a lever to get food. Then they removed the lever and apparently the mice could still get the food just by "thinking" about pushing the lever. This kind of research has cool future VR potential...of course the whole sticking things in your brain will have to go.
I'm all for technology but NOT at the expense of suffering of animanls. This is a really sad post and now I know why some people think /.'rs are morons. Some of your replies supports that the monkey has more brains than some of the readers of this site.
most unhappy
Steve
There are none as blind as those who will not see.. (unknown)
If only they'd rigged it up in your polling booths.
Monkeys would have decided Florida's vote instead of lawyers. Oh, sorry, what am I saying?
Also, the login/password "slashdot2000" / "slashdot200" works fine at the NY times.
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The most valuable commodity I know of is information. - Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, Wall Street
Of course, there are a lot of complications involved as well--as soon as you begin to manipulate the nervous system you can begin to
manipulate reality. When we (or the state) can change what people see and hear directly, things begin to get real sticky, real fast.
Isn't that what people are worried about AOL/Time Warner
ICANN
Pets.com
slashdot moderation
presidential auction on Ebay
Well time to give /. a rest, banana break.
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Whats so importaint about the distance? Do they hope to allow amputies the ablity to control their removed arms thosands of miles away? Sounds like a scary movie idea to me.
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I think I'll light a chipmunk for Bobo.
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I agree 100%, I am most disgusted with the replies I have seen. Just goes to show so called "enlightened" computer people are just as selfish and warped as the execs from major money making corps. They are happy to fuck-up anything if it suits them. Man, animal, environment...
This is so, so sad
There are none as blind as those who will not see.. (unknown)
You killed me with that one. Nice. Too bad I'm not moderating today!
Okay this seems like a troll to me but I will respond anyway (not because of the position espoused but because of the anonymous assertive and unreasoned way it was presented).
I think you would have great difficulty establishing rights for people much less rights for animals. While some dedicated souls might truly believe a rights based approach to morality most people who espouse such an approach don'treally believe it.
The concept of a right is something which is inherintly inalienable not merely a desired state which can be overrideen in a pressing case or when it "conflicts" with other supposed rights (moreover the concept of rights carries with it that these are local moral necessities so one cannot say you have a right for the government to act in a way which maximizes total utility because this would be a non-local concept). Therefore one who truly believes in a rights based system must adhere to these rights in the most pressing of circumstances. For instance if I actually had a right to property and I owned the cure to a worldwide deadly disease a rights based approach would deem it inproper for that cure to be taken from me despite the billions of lives I might save. In this way very few people actually belive in rights (in an extreme enough example they would in actuality favor a more utilitarian approach. Their supposed rights are really just concepts which, because of human psychology, make the world a better place because of there enforcement.
Under this methodology the only reason we don't do this testing on humans is not because the actual testing would be immoral but that the backlashinduced by angry individuals and the inability of people to determine appropriate and inappropriate testing would reduce total utility
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Hack the monkey, hack the monkey!! :)
I reckon we should hack the connection and feed it into Dr Kevin Warwick's emotion chip. We could then watch him go wild as we offer him a banana. :-))
Marie
(AP) - Geneva
The Vatican filed a blanket lawsuit
in the World Court today against all bio-
engineers attempting to reverse-engineer
the brain. Vatican counsel are claiming God
holds a Universal Patent, number
234,597,045,714,510,947,109,571,095,
571,094, on any biological organ that can
cause a living being to think.
The Pope refused comment on advice of
counsel, but sources within the Vatican,
who wished to remain anonymous, said
that the church has no complaints about
the science behind reverse-engineering
the brain, they are "simply trying to make
sure God's duly appointed representatives
on Earth recieve just payment for His hard
work and obvious innovation."
The US Patent and Trade Office only com-
mented that it does not recognize any
Universal Patent Office. Nor is there
any record the USPTO has granted such
a patent, therefore they cannot see how
the Vatican has "a legal leg to stand on."
-Rob
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -George Bernard Shaw
I'm so glad you had the courage to sign your name under that braindead reply.
I don't think that this is a troll, that's a bit unfair. It actually made me think for a bit about the ramifications of this technology, quite an insightful comment really. Probably wasn't meant to be though.
Then again, what do I know, I'm a simpleton...
The Master Of Muppets,
CAPTAIN: TAKE OFF EVERY "SIG"!!
If I was paralized or missing a limb, I would sign up for experementation like this in an instant, and so would lots of other people out there.
Unfortunatly, scientists like to make sure things like this have some sort of a basis in reality before they start cutting open the heads of humans (or injecting weird drugs, or any other type of medical experimentation out there).
I'm a vegan, and I won't use cosmetics or soaps that were tested on animals. I won't wear leather from animals if there is anything else to wear, but if I'm dying, and the medicine they give me was perfected on chimps, I'll say a little prayer in my heart for all the animals who died to allow me to live, but I wont refuse that medicine.
Moderation for the sake of morals is good, exclusion of something that could save a life or allow a child to walk again is acceptance of ignorance and refusal to believe that life can be better.
I don't choose to believe that.
Nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria. -Dante
Similar to the whole "brain surgeon touches part of a patient's brain, his leg moves" kind of thing.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Sure beats the hell out of Aibo, I guess.
54% Slashdot Pure
There was a professor at some university like MIT who embedded a chip into his arm. The chip relayed the nervous signals in his arm back to a computer which recorded them. He was later able to play thos signals back to his arm to reproduce the movements he had made earlier in the day.
Similar idea, slightly different application.
And now, we can have a room full of monkey brains teleoperate arms typing on typewriters on the exterior of the soon-to-be abandoned space station Mir, working on reproducing the entire works of Shakespeare!
Only this time, in the absence of atmosphere (less drag) and in microgravity! Woooo!
But seriously though, with the advances in neural-interfaces such as this, we might approach Implant technology as in Niven & Pournelle's Oath of Fealty - the ultimate PDA! Palm is doomed when compared with Implants.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
Could this lead to the development of an ILFM (Inter-Labratory Fecal Missile)? This could be a huge step in the monkey / lab assistant arms race.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/15/161236 &mode=thread
You mean the one that doesn't work?
treke
hmmmm...interesting. my roommate works for barrett. i'll have to ask him
'Well, diagnostics for disk drives are designed to shake up the equipment. But monkey brains are not designed to handle the electrical signals they received. You can imagine the convulsions that resulted. Two of the monkeys were stunned, and three died. The Digital engineer needed to be calmed down; he was going to call the Humane Society. This became known as the Great Dead Monkey Project, and it leads of course to the aphorism I use as my motto: You should not conduct tests while valuable monkeys are connected, so "Always mount a scratch monkey."'
On a nearly related note, (Now that I think about it), this year's presedential election could be described as a race between "Curious George and The Man With The Big Yellow Hat."
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. - Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)
< humor style=bad>
And if we gave the robot a human-like hand, and taught the monkey to type... (Insert favorite reference to 10,000 monkeys typing randomly for 10,000 years.)(Absolutely do not use the B word).
</humor>
Karl
I'm a slacker? You're the one who waited until now to just sit arround.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
I guess it probably beats lying on your own arm till it goes numb.
Alas gallinaceas de urbe bovis volo
ahahaha cool
I think the doctor didn't like it and punished you with an Offtopic 8(
To Hikahi, I am so extremely sorry that my rude reply appeared underneath yours. I was in fact replying to the "annonymous coward" who was insulting animal rights activists without any real reason. Anyway, as a vegan myself, I think that I would have a hard time accepting the medicine that you have mentioned, but I'm sure that when push would come to shove, I would end up accepting it. I would feel pretty bad about it though. my apologies once more. XsaBBathX
Clearly this is just another evil plot by Mojo Jojo to control us all with remote control cybernetic robots.
10 PRINT "This is a"
20 PRINT "Haiku program."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
"The research offers some hope to paralyzed people" It unfortunately doesn't offer much hope for monkeys.
Now Furious George can go on that robot-arm assisted killing spree he's always wanted! The Man in the Yellow Hat is going to regret calling HIM a BAD MONKEY!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Then again, I have enough trouble keeping my joystick calibrated... ;)
If you don't have any feedback from the system, the brain does not realize it is controling the movements. No input= equivalent to dream state. I will be interested sensory input is pipelined directly to the brain . Until then, control depends on correlating brain activity with sensation.
They could have had the monkey in a room with a banana and just monitored its brain signals as it manipulated its arm. That would have correlation.
I'm all for someone electricuting the pleasure center of my brain, where is the sign up sheet?
We'll we really only have two choices for testing medical devices. Florida and monkeys. But Florida can be taken out by a big hurricane and then we'd be left with nothing. So, I chose the monkeys.
We test things on animals so we DONT HURT HUMANS.
If Bobo having wires in his brain puts us closer to helping disabled people then HOOK HIM UP.
Or you can tell the quadraplegics that the reason they still cant do anything, even with all our technology, is because giving them a semi-normal life would hurt an animal.
FunOne
FunOne
They should have sent you to the project homepage, where you can assist in the distributed training effort by sending stimulation to the pain centers of the monkey's brain when it screws up.
This is the more important part of the project. While only a few people are paralysed, most end up having disobedient children.
Unfortunately, they've been having little success in meeting their first objective: teaching the monkey not to curl up in a little ball and scream every time it's hooked up to the arm.
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Given an infinite number of monkey brains and an infinite number of robotic arms, could GM finally build a decent automobile?
I had the pleasure of working recently at Duke University's Dept. of Neuroscience and can give all of you an idea of exactly what went on in the Nicolelis lab. For any action that we make, whether it be an arm curl or a leg extension, our brain neurons fire in a specific pattern--specific neurons in our motor cortex fire for specific actions. Using an electrode touching a neural cell, a research is able to check for whether neuron has fired. In the recent field of multielectrode physiology, large numbers of electrodes are surgically implanted into points throughout the motor cortex. From this, a mathematical model can be created to map the pattern of neuron firings when a movement is carried out. Thus, one can train a computer to essentially read brain activity. In the lab's first significant multielectrode experiment, they put a rat in a specially designed cage. The rat was only presented with water when it hit a lever on the side of the cage. To do this, the rat must first extend its arm. Researchers at Duke modelled the arm movement the rat made using implanted electrodes. After a time of "learning," the researcheres were eventually able to disconnect the lever from the water supply entirely, and instead connect the "thought pattern" to the water supply. The rat would get water only when its neurons fired to tell it to extend its arm to press the lever (which at first was essentially the same thing as extending its arm since the rat can't move its arm without thinking about it). Unexpectedly, though after some time the rat began to learn that it was not the lever press that was controlling the water at all. The rat began to learn to control water release by thinking instead of moving. The rat, in effect, learned the thought pattern it needed to produce to get water. From here, Miguel Nicolelis et al. achieved the much more complicated task of modelling movement in both space and time. Instead of just checking for a certain neural firing pattern, a model was needed for three dimensional arm movement. By restraining the monkey to movement in one direction, the researchers were able to model the deconsructed arm movement (i.e. what patterns are created to move the arm up, which patterns to move the arm left). Finally, the neuronal firing models could be reconstructed, and the entire movement modelled. To make the experiment *extra* interesting, the Duke researchers collaborated with MIT researchers to create a robotic arm in Boston, connected to Duke via the internet, which followed the directions that the computer model described. Thus the monkey moved his arm left in real time, and the robotic arm moved its arm left in real time. The implications of these experiments are unreal. Imagine driving a car without using your hands or feet, or giving an amputee a new arm. Heck, one can even imagine that a super-brain could conceivably control an entire zombie body. Some argue that it is likely that humans do not have the brain capacity to control an independent appendage--we may need to give up a part of our brain used for something else. But, who knows! One of us could be the next octopus man, or a candidate for the next cyborg. Robert McGehee
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I seem to lose karma almost every time I make a single-line comment these days. Ah well. It was not meant as a troll.
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
I don't see any benefit to allowing a monkey to control the limbs of a paralysis victim. Thoughts? Anyone?
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
Err, no it doesn't. It still requires registration, but WILL take you to the article if you're registered.
Then we'll come up with really interesting next step applications for this technology...
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
NO! We don't want to be teaching cyborg monkeys how to kill humans! Talk about irresponsible research...
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__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Yeah, but can it play soccer?
(Whistle) Handball!
Oh well, I guess it would be awesome at throw-ins...
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Let me give you the lowdown
Geek: Are you kidding me? Check this out, I just pinged my arm - what do you expect me to do with a latency like that?
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Why haven't we trained monkeys to defuse bombs already?
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
I mean, wired monkeys have been controlling things over the net for ages. Ok, sure, we call them AOLers and First Posters (or "Management", if you want to be really brutal), but that's an issue of semantics which shouldn't be discussed. I wonder though, how that would compare w/ those new internet enabled sex suits (ugh, wheres the Yahoo! Magazine w/ the link when you need it) I'll avoid the obvious word puns though.
Information is the catalyst for revolution
Is how a geek news website can be operated by thousands of monkey brains every day.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
interesting how dated that seems today, isn't it? A 60 dollar Duron would seem to be a lot cheaper than a person (Cost of education, and of upbringing), and would be a lot faster, too!
Numbers 31:17,18 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,but save for yourselves every virg
My .02,
My .02,
zencode
iactivist.org/jason
Aw, this is nothing. Scientists back in the 80's hooked up a gorilla brain to a voice synthesizer and various sensory apparatus and created MOFO the Psychic Gorilla. People have been discussing the amazing psychic powers of MOFO the Psychic Gorilla for years on the IRC channel #Mofo (and before that on the Mofo BBS).
Stupid monkey-brain-controlled robotic arm. I've seen a gorilla-brain-controlled voice synthesizer with amazing psychic powers, and a dry, sarcastic wit.
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Make mine methylphenidate.
I would like to see monkey brains controlling BattleBots. What could be moer entertaining than strapping a monkey brain with some electrodes to a 500lb death machine?
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seumas.com
There's always tricks. In case of the NYT, replace "www" in the url with "channel" and you don't have to register.
At Northwestern University Medical School they have removed lamprey eel brains, stuck them in oxygen rich saline solution, wired them to a little robot with complete with light sensors, and let it drive around the lab either seeking or avoiding light.
This has just got B movie science fiction coolness all over it. I wonder if they can make the saline solution bubble like it did in all the movies of the brains in jars?
(They are mostly studying how to make connections to the brain and how the brain adapts to those connections. The little robot is probably just for media pizzaz or the grad students got drunk and made a bet.)
Whole article is at sciencenews.org.
Search further down the page for "lamprey eel". Its a brain-in-jar project.
Or better yet... if the signals pass over the 'net, then howabout monkeys setting my internet-appliance Thermostat!
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
This story reminded me of the good old Rhesus monkey head transplant. Dr. White did it 30 years ago and now he wants to do it for a human head. The monkey lived for 8 days.
Most relevant and most interesting of the linked article is the section on Longer Life for the Paralyzed.
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I'm just an ordinary man with nothing to lose.
As I understand it, the robot arm makes the same motions as one of the monkey's arms, so when the monkey decides to move its arm up, the robot arm goes up, when the monkey arm goes down the robot arm follows, etc. It seems more or less to be sophisticated pattern matching - the computer figures out what the monkey's doing to its arm by reading input from electrodes in the brain and moves the robot arm accordingly
Their next experiment will involve the monkey learning how to use the arm - according to the CNN article they plan to have a restrained monkey feed itself with a robot arm.
I'd like the option to exclude stories that refer to articles on the NY Times in my slashdot config please.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
OK... so the monkey sees the arm, right? and can move it... Why not hook up this monkey into Quake and see what he's made of!! Hehe... seriously though, why not? It would be very interesting to see what another animal would do when faced with the possibility of moving like a human.
[insert Matrix joke here]
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
replace "www" with "channel" in any NYT link, and you don't have to spend the 20 secs...
can they phase the robotic arms completely out of the picture and connect the monkeys right up to the typewriters?
Image a beowolf cluster of those things. America's next Best seller, here I come!
``It was as if the monkey had a 600-mile-long virtual arm.''
Maybe i'm just a sick fuck...but my guess is people will come up with a few other applications for this (i know a few creeps who would be interested in having a 600-mile-long virtual.. well, you get the idea)
And it'll certainly be paired with rather expensive website subscriptions...
(Like NO ONE else thought it!? geez...)
People find it acceptable to cut the helpless animal open, attach wires to it, study it, and then likely euthanised it.
Actually, they probably will monitor it for a long time to monitor the long-term effects of the electrodes on the monkey's brain.
As for using monkeys instead of humans, there are laws against using humans for high-risk experiments such as this which imply manslaughter to Murder-1. Monkeys, no matter how unfortunate it seems, are not proteced by laws regarding manslaughter. Since primate physiology is the most similar to humans, it makes sence to use a monkey to test the system first. This way they can prove it's relative safety to the Feds before practicing on a human and avoid being attacked for murder by the AMA and FBI.
* * *
If this was being done to a dog, or a *gasp* human...
Are you volunteering? Step up to the plate. If you're going to condemn the scientific community for not being willing to use human subjects, then you had better be willing to be a subject!
This happened once, by the way. There was a doctor by the name of Erich Hippke in the early 1940's, working in a little Bavarian village by the name of Dachau-- perhaps you've heard of it? Jews and political prisoners became the unwilling human subjects of a curious surgeon who wanted to know just how much strain the human body could take before dying.
He exposed his "lab animals" (to use your term) to extreme cold, vacuums, severe impacts, etc., all in the name of science, and for the benefit of the Third Reich. Twins were of special usefulness, because if one died, he would have a second subject who was nearly identical for a control group.
And the most convenient part was, there was no need to euthanize the subjects, because his experiments killed every one sooner or later....
There's a lot to think about before you begin advocating human test subjects!
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"Every man, without exception, is full of it." -- Athanasius
wow, it worked!
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" -Confucius
``When we initially conceived the idea of using monkey brain signals to control a distant robot across the Internet, we were not sure how variable delays in signal transmission would affect the outcome...it worked out beautifully,'' said Srinivasan."
Exactly what is the response time? Is it quick enough for the brain-controlled battle mechs we see in so much science fiction? Also, is there any long-term damage to the brain from tbe implants, the electricity, abnormal patterns, etc?
Goat sex free since 2001
Hey, next, let's wire up a monkey's ass to a minefield... that could prove amusing for at least 5 minutes... or better yet, lets fuckin' wire up a whole bunch of monkeys to Brad Pitt for no good reason at all other than to say that we've done it.
OR... we could wire up some scientists to a high voltage / high amperage source and watch all the fun. And when we're done, we can blame it on PETA as we hit some lame-o corp. CEO in the face with a shit pie!
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
man.. The most interesting part of that article was the 20 seconds it took me to figure out a username and pass that worked. If NYT put a restriction that you can't have your username as your password I'd be screwed.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Telecommuting finally for "manual" laborers.
What does this research offer paralyzed people? The ability to have a monkey control their limbs from thousands of miles away??
:|
For those of you who are interested in learning more than what the Times gives, the full write-up is in this week's Nature (free registration required). I would link to it, but the way they have their CGI stuff set up complicates things. To find it, go to Nature's website, then follow the Contents link on the right, then go to this week's magazine; the article is titled "Neural engineering: Real brains for real robots", it's in the News and Views section, and it starts on page 305. Happy reading....
Recursion (n): See recursion
No, wait, it was working up until a few minutes ago. Apparently the monkey's arm was censored by PornSweeper. Oh well. Should've used SSH...
I hate to sound like a PETA freak, but I wonder how many failures resulted in brain damaged or dead monkeys before this one worked. Maybe none, but that's something that's a part of experimentation that never gets described in articles like this. I understand that for problems like test vaccines against new diseases we need very nearly human test subjects, but doesn't this seem just a little different? It would be fantastic if this offers a doorway into new technologies that help victims of paralysis lead fuller lives somehow, but I just hope that non-paralyzed normal monkeys weren't turned into veggies. Just my .02.
Finally, instead of having their filthy trained monkeys get their grubby hands all over the food the eat and throwing their feces all over the place, they can get nice, hygenic trained monkey brains-in-jars with clean robotic arms to do their chores.
... Mmm, I can't wait to eat that monkey!"
In the immortal words of Abe Simpson, "Oh son! This monkey's gonna to change my life!
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User finally connects to a representative after being on hold for an hour.
...and user finally is up and walking after 3 weeks...
Tech Support: "Hello, this is John at Armz and Legz Tech support."
User: "Um... I cant get up."
Tech Support: "Can you wiggle your toes?"
User: "Nope".
Tech Support: [pauses] "Let me transfer you to Teir 2 support. I have to admit, this is my first day on the job. They will be able to further assist you. I'll put a trouble ticket in for them to work on. You should be up and walking in no time..."
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"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Three MIT students were killed yesterday, and one was severely injured when a robotic arm controlled by a monkey 600 miles away was compromised by a buffer-overflow exploit.
"Maybe we shouldn't have been running fingerd," stated Lars Bjorjensen, the student who survived the attack. Lars is in critical, but stable condition, and pledges to continue development on the project.
Lars added "I guess I should have known something was wrong the arm scrawled 'Free Kevin!' on the whiteboard. I mean, he's already free, isn't he?"
I know what you are talking about, I saw a very similar article a couple of years ago in a computer rag. Couldn't find that much on details either, but it was fastenating if it (fingers crossed) wasn't vapor ware. It seems plausible enough. Stick electrodes in brain, describe movement to patient, patient attempts (fails) but synapses go off, triggering little impulses to allow the movement of stuff. No controlling that would be hard (but oh so user friendly).
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
Not surprisingly, readers on slashdot applaud this "advancement."
And others condemn any advancement outright. Reply: "Boo hoo" is right-- this is an important breakthrough. I think there is something to entering thsi research with CAUTION, though. Marc Stiegler's The Gentle Seduction comes to mind. How far are we willing to go with technology, so long as it comes on slowly?
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"Every man, without exception, is full of it." -- Athanasius
THe awful cynic in me must surface at some point...
So, what happens when the electronics backfire? A circuit in my brain is controlling an object, which slips and grounds itself, or a faulty wire causes a feedback loop. How big do ehte capacitors need to be to prevent feedback loops from frying my brain?
Granted, this is supposed to be used to control one's own paralyzed body... Suppose they develop a servant robot instead? As with the Matrix (because I'm sure it will eventually be suggested, so why not by me first?), you plug your brain-to-computer link in to the system, and viola! you're in an alternate body. What happens when you forget that it's not your real body, and it steps in front of a semi?
There are a lot of kinks to work out here, I think, before the system will be safe enough to be practical.
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"Every man, without exception, is full of it." -- Athanasius
I wonder what the IP of the monkey brain is. WOOOH. I AM 733t H4x0r. I Own joo monkey-brain. I mean seriously. What kind of security is on that monkey. Sounds like a job for Jeff K.
That's disgusting. Using monkeys in this kind of research is purely inhumane. Maybe they ought to use people instead ...
I guess some people don't like to see the cost at which the progression of science comes.
All I have to say is that mouse aiming is a thing of the past! Screw this keyboard and mouse crap!
Hell, Bust-a-groove with something like that!
So can the monkey move the arm without moving? Or can it think about moving it's arm and have the arm move? If you've gotta do calisthenics to get the robot to move, however, if I can just think about doing something...
I think about doing homework all the time...
C
- Sighuh?
How do they know that the brain is really controlling the robot arm? Since it is a monkey, and the arm is 600 miles away, I doubt the monkey is manipulating the arm and using it to pick banannas. What evidence do they have that the arm isn't moving essentially randomly, or just picking up electrical signals from the brain that can't be willfully controlled?
And, since I'm on the subject, doesn't it seem like they stuck the internet there just for the heck of it? I think their experiment would me so much more useful if the monkey could SEE the robot, and maybe "learn" how to use it. I mean, the internet is cool, but we all know we can make stuff move by clicking in a browser already.
If you are too lazy and/or don't want to fill out the form, use:
login: slashdot2000
password:slashdot2000
http://my.webmd.com/living_better_content/him/arti cle/1728.64278
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I am a neuroscientist...
Trust me, we're trying, but the hack is more than wiring. There are modulations at almost every connection, connections that change, changes in gene expression that alter connection properties, etc. etc.
Imagine trying to reverse-engineer a Soviet sub built in 2000 if you're in the 1920's. You'd have some clue about metallurgy and electronics, but the whole integrated circuit on a chip would be problematic. You'd have to invent scanning electron microscopes just to see what's there. We're still making better measuring tools for the brain, and integrating the data we have.
Sinister technology for brain hacking? It exists. Look no further than Madison Avenue or a Speilburg movie.
Well, I'd like to say that it's a damned fine day to be an American, ladies & gentlemen...
;D.
;D> ). And that reduces war to QuakeTM... you get blown up? Boot up another 'bot and have another go! Yeee-haw! Are we having fun yet?!? Shit, I'd sign up;).
;D.
Man, I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks the likes of which I haven't experienced since I was five and turned on the ol' tele to see Linda Blair doin' the matress mambo with a religious icon. Seriously, you thought nukes were messed up... wait 'till the powers that be have an army of shit-flinging, banana craving, masturbating robot-monkeys!!!
Okay, okay; I'll admit that this particular manifestation of the technology isn't any reason to be scared... YET. But, just wait; someday someone's gonna think of some really nasty ca-ca to use this for (scratch that, I just had a few million). What I mean is, someone with the means and the desire to misuse this is gonna... and it won't be pretty
Seriously, the guys in the armed forces are probably shitting their pants right now; 'Monkey remotely controls robot arm' is close enough to 'Human controlling robotics', and I'm sure it can't be that much of a leap from monkey to your average GI. (Biologically speakin' guys; no offense to any GI's
And that's the LEAST of my personal concerns... you think privacy's tough NOW? Shit, if you don't want to give out any info, stay off the net. But they're making 'bots smaller and smaller... one day soon, that 'Mouse' is gonna have an uplink to somebody's data central.
It's prob'ly just me lyin' to myself, trying to get a warm fuzzy about imminent doom, but I'm hoping that either it won't come to that or that I'll get into that stuff myself. Me, I'm thinking it'll be a cold day in hell for #1, #2 has a slightly better chance. But even so, I'm taking yoga right now so when the time comes to kiss our collective asses goodbye, I'll manage quite well.
Or maybe I just need some sleep
Life: a sexually trasmitted disease that has a 0% survival rate.
truly, this monkey is the first real webmonkey... now we just need (infinity - 1) more wired monkeys and we'll have the works of shakespeare in no time.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
It's a joke. J-O-K-E
And my karma is holding at about 150. If I wanted the highest karma possible, I would have quit posting when the karma ban started.
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First off I think it's cool that they are doing stuff like this to help people. No one really wants to be stuck in a wheelchair all their life. Second, it's amazing what science can do today, robotics has really been picking up lately in the past few years. Who knows, we may have cyborgs by 2020 or something.
I have a joke too: A little boy named Timmy in Los Angeles was born without the ability to walk. He Prayed and prayed to God everyday so that maybe he could walk. One day a miracle happened God himself heard the prayer and came back to Timmy with a resounding NO!
Go ahead, try hooking up something, anything that matters to you to an internet interface where any idiot can cause damage, and see if you aren't curled up in a ball and screaming within hours.
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Whether you are male, female, signal11 or not is unimportant. You amuse me. Thanks.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
I wonder if the monkey brain knows it is controling some limb. Can he see this limb move? Is there some sort of web cam for the monkey-bot arm?
I guess what I am asking is:
Can monkey see what monkey do?
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
I think the hardest part was installing Apache in the monkey's brain... can it do PHP?
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The thing I don't understand about it is, why is it taking so long? I know that the brain and the nervous system are extraordinarily complex, and that they are analog rather than digital to further complicate things, but we are able to reverse-engineer things like Soviet submarines and other-companies'-microchips relatively quickly and fairly often. These are pretty complex and they don't come with design documents. Why isn't there a larger effort to actually document things like "the optic nerve protocol" or "the spinal cord protocol"? The benefits to having such specifications for the human nervous system would be unimaginable.
Of course, there are a lot of complications involved as well--as soon as you begin to manipulate the nervous system you can begin to manipulate reality. When we (or the state) can change what people see and hear directly, things begin to get real sticky, real fast.
The thing that scares me is that it is inevitable--the nervous system is bound to be cracked someday. What happens when it does? What is going to protect us from sinister uses of the technology? Will the benefits outweigh the risks?
Here is a link talking about the keyboard and the thought controlled cursor, but I don't know if it is exactly the case you're talking about. The stuff about the thought controlled cursor is about a third of the way down the page.
54% Slashdot Pure
To the game monkey in the middle. Imagine when they are start using this in human beings that will be a scary thought.