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Vikki_R. writes: "Wired has an article about grafting a microelectric circuit directly onto a human brain cell. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have been working on developing an interface between semiconductors and neurons. Imagine being able to give your computer a piece of your mind ..." Update: 11/25 22:54 GMT by T : Here's an earlier post linking to a different article on the same research.
Do you think a computer (no matter how much people idolise the things) could tell the difference between two basic thoughts? For a start you'd have to interface to some massive fraction of the number of nerve cells, then you'd have to get all this data to a huge computer somewhere and have it analysed. And for what? The best way to find out what someone is thinking is to just ask them. There'll never be a computer that can read peoples' minds anywhere near as well as a good trial lawyer who's trained to study faces.
I appreciate your attempt to reign in wild speculators who think mind-reading is as easy as sticking a wire in the brain, but "never" is a long time. If Moore's Law continues and noninvasive scanning technologies continue to improve at the rate they have for the last century, then the technology for this might be available next century, or even this century. Or genetic engineering might have the capability to plant a large number of noninjurious artificial probes.
What's much harder than the collection is the data analysis. We still don't really have much of a grasp on a scientific level of what consciousness is or what thoughts are. What's more, the data so far concerning machines that try to allow the handicapped to write via brain waves indicate that the brain's state is extremely variable from hour to hour, so that the same signal patterns don't recur even when the person is having what they think is the same thought. I have a feeling we will only begin to make substantial progress in consciousness research once we create the necessary data collection technologies, and even then it may be decades or more before the problem is solved to the extent that, say, the human genome is now.
On the other hand, simple affectors and effectors are certainly a much easier problem than global mind-reading or the direct absorption of information. When the first generally useful neural interfaces become available, they'll probably function a lot like a modern head-mounted computer with speech recognition. There will be a virtual screen with translucent overlay of the visual field, a way to speak into the system while not speaking aloud, and some way to point on the screen. This is probably not more than two or three decades away. The question is what it will be good for, since the same technology in an external form through wired glasses, a miniature microphone, gesture recognition wristwatch or ring, and tiny personal computer will all be available without surgery or bioengineering. Privacy in public spaces is the only major advantage that comes to mind.
Tim