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Linking Hardware To Wetware
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.
Yes, welcome to the real world.
Imagine having your leg haxx0red by some l33t script kiddie.
hahahaha uyore l3g has b33n haxx0red! (kick self in head)
yay
Moo.
Lotsa downsides, yes, most related to 'system' security. Lotsa upsides, though. Imagine what this would do for education. How much of what we all went through was "Memorize this for your test tomorrow". Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could dispense with nearly all of that and jump straight to understanding of concepts rather then spend years memorizing mostly useless facts?
How about occupational specialization? The sum of human knowledge is getting so huge that nobody can be an expert in more than a few fields. Not least of all because nobody lives long enough to learn more than that. If we can add whole rooms to our memory and thinking capacity, what more could we accomplish?
I'm trying to imagine what this could do to software design; rather than typing code and looking at it on a screen, we'd simply write it in our minds. It'd certainly be faster; combine it with instant recall of the entire program, no matter how large, and you've got a truly powerful programming tool. It'd make Emacs and VI look like punched cards.
Dyolf Knip
This software may not be used to control aircraft, nuclear power plants, or anybody's mind.
I also think about how this will be abused - IM and 'wireless' ads are two that come to mind.
Think the phone companies will go for this? No way, unless they require you to send all your messages through their filter servers... then the FBI can carnivore your mind, and make sure that you don't commit any "thought-crimes", or maybe my fiancee will just kick me in the nuts everytime I walk past another beautiful woman.
- passion
...Michael Colicos, the guy over at qflux.net, has been working on something similar in his day job; in fact, his work will be on the cover of the Novebmer 30 issue of Cell (probably the most pristigous biology journal).
Colicos also has a series of "virtual intelligence" programs and screensavers (win32 only, unfortunately) that do some interesting stuff.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
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