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Matrix-Style Brain Interface Closer To Reality
atkulp writes "According to this Wired article, a private company, Cyberkinetics is seeking permission from the FDA to test a product called BrainGate that implants in the brain and can control actions on a computer. So far it works for monkeys and they'd like to see it as viable for quadriplegics and others in need. How soon until anyone can become the ultimate expansion card? Sign me up!"
This would enable handicap people to control machines, not vice-versa. It would be killer for fighter pilots though...
sign me up as well! i have wondered though when they seriously would start implementing computer based implants in our brains. it actually seems quite logical as a "next step" sorta thing. i remember when me and friends used to joke that one day we'd be able to add extra memory (RAM) to our brains. watch this have DRM on it! (lol)
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
They better make it pretty secure. It would really suck to have someone hack your brain, especially since backing up your brain is a bit difficult right now.
Crushing dreams at the speed of sarcasm
So let's see. First, we connect our brains to the computer. Then we create Internet 3, by directly linking our brains. Then a new anti-terrorism bill outlaws firewalls, and our brains will be wide open to each other. Can anybody say "collective consciousness"?
I'm somewhat disturbed that some people's first thought is how this could be used in the military. While there's no doubt that the DoD will be first on the list to play with such toys (that is if they're arent' already in some hidden lab), I'd prefer the focus to be on the medical and scientific uses, especially dealing the quad- and paraplegics, ALS, Parkinson's, etc. I can also think of many applications that, while similar in nature to how a fighter pilot would use it, would be non-military.
This is still EXTREMELY rudimentary and we have a very long way to go before such input/output can be done on a truly reliable basis with what would be considered a true neuro-computer interface. This is a good step though.
I think if the implants improved to the level for use in video games they would be banned just like performance enhancing drugs like steroids are in sports.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
Yep. John Donoghue (of Brown) has been working on this stuff for a few years, and his former postdoc, implant engineer Nikos Hatsopoulos is another key person at Cyberkinetics. But this is really Donoghue's baby.
They've adopted the Richard Normann's (of Bionic Tech) implants (the Utah grid), and they are working fairly well for time periods up to a year. You can expect them to be the first to do human studies, and for quite a lot to be learned about the brain in the process, as well as dramatic improvements in the lives of their test patients.
I'm quite excited to see how it goes for them, and hope for the best.
I'm going to speak on less scientific terms because i'm a cryptologist, not a nanotechnician/computer science genius ;)
I see it like this:
This can lead to a TON of great things that we've only seen in sci-fi movies and books and games and what not. Perhaps not exactly the same, but this is quite exciting indeed. Think about being "wired" 24/7/365, having a HUD (heads-up display) overlayed onto your vision everywhere you go, interfacing with everything it sees, no longer will we need credit cards or wallets or anything, just interface with the bank network right then and there.
We will have a new level of education, kids won't have to do the K-12 thing anymore as they'll already have access to basically all known information with a single thought. They can concentrate on other things instead (which could be bad...they'd lose their innocence at a very young age).
Also opens the door for nanotech, however dangerous that could prove to be. I won't elaborate on that though as this is all guesswork and just a bunch of personal theory anyway.
This could also cause a devastating breakdown of society and culture, if this tech is developed enough I imagine it would really be possible to put people in a "matrix-like" state, total VR. People wouldn't want to leave.
Would also cause massive changes in the political world, governments would completely change to accomodate this because your average citizen wouldn't just be running blind most of the time anymore. They'd be able to see unbiased news if they wanted instead of being brainwashed by Fox or CNN or what not.
Just a few thoughts, most of them probably BS but worth thinking about.
All your base are belong to Google.
Seriously, the reason I play laser tag is because I suspect it's the closest to that kind of thing that I'll ever live to see.
An interesting book by Bruce Coville points to a similar situation...where all humans were once linked. Eventually the need for privacy grew and we created a Psyonic Barrier....I could see just such a scenario playing...
-Wired9_99
While I laud the effort, it will be a long time before this becomes a proper human interface. Take computer voice recognition... it's still in it's infancy despite years of 'progress'. The issues at hand:
i) How long it takes the computer to learn how to interpret the signals and what they relate to(its training).
ii) The training involved for the human to keep a 'steady mind'. How does the system bypass clutter?
If those two issues are resolved or mitigated, this is a cool prospect.
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
Well, about a year ago, in the Catalan Congress on Artificial Intelligence, I attended to an invited conference of a technology very similar to this. Since it was an invited conference it's not in the lecture notes, and I can't rememeber the name of the researcher, but he had a helmet that readed thoughts and could discriminate between many more than up/down, left/right and the like. The main difference was it required no surgery, they were applying it to humans, since with no surgery, it's easier to make experiments and had some pretty impressive videos. The research was being done in a European Union research facility.
DON'T PANIC
My father was crippled by a severe case of polio. He caught the disease when he was only 10 years old. Because of the nerve and muscle tissue dammage he did not walk until highschool, and then only with full braces and crutches. Now that he is getting older, the neurological and muscular symptoms he had when he was 10 years old are resurfacing and he is again confined to a bed, unable to even help himself sit up, or to breathe on his own (he has a respirator connected to a trache).
If this technology was proven and could help my father to walk or to even breathe better on his own I think it would be fantastic. DEspite his condition, my father earned three degrees (chemical engineering, mathematics, computer science). I can only imagine what he could have acomplished without his phisical limitations.
As for being eager for it, I don't presume to know your mind, but I bet you would entertain the idea quite seriously if you were in my father's position.
I can only imagine how someone who is paralyzed would feel if given the ability to move again. I can even see a system that would not only allow someone to transmit motor neuron function from the brain to the muscles, but also to transmit sensory neuron information to the brain from the extremeties. In essence this could be a complete loop that could allow those with spinal cord damage to actually feel again.
I think that this is exactly where technology needs to go in this century. Not only will it allow doctors to overcome some of the most tragic and vexing medical conditions, but I believe that it will result, ultimately, in benefits to people who do not suffer from any type of ailment.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Starcraft had some strategy depth to it.
If you plugged your brain into Warcraft3, it'd be like,"This is your brain. This is your brain in a microwave."
For real, I competed on a world class level for a while, so I know my shit. First one to 1500 wins.
Blizzard must have lucked out with Starcraft, because the way they balanced Warcraft was borderline retarded.
God spoke to me
So now this device communicates over wires, which I'm assuming is also what carries power to the implant. They had said in the article they are planning on producing a self-contained wireless version (which would be really cool). My only question is how it might be powered? Would you need to go under surgery every few months to replace the battery?
Maybe they would use glucose from our bodies to power the device? I would think though that sending a RF signal would consume a lot of juice. Anyone else have any thoughts on how they might supply power to a wireless implant?
Frankly, I'd prefer to see neural-interface match-ups because then the games become less of a matter of how well you can properly wield a mouse, but it relies more on strategy.
I don't see why this would be the case. Just because the interface wouldn't be based on a mouse and keyboard doesn't mean that different people wouldn't have varying levels of skill operating the interface. It's easily conceivable that people's succeptiblity to biofeedback signals would vary just as widely as hand eye coordination.
I work with spinal cord injured individuals. One patient in particular is a "locked-in" quadraplegic. What this means is that, in addition to not being able to move anything from his neck down (he is on a ventilator), he cannot speak. Because of a surgery complication, he bled into his lower brainstem, preventing any sort of muscular control of his mouth. It has also left him with a significant astigmatism and eye spasms preventing him from looking in one direction or controlling his eye gaze for any length of time (even short lengths of time like a few secs).
So in addition to being completely paralyzed, he can't speak and can't use any eye gaze adaptive devices. He can't use his mouth for tongue depressed switches, and because of facial muscle spasms, even EMG biofeedback has been ruled-out. He is a very rare patient (condition wise) but this is the kind of technology that would really be appropriate/needed for a patient with his level of disability. So gloom and doom matrix/personal privacy issues aside, these kinds of technology can be of paramount importance to paralyzed individuals.
And for those wondering, he communicates using an upward eye gaze and memorized letterboard.
1 a b c d e
2 f g h i j
3 k l m n o
4 p q r s t
5 u v w x y z
You basically go, "line 1, line 2, line 3,..." etc until he looks up (for "yes"). You then move across the correct row until he looks up to designate the letter. In this way, he can spell his way through communication. I once joked with him its like Wheel of Fortune meets Jeopardy on steroids. Cumbersome, but its the only way, and you can get surprisingly good at it with practice.
jeff