Slashdot Mirror
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!"
I can get a remote-controlled monkey?!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
.. will I be able to run Linux?
This would enable handicap people to control machines, not vice-versa. It would be killer for fighter pilots though...
...for processing the data from the microelectrode arrays.
Yes, the above link goes to another web site called "bionictech.com", but the two companies merged in 2002.
The Army reading list
So far it works for monkeys...
Can they use it to teach the monkeys to program?
That would make them the ultimate code monkeys!
*ducks*
~ "When I'm of that age I'm just going to live up a tree."
So....imagine a Beowulf cluster of *me*!
[rimshot...]
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
I'm game as long as it's not controlled by Windows. I can see it now, it's the ultimate experience in VR except for the minor annoyance of crashing and killing the connected users after a few days.
This really isn't Matrix-like at all, though. The implant doesn't feed information to your brain, it only gets information from it. Still, it's VERY cool if it works and is safe. I like the idea they mention of also putting implants into paralyzed limbs to allow the brain implant to move them. Eat it, paralyzation!
-W
--
All unfair meta-mods are now being meta-meta-modded as retarded.
"what happens if i die in the matrix?"
"the body cannot live without the mind."
jon the "morpheust"
-- http://www.cerastes.org
How soon until anyone can become the ultimate expansion card? Sign me up!"
Damned ISA interface! I was told when it was welded on that it was all I would need. That and 640K!
Don't forget ram doubler. I would love to store memories.
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 could make a long comment about it but everyone will just go to the link anyways. here ya go!g ical/ 1-896,25078.asp
http://www.health24.co.za/news/Brain_Neurolo
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
this is scary, although at least at the moment when you're plugged in you are able to communicate with the machine and the real world, unlike the matrix, where you are either fully in or fully out.
think what would happen if a virus made a leap from our reality to the machine reality; or the other way round...
I wonder if this would work backwards? Is this the gateway to using the human brain as a computer? (After all, we only use a portion of it...)
m
No, we don't.
http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.ht
-W
--
All unfair meta-mods are now being meta-meta-modded as retarded.
People who are eager for this sort of thing puzzle me. Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but I'd like to stay as far away from this as possible. I don't say this to be a luddite, but there are definite limits to where I would personally go with technology.
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
Then I can have a beowulf cluster of me!
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
My biggest complaint about computing is that my brain->computer interface (hands to keyboard that is) is VERY low bandwidth and VERY high latency. And I know I can't be the only one that has this problem. Anybody that codes knows what I mean, you can visualize and solve the problem in your head much faster than you can get that solution into the computer.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
... How can we try to control things with our brain when science doesn't fully understand the brain?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
How can I think all three at the same time? Ahh ... I see a blue screen on the horizon.
This is really the first step towards cyborgs, instant control for fighter pilots, enhanced soldier response, etc. When you stop to think about the potential, it's pretty fascinating and a bit scary.
Dude, if you want realistic fighting with the chance of possible brain damage, just join the army.
I, for one, welcome our new cyborg overlords.
Education is the silver bullet.
"Carbon units, take heed: Lengthen your reproductive extension! Wealthen yourself through expediting currency transfer for expired-dictator spouse-counterpart! Observe vixen-type hu-mans frolicking in their dorm-units!"*
Stefan
* Stilted borg language added for comedic effect.
I doubt you meet the system requirements ;) you need at least a 386...
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
"Alright, now think of any number between 0 and 18446744073709551615."
OR, if you're using 128-bit encryption:
"...between 0 and 3.4028236692093846346337460743177x10^38"
Crushing dreams at the speed of sarcasm
Arthritis is really hindering my FPS ability!!
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
This was the cover story of the Popular Science that I just received in the mail. You can read the article here.
Do not read this sig.
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.
No, we only know what a portion of it is used for. There's a diference.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Just remember our experiences from the computer world...
NEVER use BrainJack v1.0
Always wait for the point release!
... until you realize your being hooked up to a microsoft product. Takes the blue screen of death to a whole new level.
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.
I would imagine that there would probably be separate arenas/competitions for physical-interface games and (not sure what the word is) neural-interface games. Just because, like the top-level poster said, it would generate an unfair advantage.
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. Presumably, all the characters would have the same "physical" (in the game) abilities, so it would be up to the players' strategies and luck to determine who would win.
True story.
"every time the wife would turn on the microwave, I'd piss my pants and forget who I was for half-an-hour."
Not to mention static electricity would probably be a SERIOUS phobia
> I would imagine that there would probably be separate arenas
Too bad you post at zero, because that was a good point.
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.
Gives the phrase Blue Screen of Death a whole new lease on terror, doesn't it?
The company's system, called BrainGate, could help patients with no mobility to control a computer, a robot or eventually their own rewired muscles
...
Surgenor said the whole system eventually will be wireless.
Stray EMI could give you a tic. Someone malicious could actually block/redirect/subvert control of your own body, remotely.
On the other hand... telerobotics, maybe? Use your brain to control a robot doing a dangerous job somewhere! Going into a hazardous environment from the safety of your control lab...
Or maybe even a totally virtual environment.
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
As opposed to Windows which just runs all of your thoughts as admin by default? Imagine someone crashing your optical input to get full access to your brain a la smashing SQL Server to grab a whole server.
AAAGHH!!!! I'm blind!!!
But, on the other hand, I'm being used to host pr0n... so is it really that bad?
Imagine a ping o' death on your brain...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
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
For anyone that doesn't recognize this, it's an adaptation of a monologue done by Brak from the Space Ghost crew on Cartoon Network. Here's the original:
One time I hired a monkey to take notes for me in class. I would just sit there with my mind a complete blank while the monkey scribbled on little pieces of paper. At the end of the week the teacher said, "Class, I want you to write a paper using your notes." So I wrote a paper that said "Hello, my name is Bingo. I like to climb on things. Can I have a banana? Eek eek." I got an F. When I told my Mom about it she said "I told you never trust a monkey!" The end.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Current estimates by Robert Freitas suggest that it is going to require at least a trillion nanorobots in place within the brain and most probably the installation of an extensive fiber optic network to handle the required bandwidth to provide a matrix-like interface (either for real time full bandwidth human-computer interfaces or for brain/mind uploading into a computer). This may be documented to a limited extent in Ray Kurzweil's forthcoming book The Singularity is Near (est. publication early 2005) and perhaps to a greater extent in several years when Nanomedicine Volume III is published.
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
Hence my preference for laser tag, yes.
M.T. Anderson wrote a satire about this sort of thing. The book was called "The Feed". It's next on my list, haven't gotten to it yet.
Amazon describes it as:
"This brilliantly ironic satire is set in a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment--even on trips to Mars and the moon--and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy."
Sounds interesting, and inevitable....
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 remember when I first read a Gibson novel and he described "jacking into the Matrix"... All I could think was, I want one!
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
I generally embrace new technologies, but the potential disasters that this could create for humanity gives me the total creeps.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Blind man can see thanks to a camera implanted in his brain
I thought I read somewhere they're unable to understand the processes in the brain,
but can reproduce the Outcome of the electronical / neurological process by chips in hopes to once understand how *that gray matter* actually works.
Neurochips detect brain's reaction to learning
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
I think were seeing a lot of enthused people, but the technology is not what you seem to think it is.
It's a sensor implated into the back of your head that will take directions from the you, and move around the cursor to match those directions- essentially it will at its best remove the mouse from the computer (it will probabally work as a stylus/mouse once you get used to it).
Now this might solve a lot of RSD and Carple tunnel problems, but it's not going to let you 'download' massive ammounts of code from your brain into your computer, and it definatly isin't going to send anything back.
And the technology isin't ever going to do that (well this particularly strain of technology, someone else will work on brain signal decoding some day- this process dosen't decode anything), this technology may however build better prostetic limbs or weelchairs, and it will allow the paralized slow, but functional, access to the itnernet (try typing on a virtual keyboard with your mouse, it's goign to be slow not matter what compared to a touch typer)
So slow down there, I like you, cannot wait to be able to interface directly with my computer; I'm even interested in this technology (I'm starting to feel the progression of RSD on my 'mousing fingers' (I switch which hand uses the mouse every 6 monthes) and wrists), but I don't expect THIS technology to ever evolve into direct some form of neural interface, that will have to wait for someone else to develop a way to decode/encode human transmission signals.
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post
I wonder how long it would take an implanted monkey connected to a computer running MS Word to type up the script for "Hamlet"?