Slashdot Mirror
That's Using Your Head
broKenfoLd writes "In an earlier post, we looked at the future of Matrix-esque control over computers. In that article, monkeys got to play the games. Today at UW in Madison, WI, it's the humans who are playing video games just by thinking about it. While this is cool for us power gamers, it has many more impressive applications, including limb replacement."
When this is refined it can change the way games are played in general. No longer will games be about who has the best hand-eye coordination. Rather they will be about who can think the smartest and fastest. We may end up calling any form of gaming that requires movement or manipulation of physical controls old-school.
Screw limb replacement. I want limb addition!
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
This issue brings harshly to light the ethical problems inherent in all scientific advancement. Clearly this technology can be put to excellent use to restore mobility to paraplegics, or to allow those of us who were nicknamed "Twitches" in high school to improve our success in Counterstrike: Source.
That said, this technology could also be used for less noble goals; while it says nothing about direct brain control via the implant, and indeed I feel that that would be difficult at best, perhaps even impossible, there are other questionable deeds that could be accomplished with such a device.
Certainly it will make warfare much quicker, and mass-destruction much easier; it has the capacity to lend a remote-control, push-button effect to war that was previously limited to such weaponry as ICBM's. Imagine soldiers in tanks who no longer see enemy soldiers, but just blips on a screen that they manipulate and shoot without any physical interaction! or "suicide bombers" who directly drive bomb-laden delivery trucks into buildings with their brains from over a DSL connection.
It shall be interesting to see where this technology goes.
---
she won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
"They also are working on developing new electrodes that emit drugs that tone down the inflammation that comes from introducing a foreign object into the brain." This statement is medically interesting in the sense that the human immunoresponse to objects it doesn't recognize - e.g. antibody / antigen reaction. Not to mention that introducing even the slightest foreign object in the subarachnoid space (the space between the skull and the brain itself) is of fatal importance. At one point we have to wonder and assume that technology will eventually make all of this possible but will we maintain our "humanity" or will we undergo some change ala Caption Picard and the Borg - ?
... if music be fruit of love, play on
Combine the unsurpassed parallel processing capability of our brain with speed of sequential execution of an even average home pc, and who knows what can happen. This is what you read about in sci-fi, yet it's already on our door steps. (Mind you it's in infant stage, but nonetheless.) Next thing you know faculties of Math/Science/etc. will cease to exist and instead the parents will pick if they want the latest copy of Mathematica or Maple installed in their childs brain ;)
Does anyone know if any group is doing research on using input devices for your brain from a computer? In other words, a way of sending information back into your brain so that you could know it, hear it, visually see it or feel it?
The Matrix is cool but here's a the rub. Neo, Trinity, Morpheus and all the rest were born in the matrix. They learnt to control their virtual bodies as they grew up. Even if the machines got it into their silicon minds to hook up one of the children of Zion it would take years for him to learn how to control his virtual body, if he ever did. We are children of Zion, and should we ever get enough electrodes implanted into our brains it will also take us years to learn how to control our virtual bodies.
How we know is more important than what we know.
How isn't that a significant development? A quadraplegic goes from being completely dependent on others to being able to accomplish things on his own and in addition some things he could only dream of (video games). That's pretty life changing I think.
This got me thinking, once you're dealing with the brain directly and not hearing, smell, touch, tase, vision, you could add senses in the same way modders currently add levels or features to games.
I think the best application would be the ability to wire your brain directly into another person's to express ideas without waiting for our mouths to do the work. There is a gob of tissue that connects the left and right sides of the brain that when cut leads to all sorts of weird problems.
If we can borrow the right side of someones brain for an art school assignment then wouldn't humanity start to look a lot like open source software? We own our brains now, they're proprietary. What happens when we connect a bunch together? What happens to "self"? Are we the final Beowulf joke?
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com