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The Future of Mind Control of Physical Objects
mattnyc99 writes A month ago we discussed the accomplishment when researchers got monkeys to feed themselves with a robotic arm controlled by their brains. But after all the recent successful experiments with brain-computer interfaces, will the technology ever make it out of the lab and into hospitals — or even into our hands, for the closest thing imaginable to The Force? Popular Mechanics takes a look at the future of mind-machine control, speculating on several theoretical applications once brains can adapt to devices via direct communication between, say, synapse and prosthetic. Quoting the field's leading neuroscientist: 'For the foreseeable future, the main benefit is for rehabilitation. But the research is showing that the brain can act independently of the body. One day, you could be sitting in an office and controlling a device from across the room — or in another building. And it's not just flicking a switch. It could be a nanotool that's moving through a tiny environment, and you can control it and see what it's seeing.'"
If I had the option, I would opt to have my brain placed in a jar attached to a robot body in the event that my heart gave out or something.
I have to imagine there is someway to keep the brain alive chemically. If an artifical blood-like fluid could be manufactured that carried oxygen and nutrients to the brain, and some sort of electro-stimulus interface could transmit visual and audio data, it seems plausible (in a cartoonishly plausible way) that we could survive the deaths of our bodies and live on for several more decades as purely intellectual beings; an existence I would enjoy almost as much as my current existence. And don't get the impression that I'm willing to discard my body because I'm hopelessly fat and sedentary. I love my body. I have a black belt, I workout out at the gym, and I am physically active. But when those capabilities go away, I would love to live on and experience the intellectual future.
What if mastering a prosthetic interface is like learning to speak a language without an accent, something that's almost impossible to do as an adult?
What if people who grew up before this technology gets perfected won't be able to compete in the workforce?
Anyone interested in the dark side of direct neuro-prosthetic communication should watch ghost in the shell: stand alone complex.
In this show, set in the near future (about 25 years from now), a common means of entry into enemy strongholds involves directly hacking people's motor functions and turning them into marionettes.
A constant arms race is underway pitting entry vs "attack barrier" defenses which lash back against neuro-hackers and attempt to fry their brains.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Why do I ask that? Because 1/7th of a second is roughly how long it takes for an electric pulse from your brain to reach your fingers.
Why is that important?
First Person Shooters...
Defective Logic
I'm in the middle of a novel by David Brin titled Earth. In it he describes a futuristic version of a human-machine interface called a "sub-vocal" which reacts to nervous impulses for speech before they turn into physical movement. He imagines that such a think only works for someone with a very clear mind and sharp focus because drifting thoughts may cause bad signals. In the story, this manifests as obscure commands to the interface and sometimes verbalizing thoughts that normally would have qualifies as "inner monologue".
While it is only a story, the author is a real sharp cookie, and it seems quite plausible to me that hyper-sensitive electronics could go wonky if the operator were not 100% focused on them - and when are we really 100% focused on anything? I do not have total focus on driving if I'm conversing with someone, listening to music, or thinking about my day. Could obscure thoughts wreck my ming controlled car?
...the only person who feels that the human thought patterns are too flakey and un-predictable to be put in this sort of situation. Anyone who has ever tried to take up meditation will tell you how frustrated, as well as surprised, they were to find out that you're really not in control of your thoughts as much as you would think.
We don't have to limit ourselves to the physical world (think Neuromancer). A few years ago, a friend of mine showed me a tale (forgot the url, sorry) about a scientist creating 3D pictures and doing advanced CAD using a neural interface and a holographic display. Imagine not even needing a mouse pointer to modify a curve, but instead just imagining what the curve will look like. And of course, having realtime feedback.
Add a little AI to it so you can tell the program what parameters to modify as you're molding the object being designed.
Now imagine if you could program software this way using the a VR (and user-friendly) equivalent of UML.
more like the lantian interface from stargate.
fighter pilots could focus on their targets to guide missiles in, select which targets to fire upon, etc.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I was thinking more along the lines of the military when he said the implications. We already have planes that can fly without a pilot (UAVs). If a person could wholly be inside a plane mentally (in a sense), imagine the increased control one could have, without the limitations of G-forces on a pilot's body or the fear of real death. And the military definately has the budget.
All this talk about human assisted robots reminds me of a game I played back in my youth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Must_Fall:_2097
Ask me about repetitive DNA