Intel Says Brain Implants Could Control Computers By 2020

Lucas123 writes "Scientists at Intel are working on developing sensors that would be implanted in a person's head in order to harness brain waves that could then be used to control computers, televisions, cell phones and other electronic equipment. Intel has already used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines to determine that blood flow changes in specific areas of the brain based on what word or image someone is thinking of. People tend to show the same brain patterns for similar thoughts. 'Eventually people may be willing to be more committed ... to brain implants. Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts.' said Intel research scientist Dean Pomerleau."

Comments

Peter Hamilton Sci-Fi

[SgtAaron]

I'm sure he's not the only Sci-Fi author to have put these ideas into fiction. I had a great time reading his Neutronium Alchemist novels and others and seeing his description of how mind/computer interfaces could function.

I think it's a lot more realistic than Star Trek (gasp :) to imagine that future spacers will be sitting on an acceleration couch with their eyes closed--and seeing space around them as if they were outside, than to be sitting at a console with hundreds of controls, relying on the speed of electrons traveling through meat. And I loved their ability to superimpose heads-up displays onto their vision. I suppose I'm getting beyond the scope of this story...

-Aaron

Re:Peter Hamilton Sci-Fi

[MozeeToby]

Actually, I think Alastair Reynolds's vision is even more accurate: Such mind/computer interfaces exist, but the vast majority of people don't use them because they fear catching a nanotech virus and those that use them to the fullest are so distanced from the rest of humanity that wars are fought over the sanctity of the mind. The idea of a computer connecting directly up to my brain... well, I hope security technology improves by a couple orders of magnitude before that comes about.

Why implants?

[BobMcD]

Why do people insist on looking towards devices that need to be surgically implanted to operate?

Sure the interface is more difficult when it is outside the skull, but the barriers to adoption would be much lower also, would they not? Not to mention support, upgrades, product life cycle, etc.

Are they really that shortsighted?

Re:Why implants?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Why do people insist on looking towards devices that need to be surgically implanted to operate?

In theory, the bandwidth is huge. You just can't do as much with the gear you have that's adapted for life on the Serengeti.

But, a skullcap is certainly the line at which I add "Luddite" to my .sig - bandwidth isn't everything.

The trick will be that those who do not accept the skullcaps will be at a tremendous competitive disadvantage in most economic measures. There may even need to be physical segregation of the populations.

Re:Why implants?

[turing_m]

Interestingly, grandparent dealt with the input side and I raised similar objections for the output side.

That assumes a few things though: that your occipital lobe is the highest bandwidth input possible, that visualizing symbols (words,numbers,etc.) is an efficient means of acquiring knowledge, that the brain couldn't learn faster if it had more efficient inputs, that direct memory creation isn't possible, and that your brain's wiring is optimal.

Personally, I think that we'll have strong AI before we have the answers to any of those. And not because strong AI is easy, but because if we can understand the brain in the level necessary to do much of what you suggest might be possible, we can simulate it, and simulation will be much, much easier than rewiring by hand.

Rewiring the brain to actually improve it - I doubt that would be possible outside of simulation. Direct memory creation - I'd like to see the mechanism proposed for this, as I would think that would be unworkable. More efficient inputs - again, all our ancestors from the time before we were mammals would have had eyes. That's a long time for evolution to come up with a highly efficient visual processing system and also, a visual system to general processing bus. I'd be surprised if a few electrodes are going to beat the existing, highly optimized system. Look at how fast we can visually process already. A good FPS player will notice lags of a few ms.

Re:Why implants?

[compro01]

Look at how fast we can visually process already. A good FPS player will notice lags of a few ms.

Actually, a bunch of that is interpolation trickery. You'll see an object in motion further along its (predicted) path than it is when you're seeing it to compensate for lag. This works very well when the object is moving in a fairly linear manner, but if something unexpected happens, you'll see a sort of deja vu effect where it goes back to where it was a second ago. This phenomenon is responsible for a lot of bad referee calls in sports

Will it run windows?

[localoptimum]

Seriously, this is a great idea. Only teenagers would agree to such a ridiculous implant, and you could rootkit the bastards and zap them when they piss on your car on a Friday night.

Bad choice of killer app.

[Metasquares]

The convenience of being able to navigate to a URL without having to type it is a really limited example. How about writing music with it? Being able to notate exactly what's playing in your head without needing to manually write a single note down? Weeks worth of work reduced to a few minutes! Or art: Can't draw? Just visualize!

Anything you can think about but can't actually do would be fair game.

Even with those sorts of apps, I still wouldn't get an implant unless my skull was being opened up for some other reason already. It's certainly not a fair tradeoff against something as simple as web browsing, as the summary suggests. I'm all for the braincaps. That's where BCI technology's headed anyway. And those have the distinct advantage of being removable as well...

Re:Bad choice of killer app.

[Virtual_Raider]

Or art: Can't draw? Just visualize!

(...) As Maurice Grosser said, "The painter draws with his eyes, not with his hands. Whatever he sees, if he sees it clear, he can put it down, [with] no more muscular agility than it takes for him to write his name. Seeing clear is the important thing." (...) If you can do that, expressing it in some form or another is relatively easy. Which of course, isn't to say it is 100% easy.

I couldn't disagree more vigorously. I can sort-of-draw. I'm much better than average but nowhere nearly as good as, say, a comic artist. I can see with photographic quality the object in my mind, but it takes great effort, skill and training to put it in paper. I took some basic classes and my drawing improved with those techniques but its still leagues away from what I would like to convey because I didn't practice enough to become more proficient and I didn't learn enough to do it better.

I can play a song almost to the last note in my head. It took me 6 months to be able to reproduce some boring pop melody at barely 1/4 speed closely enough to be recognizable by somebody other than myself. Maybe I have no "talent". Or maybe "not 100%" is near-zero for beginners and increases only with practice.

Don't get too carried away

[dave562]

It seems like they're at the point where they can recognize thought patterns. They intend to map those patterns to a UI. Just the other day I found myself sitting in front of a PC and browsing the web (imagine that). I've been using a Mac a lot lately. I wanted to scroll the page down and I found myself reaching for the touch pad to do that nifty two finger drag motion.

Some where between wanting to scroll the page down and the actual muscle action of reaching for the non-existent track pad was a series of neuro-chemical impulses. It seems like the researchers are identifying those. It would be kind of cool to be able to move a pointer around the screen and do basic web browsing actions (forward, backward, click, scroll, etc) without ever having to reach for the mouse. It seems like I first read about people using alpha waves to control mouse pointers over a decade ago at this point. It's about time they're getting to the point of doing something that might be useful.

Now once they get to the point of bringing up search results based on our thoughts, that is when I will start worrying.

Re:But Unfortunately...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's why I'd never trust anything that could potentially write directly to my brain.

Your fear prevents you from evolving.

Direct neural communication between groups of humans (and augmented by computers) would produce a thinking, conscious being who's cognitive capacities are a step above that of a human (in the same sense that human cognition is a step above that of monkeys).

This pattern is not new. Single-celled organisms formed cell colonies, which were an evolutionary step up, only after they opened their membranes to each other to allow direct chemical communication. Cell colonies accepted similar levels of integration in the formation of tissues, organs, and gargantuanly huge interconnected ecologies (specifically, humans).

Allowing direct neural reads and writes is the natural continuation of this pattern. Your fear will prevent you from taking this evolutionary step up. You will eventually sit in a zoo throwing dung at tourists, while the true visionaries reach beyond the stars.

 

Re:Not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd hardly refer to it as a sanctuary, our simple human brains are a cage we have yet to free ourselves of.

Future is non-invasive Brain-computer interface

[cyberfringe]

While electromagnetic implants will certainly appear first (they are already used for deep-brain stimulation to staunch epileptic attacks), I believe it will be the non-invasive brain-computer interfaces (BCI) that really will come into widespread use. One step on the way there is a new technique called "Optogenetics" http://www.stanford.edu/group/dlab/optogenetics/. Another is "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation which has already been used to both induce and suppress brain states. There are a variety of other techniques being investigated, e.g., near-infrared for monitoring oxygen uptake which also promise good resolution imaging of brain structure and activity. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMFRI) is the key tool being used now to map cerebral structure and function. The Koreans have had a 10-year initiative going in reverse-engineering the brain that is now showing very significant progress to the extent that universities such as Seoul National University, Hanyang, and KAIST have actually created multidisciplinary "Brain Engineering" departments. Last week I drove a toy slot car on a track with an external brain sensor ... you'll be able to buy it at Toys R US for Christmas this year. Believe it.