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fMRI Lets Israeli Student Control Robot In France With His Mind
MrSeb writes "An Israeli student has become the first person to meld his mind and movements with a robot surrogate, or avatar. Situated inside an fMRI scanner in Israel, Tirosh Shapira has controlled a humanoid robot some 2000 kilometers (1250 miles) away, at the Béziers Technology Institute in France, using just his mind. The system must be trained so that a particular "thought" (fMRI blood flow pattern) equates to a certain command. In this case, when Shapira thinks about moving forward or backward, the robot moves forward or backward; when Shapira thinks about moving one of his hands, the robot surrogate turns in that direction. To complete the loop, the robot has a camera on its head, with the image being displayed in front of Shapira. Speaking to New Scientist, it sounds like Shapira really became one with the robot: 'It was mind-blowing. I really felt like I was there, moving around,' he says. 'At one point the connection failed. One of the researchers picked the robot up to see what the problem was and I was like, "Oi, put me down!"'"
Most of the comments so far seem to confuse EEG-based interfaces with fMRI-based ones, or local with telerobotics, but no great surprise there. The politics is sad, but again only to be expected.
We still can't do true mind-control of robots (there's no way to read minds yet, we can only say "pattern X equals action Y", which is not the same thing) but this is an interesting development to say the least. Think in terms of medicine. Robotic interfaces in surgery are typically data gloves or joystick, plus goggles, but muscles have poor granularity of control, data gloves and joysticks reduce this further, and goggles are incredibly low-res. If they get to the point where surgeons are limited only by the precision of their mind, you're looking at a major revolution.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Ask any good backhoe operator about how he operates the machine and you'll find he doesn't think about the mechanics of his arms and feet interacting with the control levers. His brain abstracts all that and treats the hoe as an extension of his body. Once you've been trained how to move the controls, you stop thinking about it. You just dig.
A similar feeling could be generated simply by video goggles and a joystick. In fact when I fly my airplane using a video downlink, it feels like "I'm there." Seeing yourself on the ground is a bit weird! I can look down at something, turn the plane to look at something all without really thinking about what my hands need to do, since they've been trained and my brain just does that automatically in response to what I want to do. This is true of normal RC airplane flying as well. People often ask me how I can remember to move my fingers in the opposite direction as the plane is flying towards me but the truth is I don't think about it at all very much. I just move the airplane where I want it to be.
The exciting goal of thought control, though, is obviously to enable people who don't have the use of limbs or fingers to control and interact with robotics, such as an artificial limb, as if it is part of the body. And as the test subject can attest, that's pretty much what happens with training. Now if they can just get the sensor equipment to weight less than a few tons and not draw metal objects towards it...
If such technology existed, why would that be better than a keyboard and mouse or a gamecontroller as an interface? And using my extensive experience in an environment where they have been used for "combative" purposes I ask: why is a huge latency desirable? And how is a human better than an aimbot?
Human lives are cheaper than advanced combat robots (with or without AI). The notion that no sacrifice in blood has to be made in war might be alluring to democratic politicians and their constituencies, but the sooner democracies in the world stop initiating wars the better the world will be off. Thus I am happy to say that due to economics drone armies will not conquer the world*, either under the pretext of humane intervention or blatant imperialism.**
* Conquest is long lived occupation (with repression) not mere military victory. The technological saturation point of destruction has already been reached, no further advancement is required.
** If you read between the lines of this comment a "Fuck the USA" can be spotted.