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U.S. Military Spending Millions To Make Cyborgs A Reality (cnn.com)
mmell writes: The U.S. military is spending millions on an advanced implant that would allow a human brain to communicate directly with computers. If it succeeds, cyborgs will be a reality. The goal of the proposed implant is to "open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics" according to DARPA's program manager, Phillip Alvelda. In January, DARPA announced it plans to spend up to $62 million on the project, which is part of its Neural Engineering System Design program. The implant would be small -- no larger than one cubic centimeter, or roughly the size of two stacked nickels -- according to DARPA. The implantable device aims to convert neurons in the brain into electronic signals and provide unprecedented "data-transfer bandwidth between the human brain and the digital world," according to a DARPA statement announcing the new project. DARPA sees the implant as providing a foundation for new therapies that could help people with deficits in sight or hearing by "feeding digital auditory or visual information into the brain." A spokesman for DARPA told CNN that the program is not intended for military applications.
Ordinarily, such a headline might be considered sensationalist reporting and a batch of sci-fi -- except DARPA is involved. I can remember when internetworking computers was a radical concept until DARPA came up with some serious sci-fi style communications protocols to make it all work. With only $62 million budgeted (so far), we can only hope that it'll be a while before they succeed -- but then again, this is DARPA we're talking about.
Ordinarily, such a headline might be considered sensationalist reporting and a batch of sci-fi -- except DARPA is involved. I can remember when internetworking computers was a radical concept until DARPA came up with some serious sci-fi style communications protocols to make it all work. With only $62 million budgeted (so far), we can only hope that it'll be a while before they succeed -- but then again, this is DARPA we're talking about.
Hopefully they don't run poettering shitcode,or this is going to be a giant waste of money.
"Alert: Pay us 5 grand in bitcoin, or we'll give you amnesia, like we did to Reagan and Rick Perry!"
Table-ized A.I.
...what? Is there an editor in the house? We seem to have a batch of orangutans at the controls here!
NT
just don't link it to the missile launch systems
Then you wouldn't need to send the soldier to the battlefield at all, just a robot with some sort of encrypted and authenticated wireless interface between the brain and the robot.
Hackers everywhere are salivating at the thought.
I for one look forward to our Amurican overlords. Oh wait
If we were talking 62 billion I might worry that this could be a reality but 62 million is about how much it cost to make half of kung fu panda 3
$62 million man just does NOT sound as good as the $6 million man. Tim S.
Resistance is futile.
"The implantable device aims to convert neurons in the brain into electronic signals ..."
As an additional benefit a short time after implantation the subjects will qualify as news release editors or professional climate change deniers (but not for long).
Nate
doesn't anyone realize potential advantages?
Why not just invest in the blue brain project? They already have an excellent plan and project management.
We are the United States. You will be assimilated into our American culture. We have analyzed your defensive capabilities as being unable to withstand us. If you defend yourselves, you will be punished. Resistance is futile.
I hate all anonymous shitbags. Log in, you filthy bastards.
The real problem with the computer chip, human cell interface is that final connection. Getting a connection that will not burn out or contaminate cells or even the simple physics of different densities and how that will disrupt connections from changes in inertial loading. Those chips would need to have near identical densities to the brain tissue they connect to, any electrical exchange would have to be near identical to human electrical change (which tends to be more within the cell with chemical exchange outside of the cell) and chemical exchange would require refuelling the computer chips or attempting to draw that chemical fuel from the body.
Sure computer biological connections can be more easily obtained but they are not sustainable or desirable and their intent only really functions around concepts of torture, forced destructive extraction of data or temporary enslavement (with biologic failure in any extended application).
Reality is, for any longevity it would require the bioengineering of a living organisation planted within the brain that could act as the connection between the human mind and any digital interface. Something that could squirm into the brain, say between the two halves of the brain and wrap itself around the corpus collosum with it's tail attached to the skull providing the digital connection. About the only means be which to create a no destructive connection, apart from say remote quantum connections, in terms of measuring and changing. Far simpler to engineer the symbiote than to attempt a quantum connection of course if you don't care about damaging the individual and your purposes are destructively perverted as expected from the US military, than well, what else would you expect from the US military industrial complex.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Author fails to comprehend magnitude
You can read about the specifics here: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=op....
The call is for a human-deployable system after 4 years. It should read from a million neurons and be able to write to 100,000 neurons, 1000 neurons in full duplex read-write, with 60 dB channel isolation, all in a tiny package that doesn't significantly overheat the brain tissue its up against.
Who thinks that's possible?
Expected time to finish is 1 hour and 60 minutes.
Hell and fire was spawned to be released
> I can remember when internetworking computers was a radical concept until DARPA came up with some serious sci-fi style communications protocols
No, son, you don't. And no, they didn't.
E ... this was a radical concept". Four years later the protocol was improved to add sequence numbers, acks, send windows, and TCP was born. While ARPA (now DARPA) financed some of this work, it wasn't anything DARPA[sic] came up with nor was there any "serious sci-fi style" whatever to it. From the IMPs of 1969 to the NSF core routers (Cisco AGS+) of the 1980s to the networks we have today, The US DoD ARPA had a hand in funding it, but it didn't "come up" with any of it (that's not what they do) and none of it is sci-fi, and you don't remember any of that personally. Here's a shout out to the many people who were around that day.
P.S. To add finer detail, the IMPs used the 1822 protocol developed by Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BBN) in 1969. You were not around to "remember when
or else, some poor soldier's ex-wife would get a little surprise.
These devices place a selection pressure on the species. The brain may evolve to better interact with electronics but become dependent on them like the Binars. Other parts of the brain may decrease in function or disappear.
which I cares.
I for one, welcome our new cyborg overlords
When time comes to control the masses, you think the volunteer military, most police will FIRE upon you average everyday citizen? Some will, most won't, but a "cyborg" won't care.
which I cares.
Sure! Didn't you watch "Total Recall"???
OK, so the launch captain takes a nap, has a bad dream - monsters from the id?
Military technology eventually makes it to the public. I, for one, cannot wait to get my own implant. I'm not sure why anyone would fear this, in any case.
One cyborg that can simultaneously control a hundred drones as if they were extensions of his/her own body.
Unless they are after me.
A few years ago this would have been a foolish idea, but now electrodes can be permanently attached to neurons with no apparent damage, so it becomes a lot more reasonable. And there's one style of them that can spread out and connect to a bunch of different neurons in the same area.
So a lot of the enabling technologies have already been developed. I must admit that I don't expect this to work, but it's no longer a totally ridiculous idea.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Honey, I did not mean to have the affair. My chip was hacked, and I was forced to have the affair.
By networking human brains directly together, so they can jointly participate in a single thought, we remove the ceiling on the expressive power of human cognition.
For the skeptical: consider that an ordinary human thought is data moving over a network of neurons. No single neuron fully expresses or grasps the thought completely, yet each neuron is an integral part of it. Networking our brains together is just the next logical step in our ongoing cognitive evolution.
Many people will be scared and not get on-board. That's fine. They will simply be left behind.
DARPA is involved in a lot of things that don't work out. If anything, DARPA involvement means it's far enough in the future most of us will already be dead even if they get somewhere.
They have spectacular successes and even bigger Failures
The Hafnium bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Their Cybernetic Menagerie : Weaponized Rats, Bees, and a mechanical elephant http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
One of my favorites, the Connection Machine architechture http://www.inc.com/magazine/19...
Using a neural link to fly a plane, is an idea that appeared in the 'Cyborg: Six million dollar man' (M Caiden) and 'Firefox down' (C Thomas) novels. This specification may be a long way from that capability but it's difficult to believe the technology isn't headed towards zero-button cockpits.
before they succeed
Why would we hope this? Isn't that the final nerd goal?
One device the size of two nickels? Shouldn't it be dozens/hundreds/thousands/zillions of very small IO... thingies?
The important thing is, can I use my brain chip to buy a hoagie at Subway? If so, the convenience completely outweighs any risks.
"aims to convert neurons in the brain into electronic signals" So what, you burn them and run an engine or something? As a neuroscientist, I'd have to recommend against this. You kind of need those.
Let's put the genes back in Genesis.
This is a far cry ftom making someone a 'cyborg'. The masturbatory teenaged sci-fi fantasies that dominate tech news these days are worse hyperbole than we had in even the 80s or 90s (The Russians will cower at the thought of our space lasers!). Do you have any idea how much money the government spends at our national labs on experiments that never work or lead to snything useful? Beware of the words 'could', 'may', or 'might' in headlines, it means something is being looked at, not available, and in my experience a lot of that stuff never sees the light of day.
PS - Google pulls the same fantastical, hyperbolic and theoretical shit, they just pull their shit in public.
you get arrested and convicted for X. that is almost a ninety five percent in the us.
the court then makes the brain-chip interface mandatory for all convicts.
just a thought. those bastards figured out a way to lock up twenty five percent of the worlds prison population with only five percent of the worlds population. sounds like the next logical step for our overlords.
start over with the constitution being the law of the land. corporate-banking-military industrial complex non-interference and punishment (prison AND triple fines) amendment being a main component.
Just a matter of degree...
Just thought I'd ask - being an old B5 fan and all . . .
But it will be weaponized eventually once we get most of the kinks worked out...
A CB is the first step to interfacing cyberware in your body. Soon: Full Conversion Borgs.
A cyborg is a cybernetic organism. This is just a way of communication. It has nothing to do with an actual cyborg. A man with a prosthetic leg is
more of a cyborg than this.
Brainstorms that is, no implant but the transmission / recording of though, feeling, and emotions, plus a bit o' pain. I just feel sorry for the guy that looped the porn film... orgasms for the rest of his life, without purpose, ie. an orgasm without a clue!