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Interview with Kevin Warwick
nicole pointed out a recent interview with Kevin Warwick, the professor of cybernetics that had a microchip implanted into his arm about a year ago. Cogent comments about cybernetics as well as the whole experience - including his plans for a bigger experiment within the next couple years.
Unless an implanted microchip gives me superfast reflexes or allows me to play Q3 without a computer, you're not getting a microchip implanted in me without a fight.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
I want nanoprobes in my bloodstream, augmented vision, tubes sticking out of the back of my head and a massive great gun for a right arm.
-Stephen of Borg
Why would someone not want an implant? Other than the possibility of my eyes being hacked or something like that, I see no real problems.
/. in my head anytime I need it.
I want my cellphone hardwired to my brain.
I want to have Unreal sent directly to my optic nerves.
I want maps, phone directories, news, even
I want a health monitoring system that can e-mail my doctor when I am sick.
I want(need) a blood alcohol checker.
I know some of you are thinking "Dear God, who am I going to let program something that goes INSIDE ME?"
I ask you this: You run buggy software. You have workarounds for your hardware. You complain night and day about the companies that don't do what you want. Would you have it any other way?
No, of course not. You love the technology or would wouldn't be a geek.
Implants are the future.
I wish I had been born later, so that I would be able to see more...
Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.
If I was going to get a chip in me somewhere, it had better be able to tell whether I was still living and breathing around it, before letting someone get cash out my bank account or have access to my house, etc.
I'd rather have my wallet nicked than my arm ripped off...
-- "Sponges grow in the ocean. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen."
Tee hee.
I want funny blue numbers across the top of my vision and a green target sight. And, I want to talk in a menacing sounding way. And, when I download updated killing algorithms from Master Global Corp's CyberNet, I want to stand really still with my head at a slight angle.
Plus, I want flesh that withstands extremes of hot and cold, and a copy of the British Library on minidisc that I can slide into a slot on the back of my neck.
Finally, I want a subtle logic bug that will be discovered by a 12 year old kid who will thus disable me save his cute pet dog, his mom and the whole world (in that order).
Apparently, all this will be possible in 50 years, and it'll replace plasic surgery and novely hats as the pastime of the rich and stupid.
BUT, only if you study cybernetics at reading. Hey Tom Hume, ever meet this guy?
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Instead of thinking this man is crazy for doing that, and thinking it is a sick thing, maybe we should think of all the good things it could bring to people. Maybe this oneday could bring life to paralized limb's and so on.
I dig the ideas this guy has. Of course, right now all he's done is to stick an unpowered transmitter in his arm, so that he can identify himself easily to his computer, but that's still cool. Here's some of the intresting bits...
:-)
:-)
:-)
Warwick is effusive about the possibilities and has even suggested that gun owners could get implanted to keep them from entering schools or other areas where heavily armed people may be unwelcome.
That bit looks rather stupid and is probably taken out of context...
We were never experimenting about the long term medical durability of the implant.
All of our experimentation, which was very successful, was carried out within the 9 days.
The implant was not actually designed to fit into the human body. It was in a glass capsule which could have broken or even exploded. It was, therefore, a trifle dangerous!
And that's why it's no big deal.. What the article says is something about "rejection" by the body... But how the hell is that going to happen in nine days? He even admits that it wasn't long term.. Still cool.
We want to investigate the interaction between signals to and from the human brain and computer. The next experiment will effectively provide an electronic short-circuit between the two. I really cannot see the need for keyboards or a computer mouse when such an implant is in position.
Seriously? In two YEARS? Hmmm.. I'd want more details before I'd believe THAT... Of course, if he's just hooking it in so he can read some brain signals, that's fine. Probably would be unable to decode them or anything, but then again, who needs to? Just learn to control the signal using your brain. Feedback is a wonderful thing.
I do not believe a student of Computer Science typically (there are obviously exceptions) gets a good idea of the true power of computers and how they can interact with the world about them.
As a computer science graduate, I find myself offended, but I see his point. Most CS people don't have a clue, being fit, IMHO, only for data entry.
But the uber-geeks I think are the true pioneers. The guys that hang in the Sun labs all day, who rewire the phone systems to auto-dial pizza joints.. These are the people that really understand the computers interaction with the world around them. Of course, we've always got good ol' Al Gore, the man who "invented the internet."
Do you have any advice for someone like myself who is interested in Biotechnology and Cybernetics?
...
(iii) Buy my book "In the Mind of the Machine".
This guy's practical. I like it.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I don't see what's groundbreaking about this. Our cat has a microchip implant, it was done about 2 years ago. If she gets lost, any veterinarian in the area can check her with a scanner and have her safely returned.
I don't enviseage having lights turn on for her when she enters a room, but it would not be difficult to do.
(Optimism, but that is a necessity!)
(High morale, open sourcing)
Jacking in is what we will be looking into at Reading in the next experiment. - This implies some kind of interaction between neural activity and digital machinery, now doesn't it? That certainly is the bottleneck in subtle mind control of our environments.
Now where can I get my construction kit, please?
It'll be interesting to live in the cyberage, seeing so surprisingly many of the visions of cyberpunk emerge. The future seems grand, even if only for dirt-rich westerners at first (global equalization, anyone?).
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
I'm not in a screaming hurry to get pieces of plastic and metal embedded in my body. Couldn't we work on something a bit less intrusive like induction maybe?
As to interfacing directly to the brain, perhaps, but very possibly won't be much use to any of us. Restoring visual input to the brain in later life does little good, the brain never learns to sort it out and process it efficiently. Works fine if you restore it at an early age when the brain is still growing. Language acquisition is also something that only works well at a very young age. Learning to process high bandwidth input might also need to be done when very young. I'm sure people will be eager to volunteer their very young children for this. Not.
I don't think our technology is up to designing implants that last a lifetime yet either. Upgrades and repairs are unusually painful here. Bit disorienting when reality bluescreens on you while driving...
Maybe I'm just too old or something.
Well, since I am planning to enter this field, I hav some thoughts on the matter. For starters, things we have:
A) Video: We have direct cortex implants that supply low res/approx 640x480, and we have the beginings of artificial retinas, which could have video piped into them.
B) Communication: The power requirements/broadcast range of the new ultra-wide spectrum burst tech is perfect for this kind of stuff. Small and Strong.
C) Output: We have the beginnings of direct brain implanted output, though the main researcher in that field understands lots of nuroscience and little CS, so he isn't makeing real good use of the channels he is setting up. We also have implantable "nerve sensors" for lack of a better word, that have been developed to drive prostetics, that don't go anywhere near the brain, and could be put in a healthy system, just to grab its output.
D) Audio: Actually, weve had audio for decades, as it's REALLY easy, just tag a voltage source onto the audio nerve.
We have all the pieces, it seems, but why don't we have cybernetics yet? Well, take a look at What We Don't Have:
A) Power: We need a good implantable power source, be it a long term battery, a really good thermocouple, or an expansion-generating polymer run alongside a muscle to grab a little juice when you extend.
B) Community: THe developers working on the parts in different fields are not yet treating them as "parts" and aren't really talking yet. We need more cross-field communication.
C) Miniturization: While we have all this neat tech, it is simply to big right now to think about an integrated system.
How We Will Get It:
A) The Disabled: As much as I may claim I need a Jack, my doctor doesn't believe me. But Parapalegics have a MUCH better case, and between them and the blind, we have a large population that has a genuine need for this kind of equipment.
B) Insurance Companys: That large population cost certain people a great deal of money, and anything which reduces that cost, is considered a GOOD thing, so insurance companys have and will continue finacning research into this field.
C) The Law: I don't care who you are, you can't say NO to a blind crippled baby and stay in office, so no one will outlaw this kind of tech, and it will mature.
D) Crazy Hackers: And then I will go and get some, and just like the comercialization of breast implants, I will keep going to different doctors until I find one who will say "YES".
-Crutcher
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
I feel a rambling session coming on...
/. readers spend more time socialising offline than online? Show someone the wonders and splendour of jacked-in cyberspace and tell them they can have it 24/7 if they sign over 40% of their brain to MS for use as distributed processing and they would jump at the chance. Everything I want for free? Fantastic, I don't think. (in fact most people won't think)
If you are "jacked in" and have the sum of human knowledge accessible to you as memory (not manual retrievel, but simply *already* knowing it) and experience the wildest fantasies imaginable, then what precisely will we do?
Will we live for pleasure, forever flipping between more and more exotic porn sessions and ever more fantastic scifi fantasy role-plays? Who wouldn't want to lose themselves in a truly believable Elite scenario?
Or will we live for pure research? Medical, IT, Space or Physics? Like Hell we will
Could you imagine the vast numbers of couch potatoes doing anything other than spending 24 hours inline? (yes, inline, copyright me, friday afternoon just back from the pub) I can't. Will it get to the point where everyone with a modicum of intelligence is obliated under law to maintain the system for the vast, stupid majority? Simply having the sum of human knowledge available isn't enough; you need to be motivated to actually use it.
What sort of people will grow up in this kind of society? Spoilt rotten retards probably.
Who'll pay for all this? You can bet that the likes of the big entertainment companies must be salivating at the prospect of a subscription from everyone on the planet.
What happens to capitalism when noone wants to buy material goods because they can have anything online?
What's the point of living like someone in those pods depicted in the Matrix?
Will anyone spend any time in real life? How many
It'll be a morlock/eloi hell. Don't try to tell me otherwise.
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
Or better yet, how about we use guns to shoot people who *have* implants? (Assimilate THIS!) Seriously, while I do find cybernetics fascinating, in the hands of people with this mindset, it is extremely dangerous. *Requiring* implants of any kind is a fascist, dangerous thing that no dignified human should accept. If I'm getting an electronic implant, I better have full control over whether or not it goes in, when it comes out, and what goes in it. Nate Kudos to cryptwhomp
In order to stop his body going mad he had to take very large doses of anti-biotics.
The chip had a RF loop in it to control door and his computer.
More intereting would have been plan A where they were going to implant it in my friend belly button. (Catherine is a bit into having the odd bit pierces) But I think the publicity of old professor preying on the only female engineer in department probably put him of.
(PS I graduated from Reading two years ago in Human Cybernetics... hence I know a thing or two!)
>I want my cellphone hardwired to my brain. /. in my head anytime I need it.
>I want to have Unreal sent directly to my optic nerves.
>I want maps, phone directories, news, even
>I want a health monitoring system that can e-mail my doctor when I am sick.
I want(need) a blood alcohol checker.
I think I will only be able to master the most crude form of these implants, artificial interfaces with simple controls (HUD displays and such). The only way to learn how to use implants like you described is probably have them implanted right after birth. Think of these cyber implants as extra organs with more possibilities than any of the organs you have now.
It would take the learningcurve of a child to efficiently use these implants, after all: there's only so much new tricks an old dog can learn.
As I see it the only way around this for me is create a full "Matrix-like" VR enviroment and me vegetating in a clinicd.
(With the possible exeption of alcohol monitor alike devices which do not require interaction. But they definitely lack the cool factor of the other possibilities.)
--
two-thousand-zero-zero
party over, it's out of time
Prof Warwick was my university lecturer.
Likeable enough guy (except for his insistance of reciting Skoda "jokes" during lectures) but like many academics, doesn't quite live in the land of reality.
Lets put things in perspective. The capsule which was injected in to his arm is no more different than the ID capsules you can have injected in to your cat or dog. The range is very poor - a couple of centimeters at best.
Personally - I think it is a lot of noise generated about nothing really new. If that capsule could report infomation such as blood tempreture and heart-beat rate... *Then* it is something to report about.
There, I've said it. My 2 pence worth...
You have to remember 2 things here to put his comment in context:
1. he's a head-in-the-clouds academic.
2. he's from the UK
The attitude towards gun in the UK is completely different from that in UK. Don't try and parse his comments in terms of the NRA vs Handgun Control Inc. gun ownership is a "right" debate.
In the UK the overwhelming majority of people think that handguns have no legitimate place in society.
Im not trying to comment on the relative merits of the US or UK approach to guns, Im just trying to put the guys comments in context!
VBP (Visual Basic for People)
Think of it... You could knock up a macros to automate those tedious tasks. Guys, no more need to lift that toilet seat, just implement...
function HaveAnAccurateSlash() as liquid
...and the girls would never know. Even works when you are lagered out of your head.
The possibilities are endless.
My major worry is macro viruses and unauthorised rewrites. Consider, you're lagered up, your tongue is a bit loose, ..and one of your friends manages to wangle your access code out of you.
We now get...
function HaveAnAccurateSlash() as liquid
Call RevealTackle
do While StillNeedSlash
Direction = Rnd
DoEvents
loop
call HideTackle
call LeaveToilet
ShortTermMemory.Wipe
end sub
In a recent thread on /. this topic was discussed in depth. One article compared the murdur rates in the US and UK with extensive documentation. The thread was in the left/right/center politics poll so I can't give you the link. However I did note down the relevant stats. The last year with complete data was 1997. In 1997 there were 142 murdurs in the UK and 18,209 in the US of which 68% were commited with guns. Adjusting for population (the US has 5 times the population of the UK) there were 2.4 murdered per million people in the UK and 67.9 per million in the US.
I would argue that the 28X higher murder rate in the US is, at least in part, due to easy access to guns (especially handguns)
It sems to me that the UK doesn't have the "same problems" as the US.
Now having said that I don't beleive UK style gun control could work in the US. The attitude of people at large is very different. The vast majority of people in the UK see no legitimate need for private handgun control. The same cannot be said for the US. Many people in the US beleive that hand gun ownership is a good thing.
The majority of gun owners in the US are also responsible people who do not commit crimes. It would be very hard to convince such people that banning handguns is a good idea. Indeed in the US it probably isn't because not only are there a huge number of guns out there, in many places they aren't registered or liscenced in anyway so there would be no way implement such a ban.