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The Cat Cam
PhilHibbs sent us an article from wired that talks about Neuroscientists creating
videos from a cats eyes using electrodes implanted in a cats brain.
Here are some
Pictures.
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It's easy to dismiss ethical issues as "crazed ravings by animal rights nuts," so I feel I have to state up front that I eat meat, wear leather, and use personal hygiene products tested on animals.
The ethical questions would be much more obvious if the test subject were human, of course.
A couple of starting points:
When do we have the right to monitor the perceptions of a living organism?
What effects does this procedure have on the organism? Can it lead a normal life once the probes have been removed?
I think this is good research. I'm not opposed to it. But that's because I've thought these things through.
Here ya go.
Hope they don't mind me taking a load off their server. Be gentle, now!
First of all, about the cats. They are probably a bit less miserable than you (like to) think. Their heads are possibly restrained to impede movement artifacts on the electrode's recording. They are probably trained to stare at a fixation point for a food reward. I *doubt very much* that their eyelids are clamped open as someone here suggested. The data during eyeblinks is probably *extremely* important for their studies.
:) Some of us actually try to minimize discomfort as much as the paradigm will allow.
And FYI, not all scientists are inhuman monsters.
Unfortunately, If they are using standard implant electrode technology, it's not very stable. This means that over time(days-weeks) you will lose access to those cells. Also, they had to laboriously catalog (I assume) the response of each and every cell, and then apply each cell's response as a filter on a small area of space as shown in the figure.
Any inevitable drift in the electrode would screw this up big time, requiring a complete recataloging of spike waveforms and their spatial filters.
So I wouldn't expect this to be field mountable without some major advances in neuron recording technology. The metal wire in the brain is just too invasive in the long term.
As for implanting them in cats and soldiers as mobile spies, why not just use a camera mounted to their head (with maybe a gaze tracker if you want to monitor precisely what they're looking at)? I don't understand what the benefit of this technology is, compared to a small camera. There is an immense "pain-in-the-ass" factor of using it practically.
Not to say it's not important, this is awesome news. I just don't think it has much practical application as a spy cam in the near future. Now creating artificial eyes, that's something, and this is right on target.
Go humans.
-Illserve
In a related development, neuroscientists found that if they simultaneously stuck sharp electrodes under the skin of a human and of a cat, the sensations produced were remarkably similar.
Seriously - I find this to be a very disturbing study. I'm not going to cop a holier-than-thou attitude here; I myself have done painful neurological experiments on living rats for no better reason than to satisfy a course requirement. And scientifically, this study is tricky work, well done. However, you really have to question the motives here. This is the ultimate in gee-whiz graphics, and by posting it on slashdot for a bunch of non-neuroscientists to ooh and ahh at, we're really buying into that.
Donna Haraway has written about the importance of vision in science (Before you dismiss her as just another of those postmodern feminist theorists who of course don't know what they're talking about, like Randy's overstereotyped ex in Necronomicon, you should read her
"Cyborg Manifesto"). She's arguing that no picture, not even natural vision, is as direct and honest as it seems to be. As science strives (rightly) for true objectivity, it tends towards several kinds of false objectivity. Pictures are one such method. They seem natural - it's easy for the layman to say "Oh, that's what a cat sees," rather than "That's a picture constructed by scientists as an educated guess about what a cat sees". This is not as bad as the false objectivity that says "Who are you to challenge my objectivity? You're not white and male, so whatever you say is obviously biased.", but it's a step in the wrong direction.
The way to fight this kind of false objectivity is to appreciate what went into making the image. When you see something, appreciate that it's actually being projected upside down on your retina, multiplied by three color/response curves, broken down into shapes and movement, and so on; the mechanisms of your vision bias you to pay attention to some attributes and unavoidably ignore others. And when you see a picture, appreciate how constructed that is. In this case, that means that the picture came to you through a very unhappy cat, into some electrodes, through some statistical software, and through the web. Anyone who can look at these pictures without feeling some real suffering in sympathy with that cat is not truly objective enough to be a scientist.
[Of course, most
Preferential Voting: easy as 1-2-3
This will totally allow us to use modified fish or for deepsea stuff... and if they can possibly figure out a noninvasive way of inputting rather than outputting from the visual cortex, we won't need monitors anymore!
This may be cool. Once they figure out what the eyeballs send to the brain, they might be able to make an artificial eyeball.
I hope the artificial ones don't come in a visor that looks like an air-filter from a '75 Buick.
This is really great news, because it's a demonstration that the current theory might be on the right track.
If the researchers had been unable to get their images, then they would have had to rethink the basics again.
Deciphering vision is but the first step in making borg. It would be wonderful to make Geordi's eyes for blind people, and some new inner ears for deaf people. Borg don't have to be bad at all. I think borg-like devices will help a lot of people.
A question: How complicated is the vision system compared to the signals on the spinal cord? Could these same ideas be used to realize the dream of Christopher Reeves to walk again someday?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Reminds me of a really evil but kinda neat site www.cat-scan.com
:)
Yes its bad i know, but i can't help but share
The military might find it attractive to implant this type of system into its troops in the field, and those dolphins they train to redirect enemy torpedoes. (Yeah I know, they say they quit that, but they can always restart it.)
There is a "bright" side of course, this type of recording could be used to train people how to do a by giving them the experiences of someone skilled in that area. You could learn how to play hockey by being Wayne Gretzky for an afternoon.
It is a bit of a stretch, but if this method is extended to other processes you could "teach" certain purely cognitive processes by example. Wouldn't it be neat to learn to do Physics by being Stephen Hawking for a few days. That is about the only way to gain a real insight into how he solves problems and how he understands the universe.
Before this type of "learning" could take place there may have to be a non-invasive method for retrieving the necessary data patterns from a brain.
Unfortunately the possibilites for abuse are so high, it is scary. Just because we can do a thing doesn't mean we should do a thing. It has already been mentioned that certain entities may want to use these possible future systems to monitor criminals.
What if the government decides to monitor anyone with access to classified information ? What if they decide they want to monitor people who are percieved to be a threat ? Let's say they get used to that sort of thing over time, will they then want to monitor everyone all the time ? After all if you have nothing to hide...
What are the boundaries ? What kind of world can this technology create ? What kind of world should this technology create ? Before moving forward too quickly we should understand the extremes of the application possible.
Science Fiction has shown dystopic visions of civilizations equipped with ultimate personal monitoring technology. (1984, Borg...) Has anyone seen a Utopian vision of a community with this technology ? What does it mean to bereft of all personal privacy ? Can humans remain sane without their privacy ? Which, if any, of our thoughts and actions does any government or community have a "need to know ? Is this sort of thing ever appropiate, regardless of the benefits it may provide to civilization ?
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
Alternately, this could be the ultimate voyeur tool
Voyeur: Yeah, baby... take it off for Daddy! That's it... show me the goods-- Hey! Damn cat! Stop playing with blinds, there's a naked woman in there! No, no! Look the other way!
Bugging animals with microphones for espionage purposes has been done. I have held in my own hands a cat skull with wires fused to the skull that led to microphones in the eardrums.
Anyway, the problem with application of this sort of technology is mostly in the power supply, and in heat dissipation requirements. There's no safe place (for the cat) to put a battery, and the heat generated can cause problems. The reason I only have the cat's skull, now, is because kitty didn't live very long...
>Of course an animal with explosives strapped to it could make an interesting terrorist weapon.
That damn Taco Bell Chihuahua gets my vote as a test subject. Put down the chalupa, indeed...
They put electrodes in Jon's visual cortex?!?!? ....oh wait, they said "cats", not "Katz"... nevermind.
Maybe this explains his weird opinions and bizarre writing style!
01101100 01101001 01101110 01110101 01111000 01110010 01110101 01101100 01100101 01110011
J. Danforth got his name for a real obvious reason - he's unusually dumb, even by the highest dumb cat standard. Millie, on the other hand, got her name because, in the words of my wife, "she looks like a Millie". There was no White House connotation meant there, though both cats entered our lives during the Bush administration.
The Bush Millie was a Springer Spaniel. She died a year or two ago, if I recall.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Either it'd cough it up like a furball or bury it somewhere after expelling it elsewhere. In which case you'd need a radio transimitter in it anyway to locate it.
Still, I think the whole thing is pretty cool. Does this mean they'll eventually be able to say, get signal from a video camera and 'insert' it into this same area of the brain in order to allow blind people to see? (by having a tiny camera in their glasses or something). If they can decode the signal it probably wouldn't be too much harder to encode the signal and make the neurons fire. This is all of course assuming the process for humans isn't too different than that for cats.
We're getting closer to the whole Matrix thing ;)
I could have told them exactly what my cats see. They see food. And that's about it. Every once in a while my cat J. Danforth sees the little red dot from my laser pointer, which he is convinced is a small rodent, and my other cat Millie only sees food and places to sleep.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Most of the comments on this thread have reflected little if any care about the animals involved in this "research". Do the cats voluntarily keep their eyes open? Or are they forced? When they finish with the images, do they just trash 'em, or what?
Please, take the time to reflect on the difference between Silicon and Organic constructs, and the gishy, gooey, very real and sloppy feelings that the latter endures for our curiosity.
Hence, Curiosity Killed The Cat.
Depends on the type of blindness you have. Lets assume they are able to make devices high-res enough to give a good image...
If your blindness is due to eyes that don't function[for whatever reason],then pumping this bitstream down to the brain might provide some sort of image.
However, if you have cortical blindness, all bets are off. These people have damage in the part of the brain that interprets visual signals. Therefore, even if you provided them with the highest quality image possible, they wouldn't be able to interpret what they were "seeing".
As an aside, I had a friend in med school who worked on this type of problem at the NIH a couple of years ago. IIRC, they installed a 256-pixel device in a blind patient. He did report being able to see flashes of lights from the device. I have a feeling we're going to hear much more about this in the not-too-distant future.
docwolf.
Cat brains have been, for years, used in experiments because of their similarities to the human brain...If this can be done in cats, I'll bet it can be done in humans in time.
This would be the ultimate wartime "bug"...Kidnap an enemy. Drug him, pop open his head, the works.
Rig an extensive, remote version of this...plug the brain cells that control vision. Voila, he leads you to his plans, allies, everything. And if you mess up, well, dang. You just scrambled a badguy's brain. Could be a lot worse. Like stepping in a hairball first thing in the morning, or cat hair all over your black wool trousers...
That would be really freaking cool, if it weren't so frightening.
Can't sleep, the clowns will eat me...
Face it, if they could do it, most of our pet cats would chow us for breakfast.
Damnit, that cat is the world's first fucking
Sense/Net superstar. It should be eating off
fine china for the rest of its life while the
masses hail it as a godamn messiah of newest
revolution in entertainment. Instead it will
be returned to its numbered cage and end its
life at Gillette doing first hand product
testing.
Is this any way to treat a pop icon?
What's the cat's name? What color is it? Can I
have it?
I hope y'all remember Gibson's Tally Isham.
This cat is the world's first Isham... and we treat it in such a shabby manner.
Dr. Fardook
lycos@bway.net
Dr. Fardook drfardook@evilconspiracy.com
I know for a fact that my cat would insert implants in my head with a dull butter knife if it meant he could control the can opener and doorknob. :)
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I recall reading more than one SF stories in which a character had a live feed hooked up to their eyes either for news reporting, or some sort of "you are there" entertainment.
The cake is a pie
They need to hook this puppy (or cat as it were) to a webcam. Then I could replace the JenniCam SlashBox with with CatCam! Live furball hacking all day! ;)
Of course once in a while I do look like a comfy chair, which is why the cat is still around.
By the way, first post. Also, the picture site seems to have already been hit by the slashdot effect.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Have we ever slashdotted a cat before?
;)
I'm getting nothing. Never send a kitty to do a grown cat's job!
Geeky modern art T-shirts
The problem's not the GPS' guts per se, but the antenna. There are lots of ways for subs to overcome this. For example, they come to "antenna depth" whereby they trail a floating wire of the requisite length that's optimal for the bandwidth they want to receive. Also, there are the ESM and other antenna masts at the top of the sail.
Normally the navigator wants to get a fresh fix on the GPS birds (or another, previous sat constellation put up precisely for the purpose -- acronym escapes me, damn Alzheimer's coming on) on a regular basis, but with all the depth-changing and gyrations required, sometimes it's better (read: quieter) to just stay at patrol depth, so the skipper will tell him the hell with the fix for the time being, there's nothing much to collide with beyond the thirty-fathom line on the charts anyway.
The only reason a sat fix is necessary at all is to periodically "tighten up" the sub's intertial-nav fix, which is good to within less than the width of the sub's attack center (control room) when it's dead on, but tends to spread out as the fix becomes less accurate over time.Believe it or not, with all this high-tech gee-whiz nav stuff, there aren't many QMs around who could competently use a sextant if everything else were out of commission. I think they're going to stop, or already have stopped, teaching sextants at Annapolis.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
You can see the images ato n_figure2.html
http://www.vermontel.net/~vengnce/slashmirror/rec
Go easy on my server, please!
I'm sorry. What I meant to say was 'please excuse me.'
what came out of my mouth was 'Move or I'll kill you!'
I think every place I've ever worked has had a large stray cat population. Somehow, they always seem to be able to get into the fenced-off areas of the premises. And there's always something requiring one type of clearance or another going on (that's what happens in the defense world....).
Anyway, I'm sure that just about any place w/ enough people has some population of stray animals. Imagine if Boris & Natasha happen to collect up the animals one day, and implant the next generation of these electrodes in the cats, along with transmitters. Suddenly, you've got a large roving population of cameras around places you really don't want pictures taken.
Even if they weren't able to get into any type of restricted area, you'd still likely get several shots of the employees, so you'd know who to target when trying to "turn" someone.
They could even go so far as to train animals from birth to perform certain tasks, such as getting into rooms with doors slightly ajar, knocking over file folders with papers in them and looking at the papers for X seconds, etc. Who would suspect a stray of spying?
Alternately, this could be the ultimate voyeur tool. "Hi, I got you this pet kitten."
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
They should be using babies.