Re:I don't understand something...
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Mind Over Machine
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· Score: 1
I wrote the article in Popular Science that sparked this conversation. NorthDude brings up a great point that I wish I had had time and space to go into. Every brain does indeed produce its own special set of signals (which change over the years), which means that you can't just plug in a generic interface and start moving an artificial limb. Training will always be necessary. Obviously, if you can't move your hand, training on a joystick is not going to be much of an option. But all a computer really needs to do is reliably map some signal coming from the brain to some movement of the robot. So, for example, you could theoretically just move your eyes, and the movements could be mapped to robot movements. And then, once the computer had figured out the code, you wouldn't have to move your eyes any more. Not only would the computer be learning how to read your brain; your brain would be learning how to produce signals that controlled the robot more reliably. Of course, this is all off in the future, but the researchers are getting ready to do some basic human trials. I blogged some more about this here.
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I wrote the article in Popular Science that sparked this conversation. NorthDude brings up a great point that I wish I had had time and space to go into. Every brain does indeed produce its own special set of signals (which change over the years), which means that you can't just plug in a generic interface and start moving an artificial limb. Training will always be necessary. Obviously, if you can't move your hand, training on a joystick is not going to be much of an option. But all a computer really needs to do is reliably map some signal coming from the brain to some movement of the robot. So, for example, you could theoretically just move your eyes, and the movements could be mapped to robot movements. And then, once the computer had figured out the code, you wouldn't have to move your eyes any more. Not only would the computer be learning how to read your brain; your brain would be learning how to produce signals that controlled the robot more reliably. Of course, this is all off in the future, but the researchers are getting ready to do some basic human trials. I blogged some more about this here.