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Comments: 314 +- Science: Intel Says Brain Implants Could Control Computers By 2020 on Thursday November 19, @06:12PM
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Lucas123 writes "Scientists at Intel are working on developing sensors that would be implanted in a person's head in order to harness brain waves that could then be used to control computers, televisions, cell phones and other electronic equipment. Intel has already used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) machines to determine that blood flow changes in specific areas of the brain based on what word or image someone is thinking of. People tend to show the same brain patterns for similar thoughts. 'Eventually people may be willing to be more committed ... to brain implants. Imagine being able to surf the Web with the power of your thoughts.' said Intel research scientist Dean Pomerleau."
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Let me know when... (Score:5, Funny)
I can get direct neural input from the Playboy channel.
Re:Let me know when... (Score:4, Informative)
You are out of luck. I would suggest leaving Mom's basement and getting a little sun and perhaps actually talking to some girls. You'll get results faster that way. Trust me; it works. It does require the Social Interaction plugin for your Operating System, but that is freely available and has been for millennia.
Parent
Re:Let me know when... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Let me know when... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually there is a Tor-like project that seeks to enable Girlfriend 2.0 while allowing Wife 1.0 to remain unaware. We need your help! Join us!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I can get direct neural input from the Playboy channel.
I can't imagine this being a good thing:
YOU: browsing slashdot over coffee.
[Stunning, sultry woman walks up.]
SHE: Excuse me, can you tell me the time?
YOUR BROWSER: [displays top 10 porntube results for stunning, sultry women.]
SHE: You sick fuck!
...
JUDGE: I sentence you to 6 months at Pumpinhole State Penitentiary.
YOUR BROWSER: [displays goat.se]
The phrase 'Try to think of baseball' has never been more important.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Of course some old stand-byes (Margarette Thatcher on a cold day) won't work as expected in those situations...
Re:Let me know when... (Score:5, Insightful)
... it's All pr0n, all the time.
You say like its a bad thing.
Parent
Re:Let me know when... (Score:4, Funny)
I guess you haven't seen Farm Sluts [youtube.com]
(queue Twilight Zone theme song)
Imagine if you will, a world where technology can be controlled by thought. A man enters a building for a job interview, suddenly all computers begin displaying busty blondes, brunettes, redheads and a sheep. He thought it was just an interview, but his gutter mind has turned it into - The Porn Zone
Parent
But Unfortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer implants will control brains by 2019.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Implants Could Control Computers By 2020
Computer implants will control brains by 2019.
Now i'm confused. What will control what in Soviet Russia then, and when exactly?
Re:But Unfortunately... (Score:4, Funny)
In Soviet Russia, 2020 controls 2019 by computer implants!
Parent
Re:But Unfortunately... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:But Unfortunately... (Score:4, Insightful)
Computer implants will control brains by 2019.
Yeah, that's why I'd never trust anything that could potentially write directly to my brain. Some sort of helmet thing might be uncomfortable, but at least you can rip it off if they (trojans / hackers / foreign agents) start getting frisky with your mind. Presuming that you have enough motor control left to do the ripping. Perhaps a panic button; hooked up to bladder control or something. (only partly joking)
Controlling machines with thought is brilliant though, and I'm all for it. Presuming that the thing doing the controlling does feedback through skin responses or a HUD on an external display.
Parent
Re:But Unfortunately... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that's why I'd never trust anything that could potentially write directly to my brain.
Your fear prevents you from evolving.
Direct neural communication between groups of humans (and augmented by computers) would produce a thinking, conscious being who's cognitive capacities are a step above that of a human (in the same sense that human cognition is a step above that of monkeys).
This pattern is not new. Single-celled organisms formed cell colonies, which were an evolutionary step up, only after they opened their membranes to each other to allow direct chemical communication. Cell colonies accepted similar levels of integration in the formation of tissues, organs, and gargantuanly huge interconnected ecologies (specifically, humans).
Allowing direct neural reads and writes is the natural continuation of this pattern. Your fear will prevent you from taking this evolutionary step up. You will eventually sit in a zoo throwing dung at tourists, while the true visionaries reach beyond the stars.
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Re:But Unfortunately... (Score:4, Funny)
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But my intel drivers don't work on my pc NOW! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But my intel drivers don't work on my pc NOW! (Score:5, Funny)
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Ob link to XKCD (Score:3, Informative)
http://xkcd.com/644/ [xkcd.com]
Last Thing I Want (Score:5, Insightful)
is someone trying to figure out a way to get advertising into my mind. We all know someone is going to try.
Fortunately, feeding input directly into the brain is more difficult that reading output from it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Got to look out for those feedback loops [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I know what you mean, ever since I woke up in the future I've been having these recuring dreams about Lightspeed Briefs (tm).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Fortunately, feeding input directly into the brain is more difficult that reading output from it.
Not really. It's easily (ish) to stimulate a neuron externally using optical stimulation, but to read that state of that cell currently requires either implanting an electrode into the cell (generally shortens the lifespanof the cell to a few hours/minutes), or stimulating the cell to grow an axon onto a suitable biocompatable electrode (some research in this direction, no reliable results as of yet).
Quick, someone high five me! (Score:5, Informative)
First Lasers, and soon brain implants! Today is full of win! Its the effin Future!
Re:Quick, someone high five me! (Score:5, Funny)
Man you must have aids or something no one was willing to highfive you over half an hour.
Parent
Peter Hamilton Sci-Fi (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure he's not the only Sci-Fi author to have put these ideas into fiction. I had a great time reading his Neutronium Alchemist novels and others and seeing his description of how mind/computer interfaces could function.
I think it's a lot more realistic than Star Trek (gasp :) to imagine that future spacers will be sitting on an acceleration couch with their eyes closed--and seeing space around them as if they were outside, than to be sitting at a console with hundreds of controls, relying on the speed of electrons traveling through meat. And I loved their ability to superimpose heads-up displays onto their vision. I suppose I'm getting beyond the scope of this story...
-Aaron
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, I think Alastair Reynolds's vision is even more accurate: Such mind/computer interfaces exist, but the vast majority of people don't use them because they fear catching a nanotech virus and those that use them to the fullest are so distanced from the rest of humanity that wars are fought over the sanctity of the mind. The idea of a computer connecting directly up to my brain... well, I hope security technology improves by a couple orders of magnitude before that comes about.
Why implants? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do people insist on looking towards devices that need to be surgically implanted to operate?
Sure the interface is more difficult when it is outside the skull, but the barriers to adoption would be much lower also, would they not? Not to mention support, upgrades, product life cycle, etc.
Are they really that shortsighted?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In theory, the bandwidth is huge. You just can't do as much with the gear you have that's adapted for life on the Serengeti.
But, a skullcap is certainly the line at which I add "Luddite" to my .sig - bandwidth isn't everything.
The trick will be that those who do not accept the skullcaps will be at a tremendous competitive disadvantage in most economic measures. There may even need to be physical segregation o
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, some of us are getting damn tired of technology and the fast pace of life it provide. As much as I'm a technology geek, sometimes there is such as thing as "too much". Personally, I'm at my breaking point with the long work hours and complicated shit that's supposed to work, but doesn't.
As for the Serengeti, I'm ready for a change back to my primal human roots. I have a feeling I'll be much happier and live longer with less daily stress! Time to go hunting...
Re:Why implants? (Score:5, Insightful)
So if you are good at studying, you can already max out the bandwidth your brain has for learning new things.
That assumes a few things though: that your occipital lobe is the highest bandwidth input possible, that visualizing symbols (words,numbers,etc.) is an efficient means of acquiring knowledge, that the brain couldn't learn faster if it had more efficient inputs, that direct memory creation isn't possible, and that your brain's wiring is optimal.
I don't think we really know the answers to any of those yet.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I think that we'll have strong AI before we have
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I was thinking that, too.
The oldest computer I have around is a 1990 Amiga 500; I mostly use new kit, of course. Anyone who gets an implant is going to be stuck with it pretty much for life, or commit to brain surgery every 3-5 years to install the newer one.
On the other hand, a 'trode net or hat would seem doable; sign me up for that.
Re:Why implants? (Score:5, Funny)
I though Piccard was saying he was "the cutest aboard". That all makes more sense now.
Parent
Not for me (Score:4, Insightful)
My mind is the last sanctuary I have left, and I'm not going to jeopardize it by connecting it into a system which can be easily tapped, read, and quite probably manipulated by an outside force.
Fascinating stuff... (Score:5, Informative)
I recently heard an NPR article about this kind of thing.
Using real time MRI, someone could be presented with flashcards of common objects (screwdriver, igloo, flower, etc). When they thought about those objects, certain areas of the brain lit up.
The scientists said that when you think of a screwdriver, there isn't a single "screwdriver" area that lights up. Instead, you think of how it looks, what it feels like in your hand, what it's used for. You might think of construction workers, or your favorite screwdriver in your workbench at home. So lots of areas in the brain "light up".
What's amazing to me is that it appeared to be the SAME AREAS for DIFFERENT people.
As an example of this, the NPR production assistant (who was just visiting and helping with the interview) got hooked up to the MRI and was shown the flashcards. The computer, by looking at her brain, successfully guessed 10 out of 10. Even though the computer "learned" from someone else!
I suppose someone who'd never seen a screwdriver before wouldn't have the same sort of response, so it's probably limited to people with the same cultural backgrounds.
Pretty neat stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This reminds me somewhat of the AI computer to look at sat photos and determine if there were tanks in the photo. They trained it. They tested it. It worked great. And then it failed horrifically. It turns out the training photos that had tanks were taking on sunny days, those that didn't were cloudy. The computer had learned to distinguish between sunny and cloudy days and wasn't looking for tanks at all.
The Progress of Lazyness (Score:5, Funny)
In the future...
"Wait, Dad, you mean you used to have to move your arm to change the channel on the TV?"
"That's nothing, son. Great-Grandpa had to actually get up off the sofa and move to the TV to turn a dial."
Son physically reels. "Whoa, stop, you're blowin' my mind. But they did have motor-sofas to move you to the TV, right?"
Bad choice of killer app. (Score:5, Interesting)
The convenience of being able to navigate to a URL without having to type it is a really limited example. How about writing music with it? Being able to notate exactly what's playing in your head without needing to manually write a single note down? Weeks worth of work reduced to a few minutes! Or art: Can't draw? Just visualize!
Anything you can think about but can't actually do would be fair game.
Even with those sorts of apps, I still wouldn't get an implant unless my skull was being opened up for some other reason already. It's certainly not a fair tradeoff against something as simple as web browsing, as the summary suggests. I'm all for the braincaps. That's where BCI technology's headed anyway. And those have the distinct advantage of being removable as well...
Re:Bad choice of killer app. (Score:4, Interesting)
Or art: Can't draw? Just visualize!
(...) As Maurice Grosser said, "The painter draws with his eyes, not with his hands. Whatever he sees, if he sees it clear, he can put it down, [with] no more muscular agility than it takes for him to write his name. Seeing clear is the important thing." (...) If you can do that, expressing it in some form or another is relatively easy. Which of course, isn't to say it is 100% easy.
I couldn't disagree more vigorously. I can sort-of-draw. I'm much better than average but nowhere nearly as good as, say, a comic artist. I can see with photographic quality the object in my mind, but it takes great effort, skill and training to put it in paper. I took some basic classes and my drawing improved with those techniques but its still leagues away from what I would like to convey because I didn't practice enough to become more proficient and I didn't learn enough to do it better.
I can play a song almost to the last note in my head. It took me 6 months to be able to reproduce some boring pop melody at barely 1/4 speed closely enough to be recognizable by somebody other than myself. Maybe I have no "talent". Or maybe "not 100%" is near-zero for beginners and increases only with practice.
Parent
I'm sick of being underestimated (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, oh why does everyone at Intel think that people just want to 'surf the web' with whatever they happen to invent? You invent freaking brain implants and the first obvious use becomes surfing the web?
It could not be ... `write code` or `use photoshop` or .. anything even remotely challenging to a human brain?
Ah well.
Don't get too carried away (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems like they're at the point where they can recognize thought patterns. They intend to map those patterns to a UI. Just the other day I found myself sitting in front of a PC and browsing the web (imagine that). I've been using a Mac a lot lately. I wanted to scroll the page down and I found myself reaching for the touch pad to do that nifty two finger drag motion.
Some where between wanting to scroll the page down and the actual muscle action of reaching for the non-existent track pad was a series of neuro-chemical impulses. It seems like the researchers are identifying those. It would be kind of cool to be able to move a pointer around the screen and do basic web browsing actions (forward, backward, click, scroll, etc) without ever having to reach for the mouse. It seems like I first read about people using alpha waves to control mouse pointers over a decade ago at this point. It's about time they're getting to the point of doing something that might be useful.
Now once they get to the point of bringing up search results based on our thoughts, that is when I will start worrying.
The Reason (Score:4, Insightful)
And there you have it. Why would we want to set up a direct connection between the human mind and a 64-bit multicore computer with many gigabytes of RAM, over a terabyte of storage, and a high-speed connection to the international network of computing machinery? To do large-scale science? To create art as it has never been created before? To help throw off the shackles of oppression and exploitation? Shit, to manage your budget and do your taxes? No. To surf the web.
Well, at least they're not kidding themselves over at the ever-practical Intel.
BLEH!!! Get that kid off my lawn (Score:5, Insightful)
Honest to Dog, I swear we've been "just a decade away" from mass distribution of optical implants to aid the blind since the SEVENTIES! I've given up on stories about the distribution of ALL brain interfaces that are "just a decade away (Really, trust me!)" until I see local news stories about my neighborhood hospital installing them and insurance paying for them.
Holes In Your Head (Score:4, Informative)
Do you really want someone drilling holes in your head and shoving wires into it just so you don't have to type and use a mouse? Do you have any idea how many of these things you'll need shoved through your skull to be able to fore go just those two activities? (Hundreds) Do you realize that implants hasten neuron death and as they die you'll need to associated electrodes replaced? And just who makes enough money to pay for undergoing dozens (at least!) of invasive implantation surgeries requiring real time CT or MR imaging? You insurance damn sure won't pay for it. And don't give me that "for the disabled" crap -- they don't get the expensive stuff either.
You don't need implants for brain "waves". Implants are better suited for detecting neural firing patterns on a much smaller scale. But you can get the job done with "waves" (EEG) without having to trephan yourself.
There are now EEG systems that have the premap on the electrode, making impedance issues irrelevant and signal balancing automatic. There are EEG analysis packages that use continuous wavelet analysis to do time/frequency analysis similar to the "thousands of channels" analysis radio-astronomers enjoy. Between these two, and 'training' a system to recognize a particular person's EEG patterns well enough to control a device like a computer, the other EEG related problems like skin potentials, EMG and EKG artifact become non-issues. And as far as localization, I can reliably localize 40 to 50 signals simultaneously with this technology using a high density (256 or more) electrode EEG.
This technology exists now. The computing power necessary to operate in as a control system in real time is beyond most people's ability to purchase. So if the nice folks from Intel will kindly put down the cranial drill and get back to what they're good at, maybe by 2020 we can have the sort of computing power sitting on everyone's desk if not sitting in a handheld device in their pocket.
And get away from that fMRI. I don't care what you think you saw. I saw the fMRI "brain scan" of the dead salmon showing it lighting up as it recognized a human emotion from a photo it had been shown before (but while still dead).
You know... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't want to have a video card, hard drive, or CPU that I can't easily upgrade and replace. Why would I want something that would require surgery to do that?
Oh. You're using a Creative Labs Brainblaster XL? Their new Brainblaster OMG has twice the bandwidth and three times the signal resolution.
Yeah, maybe you do get a better signal through hardwiring but lets see what happens in 5 years when I can buy the latest equipment and you are either stuck with the older tech or have to get your head sawn open
again.
...implants controling computers by 2020... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Trust me."