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Science

Neurocomputing Makes Headway 155

Posted by Hemos from the i'm-really-punny dept.
SuperguyA1 writes "Salon is running this almost unbelievable story on "Thought Activated Computing". This was the one thing I always wanted to see that I figured wouldn't be possible in my lifetime. " Really, really amazing work being done - makes me happy to be alive right now and able to see stuff like this. Currently the technology is being used to help paralyzed people now and the possibilites in the future are endless.
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Neurocomputing Makes Headway More

Neurocomputing Makes Headway

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  • I figured someone on slashdot might know the answer to this.

    How predetermined is out number of senses and limbs? If I was to implant some device like this into my brain would it always a) feel unnatural b) necesserily interfere with the movement of my arm or c) eventually behave entierly unconciously just like the movement of my arm does now.

    Is the same true of senses? If I attached a little I/O port into my brain would it eventually be integrated as a 6th sense or are out brains to preprogramed for this to happen?

    Would the answers be differnt is we implanted the devices in utero?
  • Let's see...

    I recall an article in an Omni magazine waaaaay back when that talked about cortical blindness patients, where the optical portions of their brains had been physically damaged. With some training, several people have been able to regain sight. See, the electical impulses from their eyes propagated to other portions of their brains, which the patients were eventually able to monitor the same way they did when the original 'sight centers' worked. It's all about training.

    When we're born, we flail around for a few months while our brain sorts out what does what, and we get positive reinforcement on the motions and sounds we make, and on the interpretations we make of our sensory inputs. If you stick a pickup into the brain somewhere and wire it into a robotic arm or even a suitably-modified camera, enough practice should give us the ability to use them just like a limb or an eyeball.

    That's what limbs and sensory organs are, right? They're (organic) devices that either take signals from or deliver signals to the brain.

    My bet is that, several years down the road, we'll be able to do some pretty amazing things based on this line of thinking.

    Any thoughts?
  • Well, you couldn't actually do a brain in a jar; you need a lot of peripheral tissue and/or organs to keep the brain functioning properly. Bad things tend to happen when you remove hormones from brain (or any other) tissue, and then you need a nervous system to regulate the hormones, input from a body to said nervous system.... (Yes, you do need a body, or most of one anyway.)
  • It quite obvious that our view of the future is extremely distorted, just from looking at what people 50 years ago thought of today. Computers are in the small and in the home and we don't travel to the moon everyday. I for one don't think that this technology will catch on for non patients because there is no reason for it. Like the author says, we can manipulate a normal interface so why would we need this. I'd much rather have a wearable computer with an eyepeice and voice recognition. And also, I don't want to sound like a technophove, but I don't think that this will have all too kind ramifications. I don't remember who introduced this thought, but it has been said that no peice of electronics is secure because it is part of a network that contains nodes that aren't secure. Do we really want to introduce our consciousness to this network. I think it would just be the beginning of us turning into the Borg. If children are raised with these and taught to base their mind around Windows ECG or whatever they'll call it then this could happen. We can complain about geeks being persecuted in our day, but in this kind of future there may be no hellmouth kids.
  • If one machine can read my thoughts then another machine could also read my thoughts. Can you imagine the consequences, government, advertising, and absolutly no privacy whatsoever. This could be very very scary...
  • A Judea-Christian hangup?

    Actually when I hear news reports about cloning, genetics and stuff, it is usually the ex-hippy, flower children type people that come out to protest against technology. The animal rights groups would probably cry foul because a rat was injured in the testing before any type of church would complain about this.
  • I wonder why Salon didn't write anything about the work that came out of Loma Linda University [pulsar.org]? As I recall, they were heavy into this work about 10 years ago.
  • I don't know about you, but I still like knowing where my brain ends and other sources of thought begin. What you describe above sounds a bit like the ultimate two-way subliminal.

    Not really. Of course if it would be invented right now it would be too dangerous to start selling it to end consumer, something unpredictable could happen.
    These steps should be followed:
    1. Science has to fully understand how our own brain works.
    2. We have to understand artificial intelligence (now there's only speculation could it be controlled, weather it could take over the world or not..)

    If these steps were met, having our brains connected to fully controllable AI's would be nice IMHO. It could be a good way to extend our limited brainpower.

  • "I'm sorry, but I don't buy that we can stick metal plates on the side of a metal container and expect it to fly.

    I won't buy into this stuff until they have machines with feathery wings that flap like on birds. "Planes" are a technological dead-end, ornithopters will rule the skies, once they get them to work."

    (I think my point with this is that "artificial limbs" doesn't mean making replicas of actual limbs and "artificial intelligence" doesn't mean making a replica of a brain; just like the winning technology for "artificial aviation" did not make a replica of a bird, but took one essence of what some birds do.)

  • If you think you can't build a machine to hoe some beets. The question is can you currently make a machine that has a total cost of ownership less than the cost of employing the humans it replaces hoing beets. I say probably, oh, and who let it get filled with weeds in the first place?
    -Crutcher
  • You do EVERYTHING through a feedback loop, you direct your body to do X, and your senses tell you that Y happened, and you adjust the directions you give. A million times a minute. The feedback loop is vital for you to learn how to do it, not for the machine on the other end.

    And with implanted hardware, that's the same as saying "If someone figgures out how to control my heart, they control me", while technicaly true, I'm going to put up a hell of a fight trying to stop them from straping me down and hooking up the invasive electrodes.

    SCENARIO:
    Thug 1: Excuse me sir, whats that over there?
    Me: What, Where?
    Thug 2: Quick lets perform invasive brain surgery while he's not looking.
    Thug 1: I'm done. Sir, would you like to buy our product?
    Me: Yes, I want to buy ....
    -Crutcher

  • I won't buy into this article until I hear about artificial limbs and eyes that work just like real limbs and eyes. Until then, I hold firm in my faith that the nervous system cannot be duplicated with wires.


    Actually, WRT to those two apps, you don't need this article. Limbs and eyes do not require any kind of direct brain interface, IMHO. If someone's lost an arm, you ought to attach the interface right at the end of the nerve in the stump. If they're missing an eye, plug into the optic nerve at the back of the orbit. Even a para/quadriplegic doesn't need this; there's work being done on small devices that would essentially serve as "bridges" across breaks in the spinal cord. This, IMHO, is more useful in its capacity to get people to realize that cybernetics is completely possible within most of our lifetimes (including, most likely, SuperGuyAl's).

    Alik Widge
    MD/PhD Program
    University of Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon

  • UI (Score:2)

    by Sterling ( 10651 )
    As far as I can see this will be truly revolutionary for UI when it can be used for general computer use. Forget Voice. Voice is too clumsy to be used for general input/output. Its also annoying to your neighbor. But controlling a computer by thought is the way to go.

    Of course as mentioned in the article there is ways to go before this will be feasible. Who would want surgery just to interface with your computer? Something that is non-invasive would be ideal.

    I guess that finger doohickey that came out 1-2 years ago is a step (albeit a minor step) in the right direction. I forgot was it was called, but you basically place your finger on this sensor. And the sensor detects minute movements in your skin that is activated by thought or your eye to control a cursor. Forgot the exact details. It didn't really work too well. I remember it was demoed at COMPUSA. And I couldn't really use it that well. I guess you needed to train on it. The problem with this is that all it allowed you to do was move the cursor around (I think). Would would buy such a thing, when a mouse works better w/o training.

    I would love some kind of a device that would pick out the correct thought patterns and translate it into commands. This means commands other than the moving of a cursor. When you can actually think an 'A' or an entire word and have it appear on the screen. This of course is difficult.

    The Doctor asks why would we want to control computers with our brains rather than with our fingers or hands. Well for one thing it would it would help with carpal tunnel syndrome. Has anyone ever got injured just by thinking too hard? (Well there was those marketing majors in college:) And with the right technology, it would be more efficient.

    Just my two cents.

    Man
  • There was an article [nature.com] on the "Nature Science Update" page about computers designed as to sense human emotions (or, actually, certain behavioural patterns which are related to stress / anger / or, maybe, even positive feelings :-) ).

    It seems that the development of such tools is more evolved than you'd expect. One of the research centers mentioned in the article is the MIT's Media Laboratory. You can find more information on the ML projects here [mit.edu]. The lab is working also on some other futuristic projects: wearable computers, software algorythms for recognizing photographs and other.

    Regards,

    January

  • Let's say you have a complex job that needs doing. It has too many random elements to trust to a computer yet is too repetitive to interest people. So you build a machine that can interface with a brain to get the job done. Now all you need is a brain, sure some folks might want to donate theirs, but not likely, so you head (!) to the black market and buy a nice kid absconded from the streets in Iowa. Presto, a dedicated loyal worker for your mines, or your deep sea exploration, or your war.

    It's scary because the unknown is scary. And even scarier is that unknown people will use the unknown to do unknown (until it's too late) things.

    Maybe having a brain directly control a computer isn't too far from a computer directly controlling a brain.
  • What do you mean when you were a kid? I'm 26 and still trying to turn the channel with my psychic powers!:) I'll make a post when I figure it out.
  • From my extremely limited knowledge (considered a minor in psychology in college), I believe the brain would adapt... and it would soon become like second nature for you.

    The most simple example that stands out in my mind is the fact that if you wear glasses that essentially turns your vision upside down for a while... eventually, your brain will "flip" it right side again, even while you are still wearing the glasses.

    While that is not a huge correlation I think it shows the ability of the brain to adapt and essentially "do the right thing" for you.

  • These is mucho cool. One step further to brains in vats eh? ;)

    Imagine now using your actual brain as a processor. Need to compile something? Pipe it through your brain ;)

    Also, would this work backwards? I mean, could the computer manipulate the brain through inputs, instead of the other way around? Mind control anybody?

    Can't wait till they make the "Matrix: Learn Kung Foo" downloadable tutorial ;)
  • M. Crighton book talks about this to some extent. Sort of computerized bio-feedback to alter moods. "puter is imbeded - sort of like a pacemaker - but the general idea is kinda similar. Stuff like this in ten years...just think of the possibilities! I, for one, find this kind of research fascinating. A bit scary, but this kind of tech could be very, very neat. Wireless comms, voice recognition, ultra-small displays.... kinda like that commercial I saw yesterdaay about the guy in Venice, I think. Jumping up and down, doing stocks on a very neat looking display. He then gets a wireless call from his secretary. Wowzah!
  • AUSTIN, TEXAS - December 1, 2025

    NeuroDyanmics, Inc. (NASDAQ: NEDY) is pleased to announce its new CRICET (pronounced "cricket"), a breakthrough in law enforcement and behavioral modification technology. The Jimminy, the first device based on the CRICET system, has just completed its internal testing phase, and will soon be entering mass production for introduction into the marketplace.

    CRICET, an acronym for CRanial Implanted Compliance Ensuring Technology, consists of a small, glass-lined device designed to be worn inside the skull of a the subject. The implant sends a constant signal to a bracelet worn by the subject, similar to those utilized by "lo-jack" systems.

    "Essentially," said Dr. Peter Spanky, leader of the project, "the CRICET monitors the brain for violent impulses. When a person tries to injure another human being, the brain produces a distinct series of brain waves. The CRICET unit can detect those brain waves, and transmit a signal through the skin of the subject to the bracelet." The subject would then be administered a corrective jolt of electrical energy.

    "It's clear that this technology is the first real breakthrough in years in controlling violent behavior," Dr. Spanky stated. "While it's true that in the past, the penal system has claimed that rehabilitation is one of its prime goals, it now has a real tool to ensure that rehabilitation is actually taking place. It's a very exciting time."

    Organizations which are rumoured to be interested in the technology include the Texas Department of Corrections, and the Armed Services.

  • Both are as hardcoded into the brain as you get--for all intents are purposes I would consider them immutable. The problem is that they aren't just functions carried out by the brain, but are the entire basis for structure of the brain--it would not be totally incorrect to say that the brain's reason for being is to house five senses and run four limbs.

    OTOH, in utero just might work, considering that in young children the frontal cortex may as well be unallocated pool of potential functionality (heh). You could probably get *something* going, although I can't see it being as natural as what we have been equiped with by nature--if for no other reason than because you can't actually use the areas built to handle sensory/motor tasks, as they're already in use. You'd be strapping a new sense onto networks designed for general cognitive tasks--such as language--that may or may not be suitable for sensory work. (Which raises another problem--aside from young children, the brain is spoken for: you'd have to take something offline, at least partially, to fit the new capabilities in.)

    Of course, there might be problems trying to figure out how to do the procedure on the first place if the only patients are in utero.

  • While his device may require extremely invasive proceedures to implant (anyone know what a Craneotomy is?), it doesn't mean that we can't figure an easier way to get it in there, as we make things smaller.

    A craneotomy is the generic name for a procedure which makes a hole in the skull. It's usually something to avoid if possible. (I'll be surprised if genuine cyberpunk-style interfaces are possible without something invasive.)

    Alik Widge
    MD/PhD Program
    University of Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon

  • Would the answers be differnt is we implanted the devices in utero?

    Disclaimer: I am a medical student, but not a doctor. This is speculation, not advice. (The same goes for that opinion about craneotomy.)

    If we had the devices in right as the brain was growing, yes, I think it would be different. Your brain starts out very neuron-heavy, followed by massive die-off as the neurons compete for access to sensory data. Neurons which don't get stimulated die. So, if you just have some object providing a bit more sensory data, in theory some neurons would contact it and be kept alive, thus providing your brain with an extra I/O port, as it were.

    This leaves two big problems. First, you have no idea where that extra port is connected to, unless you have very good control over which neurons make the contact. So, if you implant a brainjack, you can't know in advance what sense it will plug into without some fiddly biochemical manipulations (like the trophic factors used here, but even more so). Imagine trying to do taste-based computing.

    The other problem is that you're talking about working with a fetus. Development is a really tricky process. Small disturbances at the wrong time can lead to really nasty birth defects (or they can lead to absolutely nothing). If you're doing as mentioned above and having the device secrete developmental factors, then things get really hairy. It's like trying to patch a Microsoft application as it's compiling without having any access to the source --- all you know is what you can infer from looking at core dumps and random crashes. I personally wouldn't care to try it just yet.

    Alik Widge
    MD/PhD Program
    University of Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon

  • look out (Score:3)

    by habib23 ( 33217 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @08:53AM (#1496180)
    Thought activated computing? Let's hope they turn logging off...
  • Y'know, the nutballs in the tinfoil hats who think that aliens are reading their thoughts *might* not be as nutty as I thought...

    I think I just figured out exectly why the NSA (et al) have been patenting all that echelon tech recently. The pieces are all falling into place...

    ---

    Pb

    Pssst... wanna buy some Red Mercury?

  • I was supposed to be just an experiment, the first human with a neural link into the WWW. It was great at first, but I picked up a modified Neural Back Oriface program and my life was over. I barely get sleep because the little bastard somewhere keeps posting my sexual memories (what few I have) on amateur porn sights. He plays bad Jimmy Buffet songs in my head all night while trying to convert the data into an MP-3 format, what kind of a sicko does that?! Every once in a while he just buts in when I am doing something normal...and...oh, no he'e going to do it now....

    MUHAHAHAHAH, YEAH BABY! I got this pup to withdraw all his mac accounts and max his own credit card and he don't even know it yet. Now I'm gonna really torture this chump and make some KC and the Sunshine Band MP.3's with his memory of bad 70's songs....Yummy Yummy Yummy, Got dat Luv in my tummy...P3AC3

    Magvs

    "Do not fight bravely and love deceptively, love bravely and fight deceptively."
  • There is actually a damn good anime about exactly this. It's called "Ghost in the Shell", and the main character is a human brain in an android body. Although not everyone in her near-future world has gone quite as far, many people have neural implants and are vulnerable to hackers.

    It's actually pretty creepy when they talk to a guy who had most of his memories reprogrammed and was being used by the hacker to do other hacker stuff so he couldn't be traced. I guess this is the neurological equivalent to telnet'ing into a system in order to telnet into another system, etc, so you can be virtually untracable.

    Anyway, this wouldn't happen in real life. You'd have to be pretty dumb to run telnetd on your neural implant. :)

  • It would be fun to see what my id would do if it ever got a hold of the terminal. More seriously, this kind of stuff is great. It really is amazing how people keep finding better ways for technology to help people who have physical bariers communicating.
  • I can't speak for anyone else, but personally, it's my brain that's the bottleneck, not the keyboard. Not that this wouldn't help.

    But i'd hate to see what emacs would do with a thought-activated interface available. :)

  • By combining this technology with a wearable computer I can finally do programming while walking to Uni or being bored in lectures.

    What a minute - what about debugging. Guess gbd won't do the trick any more :)

    Apologies for this - don't seem have much sensible things to say today I'm afraid.

  • Of course they're operated at the subconscious level! I suppose I should have said brain control rather than mind control, but you missed my point. My whole point is that what is under discussion is artificial brain-controlled devices, and that your arm, for example, is a brain-controlled device. The only advantage your arm will have over an artificial device is that you have more experience using it, and your brain is hard-wired to quickly learn to use your arms.

    As for the neurons firing randomly, I know for a fact that neurons in my motor cortex don't fire randomly when I daydream, because my body doesn't go into a wild seizure. If random firings in the implant area caused a robot to flail wildly, the brain would quickly learn to supress such firings subconsciously. Obviously, there would need to be a training period, just likely babies flail around at first.

    Really, why did you think I wasn't considering the subconscious? I was talking about maintaining control while daydreaming, that is, maintaining control of something while the conscious mind is ocuppied elsewhere. What else could I have been thinking of than the subconscious?

  • Did anyone ever read the bogus article some Inquirer like news source (maybe some one can remember) on the web about an 8 year old boy Microsoft essentially purchased for the near amount of $10 million dollars. The kid was being kept on Redmond's campus and was working on "The Next Big Thing". According to the story, the kid developed a TV remote for his grandma (who was confined to a wheel chair) that relied on thought patterns.

    The article was huge and the author included pictures as well as an interview with the boy (made to look like a spoiled brat). It was pretty funny... but even more humorous is a lot of people took it seriously and I had a number of friends forward me the address of the article (wish I remembered it).
  • it would bring a whole new definition to the word "deathmatch"

    Drink Tazo and "Be entirely pleased"
  • Anyone happen to read the date on the thing? November 1998. Is Slashdot really that backed up with submissions?
  • "Why would you possibly want to control computers directly from your brain if you can do it by moving your hand, your fingers? I think some people use their imaginations a bit too much." - Dr. Kennedy, from the article

    Interacting with a computer via the brain-hand-mouse-computer route seems rather inefficient. Add in the constant mouse-to-keyboard, keyboard-to-mouse switching and the problem is even worse. Imagine how effectively we could communicate through direct brain-computer connections. I suspect our brains have an untapped capacity to control more than just our muscles.

  • Given everyone's preoccupation with Cryptonomicon [bfast.com], I would have thought that someone else would have brought up Interface [bfast.com], written under the pseudonym Stephen Bury by Neal Stephenson.

    Basic synopsis is:
    o Governor has stroke.
    o Shady politicos give governor chip very much like in article.
    o Fun and hilarity ensue as governor runs for presidency.

  • Odd, just this morning I was helping my business partner write a piece for the local paper about how the future of the internet will affect our area. Other than my standard line about how predicting the future of technology is a foolish waste of time I did contribute the slightly usefull idea of neurocomputing.

    Which got me thinking about how things such as telepathy and other ESP phenomenon could be replicated easily if we used our bodies as the UI to computers in the future. Imagine just having video signals fed straight into your visual cortex. Or being able to take a photo just by looking at something. The possibilities are endless and unthinkable.

    This also reminds me of my comment I made about that pen mouse last week. And now that I'm home I have my resources handy to quote. Specifically in the June 1995 (#59) issue of Circuit Cellar Ink they ran an article called "An Eye-controlled Mouse" which was presented as a study in signal condtioning. Basically they used EEG signals (as the guy in this article passes off as unpractical) picked up through 3 sensors on your head. This was fed to a simple pic based micro controller whihch converted the brain signals so that they could be fed to a serial port and looked like signals from a standard mouse. Simple circuit, simple code. But you do need the eeg sensors to pull it off. That was what kept me from trying.

  • This technology is the basis for what the creators of "The Matrix" had invisioned. Imagine a terminal attached to the side of your head, when plugged in, bypasses your normal nural pathways and connects you to a totaly virtual world that you can feel down to the slight breeze of a spring day...





    All they have to do is map your nural signals and simulate what your nerves produce. Kinda' scary.






  • For some reason, the idea of thought-controlled devices seems to attract little attention. Sure, it's very scifiesque - but it's not so cool - at least compared to, for example, nanotechnology or AI.

    As geeks, of course, we want to be in control of the hardware. As computer technology goes, we can at least harbor the illusion, if nothing else, that we do control the technology. How do you control a human computer ? How do you program a human being ? Yes, you can program a human - but the process is difficult, time-consuming and prone to errors.

    Because we are what we are - humans - I don't think this thought-control thing will have much significance compared to the advances related to traditional computing (of course, it's very easy to be proved wrong with a "visionary" statement like this) . The problem is that the hardware is incredibly complex - and mostly, after all the research that has been put into it, essentially a black box.

    The idea of AI is much more appealing to me. Unfortunately, AI:s don't help much with this problem since we need to understand the human brain to be able to successfully construct an AI. Back to square one.

    OK, that wasn't a very coherent comment, so I'll just start again:

    I don't...%&%&"/#%(

  • Not to mention the reduction in repetitive-stress injuries, that scourge of the workplace.

    You'd just have to worry about migraines.

  • Re:Mutability of the brain? (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29, 1999 @10:25AM (#1496199)
    I figured someone on slashdot might know the answer to this.
    Well, I'll give it a shot...I have a BA in Anthropology, and my advisor was one of the best known physical anthropologists/neuroanatomists in the US, so I heard a fair bit about brains in college.
    How predetermined is out number of senses and limbs?
    Rather! After all, your genes determine both your body structure and your brain anatomy. HOWEVER...the brain is a surprisingly plastic thing, and is capable of "reprogramming itself", so to speak, to deal with new/different situations and inputs.
    If I was to implant some device like this into my brain would it always a) feel unnatural b) necesserily interfere with the movement of my arm or c) eventually behave entierly unconciously just like the movement of my arm does now.
    Well, it's a little hard to say exactly. It would probably feel unnatural and forced at first - think of trying to write with your 'weak' hand, or of making fine motions with your toes - but like those examples, it would probably become easier, even natural, with practice.
    Is the same true of senses? If I attached a little I/O port into my brain would it eventually be integrated as a 6th sense or are out brains to preprogramed for this to happen?
    Again, it's difficult to say, since we've never had to deal with it before. My guess is that you would eventually be able to deal with it, but it's far from a sure thing. There have been experiments in which people have been fitted with goggles which distorted their vision; at first they find it very disorienting, but they learn to function perfectly, compensating for the distortions on the fly. On the other hand, there was a case in which a man blind almost from birth had his sight restored, and (unlike the movies, in which he'd jump up crying "I can see! I can see!") it took him a lot of effort to make sense of what he was seeing, as his brain just wasn't wired for visual input anymore.
    Would the answers be differnt is we implanted the devices in utero?
    Quite possibly. See above for the story about the man who had his sight restored. There have also been experiments in which animals have had their eyes covered for the first few months of life; when their sight is restored, they really seem not to be able to learn to see. The brain is much more malleable at an early age - check out how well adjusted people are who were born without hands versus those who lost them later.
  • Oh yeah?

    Well, I'm running on an NT box right now, so all of my bits are having to go uphill BOTH WAYS!

    -LjM
  • Yes, this was on all the major networks (paper, tv, internet, etc) over a year ago.

    It's still cool though, and I for one would like an update. Anyone wanna send this professor guy some email and have him interviewed for slashdot?

    Sample questions:
    How do you think script kiddies will use this new techbiology?
    Beowolf?
    Like, when can we 'jack in' to our computers, dude? Like, cause this is cool and I can become more of a couch potato, so, like, what? Next month?

    -Adam

    One seldom sees a monument to a comittee.
  • And it's the rate of firing, that rate of change, that's the key information ... Maybe someday it'll just be so simple, there'll be nothing to it. But not today. And it won't be tomorrow, either."
    As others have noted, this is a 1998 article. It was not "tomorrow" but rather the following year that experimenters showed images decoded from the optic nerve of a cat. So right now we know how visual signals are encoded, and could encode/decode visual images. We just need a couple of extra optic nerves with wiring...
  • I don't know if this is possible, but since the doctor in the article brought it up, does anyone think that this type of procedure will eventually lead to a type of immortality? I mean, is there really any reason why a brain seperated from the rest of the body COULDN'T (in most cases), live on indefinately? The thought of a roomful of brains, each connected to a virutal "net", is perhaps the scariest of them all.
  • As a primo example of user interface, see Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy ...

    The Reality Dysfunction : Emergence
    The Reality Dysfunction : Expansion
    The Neutronium Alchemist : Consolidation
    The Neutronium Alchemist : Conflict
    The Naked God (not avail yet except in Australia)

    Both genetically modified and mechanically augmented humans use a thought based system for communication. The mechanical ones also have may sorts of implants. Peter's descriptive style is so smooth in the delivery of how these things work (that is, how they are used, not made :) that you rapidly fall into the environment of total belief.

    Highly recommended. Although the genetics are a stretch I can still see it. I can defintely see the mechanical/computer systems going this route.
  • I'm sorry, but I don't buy it when the article says that the primary forseable use right now is for quadraplegics. Yes, that's a very noble goal, but let's face it. Every new technology faces one critical application test:

    Can the Army use it to kill even more people?

    In this case, the answer, of course, is yes. If you can pull a trigger simply by thinking about it, that's one less barrier toward the perfect killing machine (not to mention it would make awesome Quake fragfests.)

    So: let's see if the Army picks it up. If they do, then the technology will pass through to the mainstream in a dozen years or so.

    I mean, even digital computers were invented as part of the war effort (considering the Bombe as a first, which is arguable.)

    "The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."

  • Remember that new neurons are continually attaching themselves to your brain and learning what to do. This technology just promotes a little growth to a new device.

    Where in the brain it is put will probably affect how it is activated. If it were put in a "hearing" area you might activate it by trying to listen in a certain direction. If it were put in a "language" area you might activate it by thinking of a certain concept or phrase. If it were put near the facial muscle control area you might activate it by grimacing a certain way...at least until you learn control of that one new "muscle" (like learning to close one eyelid without moving other muscles -- you start by moving a lot of muscles until you find the right one).

  • I read that link you mentioned, and I don't buy that guy's argument. His two main reasons against brain implants are: 1. Confusion, if a group of people were connected there would be too much going on for us to concentrate. If I'm on an Ethernet network with 20 computers on it, they all broadcast all of the information they send to every computer on the network, but the network cards are smart enough to ignore the message if it isn't for them. This is a very solvable problem and doesn't convince me at all. 2. Safety, why undergo risky surgery if we don't need it to survive? First of all, what if the surgery becomes commonplace in a number of years? Better yet, what if we get to the point where surgery isn't even necessary? Also, the writer seems to just dismiss the whole idea, as if being able to download information to your brain is trivial. I'd think that the director of MIT's Laboratory of Computer Science would be a little more forward thinking. I'm not saying everyone should get brain implants, but his objections are pretty weak.
  • I'd love to interview someone with one of these dodads stuck in his head. I'm mostly curious as to how fluid the control of the thing is.
    Also, I'd love trying to stick one in a kid's head, as the more plastic neurons would adapt really well (as a side note, i would've volunteered for this, so don't go calling me a mad scientist nazi doctor. Ya jerks.)

    -gaffney

  • I have issues with his arguments. He makes two in particular:

    I. Imagine that you and I and a couple of other people are successfully interconnected via brain chips. We might look cool with sockets and plugs adorning our heads. But we wouldn't be able to start or sustain a single thought: Everybody else's thoughts would be distracting us, screaming for attention within our heads.

    II. A general distrust of invasive procedures evident in humanity at large.

    Ok problems with point 1. Isn't that what network protocols are for? Mr. Dertouzos appears not to understand fundamental concepts of networking. While nobody's talking about interbrain communication yet, when they do, they'll apply the concepts of traditional networking to it, and achieve success.

    Problems with point 2. This point is valid in the context of the current state of the technology. For reasons why this won't be a valid argument in say 20, 30 years: ever had an infected appendix? Would you think twice about having your stomach cut open and having it removed if your doctor told you it needed to be done? Do you know anyone who would? The only reason we don't all have it done (literally) is cost. Having it removed pre-emptively would be the safest thing to do, since there would then be no chance of infection. The same can be applied to brain implants, say 30 years from now: when it's cheap enough, and serves a useful purpose (if, say, it becomes as important as spoken language in whatever society exists at that time), people will probably have it done at birth.

  • I have wondered about this very idea many times, and my conclusion is the earlier in life the implant, the more 'natural' it could be. I think it would be hard work to train yourself to use your brain differently once most of your habits are well developed, like using your off-hand to write.
    +++

    I wonder what it would be like to be able to patch in to a live weather satellite feed? Could you train yourself to interpret the data stream as images? Would that be even meaningful? Perhaps some sort of inner 'feeling' or 'thought' would be more appropriate (what do thoughts look like?). What would it do to your self image/conciousness to experience viewpoints totally divorced from your body? Would you even be able to relate to someone who couldn't experience the same things?

    I'm reminded of the Flatland story [umn.edu].
  • I saw two arguments in the page you sent. The first is information overload. I refute that by noting that you would put a throttle on the input line specifically for that purpose.

    I know that the human brain needs an input throttle, and that our sensory organs are specifically built to provide that throttle. Indeed, I have a broken throttle: I lack the ability to separate signal from noise audibly, and as a result background noise makes people talking to me sound like Teen Spirit.

    Indeed, part of the beauty of an implant would be to provide a technological throttle to input from a technological device. We humans aren't built to read a dozen analog gauges or read text in a half dozen "floating windows", or for that matter to transfer scratches of graphite on paper into Really Deep Thoughts.

    Regarding the invasiveness of the procedure, I can say little. "Getting a neural implant" sounds cool; "invasive neurosurgery" sounds less so.

    There is one other problem with neural implants people rarely think of. Right when you decide to plunk down the money and let a neurosurgeon drill into your skull, Microsoft Implant 2.0 will come out.

    If you think upgrading your computer's OS is nasty, consider upgrading your head. And if you don't, you won't be compatible with all those new devices you got an implant to connect to...

  • There are some inherent problems with using your brain to compile, simply because what you're talking about also involves the ability to put a compiler in your brain (not something to which the human brain is naturally good with). Given the difficulty of the task, it's far more likely that people will stick to leaving things like compilers on computers dedicated to that purpose.

    So far as being able to "write" to the brain, that's a harder task. While there are certain common themes in brain activity, there are also a lot of differences from individual to individual. There isn't a universal language that can just write stuff to your brain. It might be possible, over time, to train a computer how to write to a specific brain but that's significantly more advanced than what we can do today.

    I do recommend reading Neal Stephenson's "Interface" (under the Stephen Bury psuedonym) for a more interesting (if fictional) view on the man/machine interface. While it is fiction, it is obviously well researched as is the norm for his books. The kind of "write" to the brain described in his books is far more plausible than the Matrix "kung fu cartridge". It's worth noting that in "Interface" they had to dupe the implantee into cooperating with them so that they could map out his neural connections for them to "write" to his brain.
  • This has ever been a science fiction topic. Try [amazon.com]
    • The Ring
    by Anthony and Margroff
  • Michael Dertouzos' article manages to completeley ignore what for me is the holy grail of computer -> brain interface: true virtual reality.

    While the benefit of being able to load a mini disc of kung fu in 5 minutes (ala matrix) is reasonably enticing, being able to supplement my actual senses with a computer generated reality is infinitley more intriguing.
  • In the US at least their is some sort of weird moral structure that says it is okay to "fix defects" but not to improve healthy people.

    That's an old Judea-Christian hangup, nothing to do with the US specifically. Basically, the Big Three middle-eastern relgions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) believe that since God created humans in his own image, trying to improve on his creation is a sin (of pride, mostly) and is to be forbidden. You will rarely find this spelled out explicitly, but the attitude is quite prevalent throughout the Western culture, even if most people cannot explain why they think so.

    Kaa
  • Granted, I like the idea of being able to do a lot of my tasks by sitting in my chair in my cube and just thinking my way through that. But I think the frightening part is that we wouldn't see anything like that come along. As soon as you had the ability to plug yourself into the network, and take control like that, you'd have some nefarious folks figure out a way to take control of people with it.

    Also, once you let the computer take control of the brain, that adds a whole new mess to the mix. I for one would love to run everything with a blink of an eye, but as soon as the OS starts optimizing my neural pathways, I'd be pretty scared.
  • The next and ultimate step would be- COMPUTING ACTIVATED THOUGHT (computer directly influencing our minds, bypassing such silly biological interfaces as eyes, ears..)

    I don't know about you, but I still like knowing where my brain ends and other sources of thought begin. What you describe above sounds a bit like the ultimate two-way subliminal.

  • We're not talking Gibsonesque brain interfaces or direct thought output here - we're talking about the equivalent of doing Morse Code with some spare synapse or muscle controller.


    Tracking electrical activity in the brain and triggering an action when a specific pattern happens isn't that hard - it doesn't require understanding how thought happens in the brain or translating that into words, it's just finding simple not-many-bit output spots and doing some biofeedback training so the user can figure out how to trigger them. If you pick good sensor spots, that's not fundamentally tougher than learning to wiggle your ears or raise only one eyebrow. The medical part of the job is developing electrodes that can interface safely without corrosion or similar problems.


    Doing good input to the brain is a much tougher problem - either you piggyback on existing senses, or you need to know an immense amount of currently unknown stuff to get it right (though the brain is flexible enough to work around some of that.)


  • The split between Science and Religion occured in the 1700's with the age of enlightenment.

    This was when the "Church", banned encyclopedias and had them burned by the clergy.

    But now, scientists world wide are questioning what is moral and what is ethical. The weekly magazine "Science", published by the AAAS(American Association for the Advancement of Science) has had countless articles on this topic over the past few years. In last weeks issue, the editorial raised this very issue, and put forth the notion of a code of ethics for scientists.

    Another good read regarding this issue is:
    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/282/5 395/1813
  • How predetermined is out number of senses and limbs? If I was to implant some device like this into my brain would it always a) feel unnatural b) necessarily interfere with the movement of my arm or c) eventually behave entirely unconciously just like the movement of my arm does now.

    Our number of senses and limbs is fairly predetermined. Early sensory pathways are guided by cues that appear to be mostly genetic. Within each area the potential for change is enormous. People have little to no problem adapting to using cochlear implants, for example. In cases in which implants allow movements of devices, I would be surprised if the person didn't feel an attachment of sorts to the device they are moving. Heck, if you use a pencil a lot you feel as though you are touching the paper with the pencil tip instead of feeling the vibrations that move through the pencil. In golf you feel as though you are striking a golf ball, whereas you are really only feeling a club.

    Is the same true of senses? If I attached a little I/O port into my brain would it eventually be integrated as a 6th sense or are out brains to preprogramed for this to happen?

    It is very unclear on how one would attach an I/O port to the brain. Are you just going to put a serial port on the brain and plug in ?? Implants rely on causing actions based on activity in existing neurons. Sensory implants activate sensory afferents.

  • Like the others who have responded, I am not a true expert in this field. I was about one class short of a minor in Cognitive Science (Psychology, Linguistics, Philosophy, AI Computer Science, and Neurology). I will explain via means of an analogy. Think of muscles. If you don't use them, they atrophy and can't do much of anything. The more you use them for a particular task, the better suited they are for it. Muscle memory is a phenomenon that does exist, ask any martial artist or dancer. Once you do someting enough, your muscles specialize to do it and it becomes very natural, even if it was extremely unnatural to start with. The brain works pretty much the same way. Were you to add a sense or a limb as an adult, it would take an IMMENSE amount of work to learn to use it. Imagine trying to juggle with an atrophied hand. Complicated use would take an extremely long time, especially since the brain is more likely to adapt existing functionality than add new whenever it can. You would percieve your new sense as some wierd distortion of an existing sense, etc. Your two left arms would move together and do the same tasks, etc. With heavy use, you would begin to make the brain devote more and more neural pathways to this new sense or limb, until it came to rival other senses or limbs. Think years of WORK before it would begin to feel truly natural for most adults. People who have lost senses/limbs are likely to progress more quickly, especially if the loss is recent. Infants would not have the same level of difficulty. Their brains still have not associated muscular control, sensation, and many other things to a particularly great degree. It takes a long time to learn to walk, but not anywhere near as long as it would take an adult who had never walked to aquire the skill from scratch. In short, newborns have a large percentage of their brain as, ...um, undeticated memory (pardon the analogy). The neural pathways are certainly deticated to certain tasks, but only barely compared to an adult. An infant would learn an unnatural sense at a rate that could even rival the rate of a natural sense. Limbs would be a snap as they are learning the regular ones at the same time. All of this assumes that the new senses and limbs are added flawlessly and with better technology than we currently have.
    B. Elgin
  • My arm hurts from using the mouse. I don't mind using a keyboard, but switching back-and-forth to the mouse gets old and causes more pain than the keyboard (ever noticed that both of your arms rarely hurt after hours in front of the screen, but one does - is it the same one you mouse with?). Switching to a roller-ball type mouse was worthless, but putting a mouse tray next to my keyboard helped. Still, it's not great. Let's face it, the mouse is just moving a cursor and selecting in one of three ways (at least with Windows and a two-button mouse). This is an ideal application for thought control technology, and I for one am ready for it. I'll volunteer for testing... who else is with me?
  • In the US at least their is some sort of weird moral structure that says it is okay to "fix defects" but not to improve healthy people.

    I'd love to ask these people why they think glasses are okay. Hell, I'd love to ask them why clothing is okay... I sure hope they don't answer with something as silly as "but that's OUTSIDE of the body!"
  • ever had an infected appendix? Would you think twice about having your stomach cut open and having it removed if your doctor told you it needed to be done? Do you know anyone who would? The only reason we don't all have it done (literally) is cost.

    Bzzzzt. Sorry, bad argument. I would agree to have myself cut open and my appendix removed because the alternative is dying. If my doctor told me he wanted to remove my appendix just because he couldn't see any use for the damn thing, I would laugh long and hard and then change the doctor. It has nothing to do with cost, but is somewhat connected to the Murphy's law, which, loosely paraphrased, says "If anything can go wrong, it will".

    Having it removed pre-emptively would be the safest thing to do, since there would then be no chance of infection.

    Well, no. You are trading off a probability of your appendix becoming inflamed at the time when you are far away from medical facilities (as in cannot get to a hospital within 12 hours or so) against the probability of something going wrong during the operation (as in suddenly developing an intolerance of anesthesia). The choice is not at all clear-cut and depends on a lot of things, like how far from the hospital you live.

    Besides, how do you know the appendix is useless? Contemporary medical science still does not understand a lot of things about human body.

    Kaa
  • Which got me thinking about how things such as telepathy and other ESP phenomenon could be replicated easily if we used
    our bodies as the UI to computers in the future

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke




  • You forgot the startup's offices on the Cali coast getting up close and personal with a cruise missile...
    Interface is an excellent book, highly recommend it to anyone that likes Stephenson's work!
    J04H
  • Hey, that's the quote I was trying to remember while explaining my ideas about neuro computing!

    I remembered the basic tone and message of the quote but I coulden't remember the exact words or who it was that said it. And I can't think of any other example that seems to make it more understandable than the idea of recreating telepathy through neurocomputing!

  • Let's say you have a complex job that needs doing. It has too many random elements to trust to a computer yet is too repetitive to interest people.

    Aren't you contradicting yourself. If it has too many random elements it possibly can't be too repetitive. Life is worth living because of the random elements in it. Farhat.

    A free society is a place where it is safe to be unpopular.

  • >Can you imagine the privacy issues that would go along with wide use of this technology?

    Sure I can. I'd be someting like this:
    "OK, he's moving the cursor left and up."
    "Looks like he's heading for the icons."
    "My god! He's clicking on `The Internet'!"

    This is little more than a limb replacement. Even a full-blown sci-fi version would only replace your current interface (keyboard/mouse/video/sound). Tapping that kind of information is already possible: binoculars and a parabolic microphone would do it; or Tempest for the hard-core.

    Just relax. The government probably doesn't care about your thoughts anyway.
  • "I think some people use their imaginations a bit too much."

    I wonder if the guy really thought about it before saying this. I have a REALLY hard time with the idea that this is even possible? Use your imagination TOO much? Heck, even a few years ago someone probably might have said the same thing about what he's doing now.

    It's the people that use their imagination a lot that push the envelope of what we can do, and what we even think about trying to do.

    I know it's a minor nitpick with the article, but it really got under my skin.


    ---
  • Here's more recent info on the subject:

    From this summer (cached from google) [google.com]

    And even some info on the code [gatech.edu]

    That would be a fun class. (see also Melody Moore)
  • After this I remember the Hollywood sci-fi adventures where "wet-wire" and "jacking in" are the norms of their imaginary worlds. Now it seems we want to attain something similar, and I cant help but wonder if whether or not in 50 years time I'll be able to partition of a portion of my brain and install Linux. :-) What a wonderful world it will be (except of course when my neural web browser decides to core dump).
  • I know some people think about putting this into normal people, non-patients, but I don't see that would be justified. Why would you possibly want to control computers directly from your brain if you can do it by moving your hand, your fingers?

    Oh, maybe just...
    • A more intuitive, and thus easier to use/faster/more productive interface. (For instance, if an artist gets a mental image, and can just think it to an external display in minutes, including time for refinements, rather than spending hours sketching and painting it, how much more art - and thus, assuming the ratio of crap to quality remains constant, how much more good art by any measure - can be produced in a given amount of time?)
    • A more mobile and secure interface (a Palm Pilot can be stolen much more easily than the palm of my fist; I can therefore trust my personal information more easily to an embedded processor).
    • Medical technology that may require manual override in situations where one can not use one's hands (for instance, releasing anti-stroke medication in the middle of a stroke if the stroke detector is unreliable).
    • Some people don't have hands, and would really not mind controlling robot hands that are strapped to their arms. (Prosthetics is perhaps the most publically supported app that the above quote utterly denies.)
    • And other reasons which aren't off the top of my head.


    I think some people use their imaginations a bit too much.

    And I think some people misinterpret their own lack of imagination as evidence that certain things can and/or should never be done, when they could so easily instead just place their trust in other peoples' ability to find solutions where they themselves only see barriers and/or trouble.
  • For all you people drooling about the possibilities of controlling machines (computers) purely by the mind, stop and thing for a second. If your thoughts are going to be controlling anything in any reasonable fashion, you'd better be concentrating real hard! It's perfectly possible to interface with a computer (keyboard/mouse/monitor) and think about a couple of different things at the same time. Well, it's not going to work any more. Imagine a worker controlling, say, a factory robot by his thoughts. If any time the worker thinks about beer or [insert your favorite porn star here] that robot will jerk, or stop, or drill the wrong thing, then the factory better start recruiting tibetian monks for its workers.

    The point is that thought control of any sophistication requires not only the neural interface. It also requires a lot of concentration and mind discipline. Operating stuff by mind control is going to be hard.

    Kaa
  • He says at one point:
    "Obviously this was not something where people would
    jump up and say, 'I'll try it,' [...] Patients who were quadriplegic ..."
    Last I checked, most quadriplegics don't jump. :^)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • "Why would you possibly want to control computers directly from your brain if you can do it by moving your hand, your fingers? I think some people use their imaginations a bit too much."

    Nuff 'said. }:8)

  • the cogito has already been redefined - "i think therefore i am not"
  • whoops - there's also "i think therefore there is"
  • Great. I can't wait until the TEMPEST guys start using this technology. Y'know, the nutballs in the tinfoil hats who think that aliens are reading their thoughts *might* not be as nutty as I thought...
  • "Interfacing with machines directly from a brain, just having a brain and a machine, is a little bit gruesome to think of. But it does open up possibilities if you preserve a brain that's biologically functioning, provide it with blood and oxygen and remove the external life -- that's when a brain would control a machine. And that's a little bit scary all right. But, you know, it's too late now."

    Does this passage scare anyone else as bad as it scares me? We all laugh at the disembodied celebrity heads on Futurama, but for this to be even a remote possibility is just a bit disturbing.

    I think the most disturbing part is that the inventor of this technology acknowledges the concept, and then claims "it's too late now." I mean, come on... he claims the technology is "proprietary" implying he can control its distribution, he is scared of some of the implications, yet he is effectively throwing his hands up, saying, well, it's not my problem.

    {shudder}

    Eric

  • For a while now the (I think) US Navy has been experimenting with thought-controlled flight sims, but they were limited to moving a cursor up and down, and much practise was required. This looks cooler and better, and one step closer to the day when you can work without those distracting keyboards and microphones.
  • Wasn't there a story a while back about a guy who was implanting chips in his muscles to see if they could control movement? I believe he is in Britain.
  • We are still in the infancy of cybernetics. I seriously doubt anything of the complexity of the nervous system can be artificially re-created and implemented in a portable compact model. I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that we can stick electrodes in the exact spot of the brain that controls, say, finger movement. Or more precisely, that controls a single muscle in a finger's muscle group.

    I won't buy into this article until I hear about artificial limbs and eyes that work just like real limbs and eyes. Until then, I hold firm in my faith that the nervous system cannot be duplicated with wires.

  • I don't know if this was the first article, but there was an april fools article [seattleweekly.com] in the Seattle weekly about it this year.
  • Remember the old Wonder Woman episode where the bad guy is just a brain in a fish tank and it talks through some kind of speech synthesizer which is electronically connected to the cerbral cortex? Ack, this is like all the weir-scary-cheesy sci-fi movies come true! I mean this is cool for quadraplegics, but I couldn't get the whole Vincent Price Mad-Scientist Lab image out of my head when I read this. The next thing we know, they'll be swapping someone's brain with that of their German Sheppard.
  • A friend of mine came back from an event at the MIT media lab with a light-up device on her wrist that would apparently get brighter or dimmer depending on her emotional intensity. She mentioned that a potential use for this would be getting the microsoft office assistant to be more responsive to the needs and moods of the user.

    Oh, joy... just what America needs, a paperclip that tries to comfort you when you're cranky.

    Still, they do some fascinating stuff over there. Ye gods.
  • Yeah, sure, everybody can "jack in" 50 years from now. But they misconfigure the firewall, some kiddie 0wns you, and the next thing you know, the local police are banging on your door for performing some crime you really had no control over...

    "But I just had him moon the President to show how insecure his neural implant was!"
  • This could make programming a lot faster. No more need to rely on keyboards...the code could fly out at the speed of the neural link... I'm frist in line!

    Could they perhaps also use this technology to link our minds cybernetically?

  • For all you people drooling about the possibilities of controlling machines (computers) purely by the mind, stop and thing for a second. If your thoughts are going to be controlling anything in any reasonable fashion, you'd better be concentrating real hard! It's perfectly possible to interface with a computer (keyboard/mouse/monitor) and think about a couple of different things at the same time. Well, it's not going to work any more. Imagine a worker controlling, say, a factory robot by his thoughts. If any time the worker thinks about beer or [insert your favorite porn star here] that robot will jerk, or stop, or drill the wrong thing, then the factory better start recruiting tibetian monks for its workers.

    The point is that thought control of any sophistication requires not only the neural interface. It also requires a lot of concentration and mind discipline. Operating stuff by mind control is going to be hard.

    That simply isn't the case. The device isn't a helmet that reacts to your brain state as a whole, it only responds to a specific set of neurons. There's no reason for daydreaming to cause those neurons to fire at random. For example, daydreaming doesn't cause arbitrary firing in the neurons controlling your arm, or your arm would spasm when you daydream.

    More likely, when you stopped thinking about it, firing rates in the area the device was reading would return to base levels. True, that might make the robot stop, just like a normal factory worker might stop doing his job if he starts daydreaming.

    When you say that operating stuff by mind control is going to be hard, you forget that your body is operated by mind control, literally. It might be harder to gain really skilled control, just as it's hard to write with your non-dominant hand. However, you aren't likely to get weird effects like random spasms once some basic training has been completed.

  • Just as a minor commentary on the appendix thread:

    The real reason doctors don't ordinarily remove your appendix isn't to do with immune function (this was only recently discovered, btw; it was formerly thought to be entirely a vestigial organ from when primates evolved from insectivores--rabbits (lagomorphs, which likewise evolved from insectivores) have rather huge appendices compared to humans). It's not due to cost so much, either (most first-world and even a fair number of the second-world countries actually have free health care for citizens; the US is really freakish in that regard and is more like a third-world country in this regards).

    Rather, it has to do with risks of abdominal surgery itself. The abdomen is, well, sort of a risky area to operate in to begin with; any jostling of organs risks adhesions that might end up blocking off your intestines, the appendix is attached to your colon which is chock full of bacteria that can cause some very nasty infections (and to try to sterilise the gut beforehand risks one getting superinfections of yeast or Clostridia (which can literally rot one's intestines; the bacteria are closely related to gas gangrene bacteria, and in fact in New Guinea a form of gas gangrene of the bowels known as pigbel is rather common due to people being infected with Clostridia from poorly cooked pork)...not fun), one has to be very careful in suturing the abdomen as abdominal sutures are among the most highly stressed of ANY surgical suture, etc. Even operations for appendicitis (in which the person is being operated on in hopes of removing the appendix before it bursts and causes peritonitis (basically infection of the entire abdominal wall lining; it can go into blood poisoning (septicemia) VERY quickly, can kill you, and at very best will make you desperately ill and cause you to have a hole in your abdomen for several weeks)) are risky; there have been cases where the appendix has literally exploded in the surgeon's hands, the tissues are inflamed, and often patients have to have drains placed and be put on a course of antibiotics to make sure they don't go into peritonitis anyways. Doctors don't like to muck about with abdominal surgery unless they have to, and even then as least as they can get away with (this is why hysterectomies, appendectomies, and even operations to remove cancerous sections of bowel have increasingly gone to laparoscopic surgery where they only have to make two incisions, one through the navel, instead of a large gash--it's far less stressful for patient AND doctor) and this is why appendectomy is an emergency procedure. :)

    As a minor aside--it used to be fairly routine to remove adenoids and tonsils if a kid had even one bout of tonsillitis.What stopped that was the discovery that kids who had had both their adenoids and tonsils removed had higher chances of going into rheumatic fever from strep throat (rheumatic fever is fairly uncommon nowadays, but it can leave nervous system [St. Vitus' chorea] or cardivascular complications; in some cases it can even kill--Jim Henson died of essentially a very severe bout of rheumatic fever) and got more and worse respiratory infections than kids who had tonsils and/or adenoids. Now they only recommend removal if they've caused fairly severe problems with the kid to the point the child is almost always sick; it's been found it's better to leave them in than take them out.

  • 1. the obligatory comment:

    This would be bitchin' in a Beowulf cluster.

    2. Why you should not get an implant
    for elective reasons:

    http://www.techreview.com/articles/july99/dertou zos.htm
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • When the mouse was introduced it brought with it a whole set of user interfaces that made sence for that device. Now what we need is a user interface that takes advantage of this input. In the article it talked about pushing an icon around. Great, I can do that with a mouse. What we need are new innovations that we cannot do with our current tools.

    I think this story goes well with the recent Ask Slashdot about 3D environments. Out current tools aren't up to snuff as input, maybe this device will help.

    Another use may be adjusting tool parameters in a paint program while you are brushing. Pen table give hardness of depression, but you could adjust the roughness of a texture, or the angle or size of the brush.

    It would be great to hook up vim or emacs to this for macros while programming. Switching a hand to the mouse while typing is annoying, and switching edit modes/doing Ctrl commands can be almost as much of a pain. But you could do a thought pattern to engage a for loop macro, type in the various parts, and the end of each doing the thought pattern for next-part. Perhaps it would make sense to design a new programming language that it oriented toward this input (just as there should be a programming language desgined for PDAs input).

    These are are some serious things to think about if this technology becomes accessible to the public. Just as modern user interfaces need mice (insert benefits of command lines flame war here), it may be that future ones need these as input.

  • Why is it scary? (Score:3)

    by Crutcher ( 24607 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @09:28AM (#1496292) Homepage
    I don't understand the problem people have with the idea of brain controlled machinery. Doesn't anyone remember being a kid and honestly trying out your *psychic* powers? Trying to make people here your thoughts, or change the channel, or drive an RC car? I mean, cummon! I want interfaces that let me have all the functionality of a digital phone, but without any handset. I want to just will the damn channel to change, I want my car to unlock and turn itself on because I wanted it to from halfway accross the parking lot. I want to never have to wonder about dates or appointments or where someone is (that is in mutal contact with me, and thus is letting me have such info) again. I dont want to drive my car, I want to *BE* my car, and my plane, and my boat, and the surgical impliments that I use to work on a patient (IANAD), I want to walk the web internaly, not muck arround with a damn mouse and keyboard. And every kid on the planet is born wanting that, but some forget it as the grow up. Some one needs to remind this uptight doctor that he's not to old to fly, give him some fairy dust, and lock him in a room with the Hawaiian Tropic Swimsuit Team until he can come up with some happy thoughts.
    -Crutcher

  • Re:Mutability of the brain? (Score:3)

    by JimMcCusker ( 27543 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @04:02PM (#1496295) Homepage Journal
    How predetermined is out number of senses and limbs? If I was to implant some device like this into my brain would it always a) feel unnatural b) necesserily interfere with the movement of my arm or c) eventually behave entierly unconciously just like the movement of my arm does now.

    That is a really interesting question. The short of it is, we don't know yet. The long of it is that new senses cannot be imprinted into the structure of the brain. Where would you plug it? Despite what popular culture says about people only using 10% of their brain, (that was years ago when no one knew what 90% of the brain did) every single neuron in the brain has some sort of purpose. The ones that don't will kill themselves off. (this is, in fact, a learning process) So there is no where to "plug" in a new sense or motor command. The whole thing is so interconnected, to get a new I/O in would require growing new neurons (lots and lots of new neurons) and would be very disconcerting, to say the least. Motor skills happen all over the brain, in the cortex, the thalamus, and in the cerebellum.

    That said, we could read and write over existing senses/motor commands very easily. But the problem with that is control. You'd need (eventually) to grow new connections to control whether or not the device should be paid attention to. But that's mainly a training problem.

    Would the answers be differnt is we implanted the devices in utero?

    That is an even more interesting question than your first. The flip side of that is this: does a person who has always been blind not see anything or simply not see period? Actually, anyone out there who knows/is a congenitally blind person? Which is it? The brain may wire itself up for a new modality, but it may not know to look for it. It would be a matter of laying down the proper chemical paths to get the new neurons to connect up with the device. That's what's needed for ennervation of muscles and sensory organs (the skin, for example).

  • Re:Yikes! (Score:4)

    by PG13 ( 3024 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @09:41AM (#1496306)
    I believe that the trophic factor (encourages nueral development around the implant) is what is proprietary. It was not at all clear from the article that the scientist involved held the patent to the trophic substance. The implant is an extremly simple broadcaster of nueral activity.

    This kind of opposition to human improvments is as pervasive as it is strange. In the US at least their is some sort of weird moral structure that says it is okay to "fix defects" but not to improve healthy people. These sorts of attitudes seem to be holding back research a great deal. What if their were no quadrapalegics to benifit from this sort of technology then it might never have been developed. Perhaps without this strange restriction we would have drugs improving the memory and intelligence of the population as a whole.

  • Ba-humbug, I say! (Score:5)

    by kinesis ( 13238 ) on Monday November 29, 1999 @09:46AM (#1496309)
    A perspective from a grumpy old man...

    In my day we didn't have any of these fancy "punch cards". We pulled giant levers and watched big iron gears grind tediously away. It took days to do a simple multipication and the answer was usually wrong. That's the way it was, and we liked it! We loved it!

    Why I remember getting my arm stuck in an adding machine. Crushed every bone in my hand. That's how real men compute! You can have your advanced "vacuum tubes" and "elec-tricty".

    Bah-humbug, I say! Any computer that doesn't need to be oiled is a devil-machine!

    Now they tell me they've got fancy games you can play on these computers. When I was your age, the engineers played "touch the red-hot spinning metal disc". And we liked it! We loved it!

    Bah.

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