Elon Musk scores again, this time with a major advance in the brain/computer interface courtesy of his Neuralink company. A paralyzed man was able to complete a complex series of tasks (in this case playing a computer game called Civilization VI) just by thinking about them. Once the implant got dialed in, the test subjected couldn’t sleep for 24 hours — he was too deep into playing the video game.
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Bill’s concern is just too spot on! Think “Orgazmatron” machinations to “Somatize” anybody who has been hooked up, ostensibly for beneficial purposes!?!?
What you’re talking about is conditioning, not direct programming. They’re not the same thing. Bill is talking about direct programming. If you “think Orgazmatron” you’re missing the point completely. The distinction is important because not all schemes for involuntary induced behavior modification are the same. Just as a car, a train and an airliner are not the same though each can certainly take you to a destination. The fallacy that applies is — “All cars move you from one place to another so anything that moves you from one place to another is a car.” Something that moves you from… Read more »
If one were to say to a robot as Scott did, ‘can you bring me an energy drink?’ it might simply stand there and say ‘yes I can.’
I say “Tell a computer (robot too) to put on shoes and socks .” and it will. Shoes, then socks. And it probably would get it wrong even n in addition. (One sock on doorknob, the other on the cat, one shoe on your head, and the other on the laws, for example)
People can be like that too. My nephew, who is a very bright kid that I love dearly, was never taught “how” to think by his father and THAT is a duty of a father. In order to get him to do something needful you have to give him detailed, specific instructions because his Dad never taught him how to reason things out. There’s a lot more to it than that but you get the idea. For example: One time we came home from grocery shopping and while putting the groceries away I handed him a package of frozen salmon.… Read more »
The skeptic in me wonders if there was a reason to release this episode on April 1st!! Sorry guys for even mentioning it but in this day and age I tend hesitate when I see something that seems incredible and appears to be too good to be true. On the flip side, I’m with Bill being concerned about the possible nefarious uses this technology could be put to.
Maybe their “good news” April Fool’s Day presentation is pretending that a man wants to play games “telepathically” and not just use his new power to take off a woman’s blouse with his mind.
I like the way you think!
I immediately thought of the Matrix and the hordes of connected minds.
Why? That’s a fictional movie that has nothing to do with this. The mutual relationship of this topic to the Matrix movies is about the same as Star Trek relates to bottle rockets.
Also …
Why the Skaldenmet? Are you a pagan worshipper of Odin?
When we can make things move with our minds, how far do we need to jump from there to make our own muscles work, bypassing the spinal injuries interruption?
Someone once told me that the major driver of tech is porn. After I cringed, I decided to stop thinking about whether he was right.
Bypassing spinal injuries and other neural compromises is the whole point behind this technology. Probably at first to operate mechanical prosthetics then eventually to bypass an injury or failure in neural transmission to go directly to the musculoskeletal system.
This would be a miracle of technology that would change the lives of many of our military casualties for the better. Much, much better.
Just being able to control a mechanical prosthetic as though it were the originally attached limb would be huge in itself.
Considering the real world odds I’m willing to risk some unlikely “mind control” to get there.
Agree, and I’m willing to put up with “advances” in creepy porn-related stuff to get there too.
Yup. For every good thing humans come up with, some other humans manage to take a steaming dump in it. Thus it has always been, thus it will always be. If we let the naysayers, the doomsayers. the timid and the pearl clutchers have their way we’d all still be using sharpened-wood spears and picking ticks off each other. ‘Cause, you know, those bone or stone tipped spears might fall into the wrong hands and be used against us. Someone could get hurt and if even one person is saved from being skewered on a razor sharp piece of knapped… Read more »
I think it was the table top RPG Shadowrun that had a character class called Riggers. They would remotely control robots with a mind interface. The other use would be the various robots and AI controlled air planes / drones that Air Force pilots control remotely. Something like this would greatly improve their control. Search and Rescue robots would also benefit from a direct mind link but getting the sensory data back would be the other chore. At this point the current method of camera and microphone would probably suffice, though Steve’s point about self driving cars and brain to… Read more »
The knee-jerk conspiracy alarmist dummies hate this stuff. It all falls into the same basic bag of bugaboos. They don’t understand what is actually being accomplished and because their understanding is so sketchy they fill in the blanks with nonsense. While this is common to humanity and everyone does it to some degree there’s little excuse for such when all the information you need is at your fingertips. So get those fingertips working. There’s a huge difference between controlling something with your mind and having your mind controlled by something. A. HUGE. DIFFERENCE. Bill’s right to be concerned because we… Read more »
Yeah, I think Bill went a little paranoid there with his valve or pipe question. We barely understand consciousness and find getting an output working to be an advancement. Getting input to work is a step to far for now. Then again, why do they need brainwashing via interface? They already have one. Granted it is optical only and a little slow on the frame rate but as Bill also pointed out, Youtube, Facebook and the rest are already programming people. They don’t need a complicated brain interface for that. When that does become an actual threat they will just… Read more »
Yeah, all true. Brainwashing via interface would have been useful to the enemies of human liberty decades ago, things have gone so far now that there’s no real advantage in such a thing. The way it has been done is harder to undo than anything a little direct brain programming could accomplish. We’re in zero danger of having our wetware rewritten. There are a lot of things that are worrisome and cause for concern, that’s not one of them. Trying to be fair to Bill … Creative people tend to get lost in their own imaginations sometimes. Intelligence of the… Read more »
Steve, I know very well about the “just one more turn” addiction to Civilization. I think it was Civ 5 in my case.
One Friday, I had eaten dinner at about 6 at night and started to play. Except for potty breaks and getting fluids and snacks, I played uninterrupted.
Until I noticed the sun coming through the window. At 7:00 am. I was not tired or sleepy. I then did about 2-3_more turns and won the game. Then I crashed.
Such fun!😃
I think that linking this technology to a first person shooter game is probably the next step. In first person games, you control the avatar to move in any direction, duck, jump and manipulate objects. Once the tech for a computer to interpret those types of brain signals is established, the technology for the computer to control a device and act on those signals already exists, so it can give the operator full mobility.
I think you’re right about this. Picking up signals from the brain and applying them digitally is much, much more likely than generating signals to the brain and controlling it. I’m not sure if this is more scary than mind control or not. I think it’s not. I can see some serious benefits. Given the choice I’d much rather operate a robotic avatar in combat than put my own body in that meat grinder and hope I come back out in one piece. Using a human being to operate a drone in the manner of a first person shooter is… Read more »
Mecha Anime fans have been hoping for this for decades. I think they will be more than slightly disappointed when it isn’t cute Japanese schoolgirls climbing out though.
I never got into anime of any flavor so I’m afraid I wouldn’t know about that. I can’t stand that stuff, a buddy of mine who was stationed in Japan for several years has been trying to get me interested in anime for a very long time. So far I haven’t had any trouble at all resisting that non-existent temptation. That said, if I understand “mecha” right … That’s like an armored suit or something that you operate from inside, right? So basically a fancy tank. Something with a hard crunchy outside and a soft human nougat in the middle.… Read more »
I would first counter that anime is a art style or media type, like cartoons or comic books or film noir, etc. The different artists have different styles and the content comes from the writer, not the style. On the other hand not knowing anything about what your friend is trying to get you to watch I cannot say it would be all that great, as each person’s tastes are different and Japan has some weird creations that I never got either. I would not say I’ve watched a lot of anime but enough to say that there is probably… Read more »
Depending on how they got the Civ 6 commands to work, it might already be possible. Chess could be controlled by simple letter/number commands not much more advanced than Morse code. I suppose if current Civ games use keyboard shortcuts enough you would not need analog mouse controls but since the brain is more analog a left/right up/down of a mouse for FPS would be easier.