obama brain initiative

[zyxt9]

After visiting israel and seeing their work on brain-computer interaction tech

http://neurogadget.com/2013/03/26/p...sraeli-brain-computer-interface-projects/7556

Obama then announces $3 billion initiative to map the human brain with a possible goal of instantaneous communications between brains and computers.

So...thumb...champ...that's your boy pumping money toward what I have mentioned before. But go ahead and keep poking fun at my comments about memristors and nanobots and such.

Another step, this one maybe not so small since $3 Billion will likely lead to at least a good sized step, perhaps even a Giant Leap ala the lunar landing that culminated the dream of the guy obama loves to be compared to, JFK. Too bad be didn't say something about "before the decade is out". Still, I believe the odds are good this will be accomplished for the first time before the year 2020 with how technology is improving.

 

[tinselwolverine]

After visiting israel and seeing their work on brain-computer interaction tech

http://neurogadget.com/2013/03/26/p...sraeli-brain-computer-interface-projects/7556

Obama then announces $3 billion initiative to map the human brain with a possible goal of instantaneous communications between brains and computers.

So...thumb...champ...that's your boy pumping money toward what I have mentioned before. But go ahead and keep poking fun at my comments about memristors and nanobots and such.

Another step, this one maybe not so small since $3 Billion will likely lead to at least a good sized step, perhaps even a Giant Leap ala the lunar landing that culminated the dream of the guy obama loves to be compared to, JFK. Too bad be didn't say something about "before the decade is out". Still, I believe the odds are good this will be accomplished for the first time before the year 2020 with how technology is improving.

It's all bullshit.

The entire experimental "research" is going to be done on a Hollywood Sound Stage near the corner of Melrose and Vine; about three miles to the east of the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance.

Just like the "moon landing" was.

That is the neighborhood where Tony Roche's Wild Card gym is located, though, where Manny Paquiao trains, at least.

 

[Thumb]

It's a pretty giant leap between a brain controlling a computer, and a computer controlling a brain/behavior.

If you're talking about a disabled person using an interface to put their thought onto a screen to communicate, that's one thing. But most of what you have said was about semi-organic nanobots, which might be the solution to a guy going Sandy Hook with his M4 once they were forcibly implanted in his coconut.

This is apples and oranges, both fruit, but from far different trees.

Btw, we spend more money looking for water on Mars, but I don't think Aquafina is going to be in business there anytime soon.

 

[redandguilty]

$3 billion is 20 times what's been poured into prosthetics research in roughly the last decade. That's funded (I think) 1 study of chimps controlling an arm with their brain which did move on to 1 individual human trial. On the side there were robotic arm improvements and new algorithms developed for interpreting signals. Increasing that work by a factor of 20 is no moonshot. $3 billion is no moonshot. It's great that some funding is being steered in that direction, but it's just a step or two in the right direction.

Futurists generally underestimate how long things will take and they're often way off on half the details, but the other half that they get right when everyone else was saying it was impossible is reason enough to be excited about brain mapping.

...just so long as one of the things that comes true isn't skynet.

 

[redandguilty]

I should add....robotic arm improvements that won't do any good for any of the Iraq and Afghanistan vets that motivated the funding because nobody can afford a 6 million dollar arm.

 

[zyxt9]

Yeah, you're right, it is a huge leap from having the brain controlling a computer which then controls a limb to a brain controlling a computer which controls nanobots or sends communications to doctors that there is a seizure or maybe notifies shrinks of a psychotic spike in behavior or...

Huge hump. I just cannot envision such a future at all because it just can't happen.

As for the computer controlling the brain, I think we already established the mice in the US directly influencing the mice in Brazil, so yeah, no chance a computer can tell a brain anything either.

But go ahead, keep living in a world of denial. As I have said before, maybe it won't happen in our lifetime, but our grandchildren will most likely know this as reality.

As for the money being spent, it is a small amount now, well...in the US...but things ,Ike this rarely are given a trillion dollar influx at the beginning. Obama has recognized other nations are ahead of the US and wants to make sure the US doesn't get left behind.

If you cannot grasp the military significance of this, you are kidding yourself even more than I previously thought. Do you think the $3 billion is the only funding the government is doing toward this subject? The military would love having instantly connected personnel all over the battlefield, even if it was just the officers at first. Having that level of information and understanding of what is happening on the field of battle...that is as big or bigger game changer than drones. And how many drones could one person control with their mind as opposed to the clumsy interfaces currently practiced.

Don't think for a second that DARPA hasn't been working on this stuff for years already.

Not to mention, where do you think the scientists currently working on these things have been getting their funding for research?

Then there is the really big piece you are missing. You keep claiming I wear a tinfoil hat. The opposite is true. I am not frightened of this future, I embrace and encourage it. You appear destined to be the tinfoil hatter of the future, not me. If they opened up human testing today, I would be racing to get in line for it, provided I also get to be one of the first to get all future upgrades. I don't want to be stuck with version 2.0 when everyone else is getting newer versions.

 

[redandguilty]

zyxt9, who is that post above pointed at?

 

[elrod817]

z-

Do you not see any danger in having a computer chip implanted in your head? I see and understand the benefits you speak of, but there seems to be many risks to potentially having your brain controlled by anything aside from yourself. This all seems MKUltra-ish to me...

 

[elrod817]

zyxt9, who is that post above pointed at?

Probably thumb...

 

[redandguilty]

I think I can answer elrod's question. The Unabomber answered the question pretty well in his manifesto. When we see the benefits of the technology, we can't wait to get in line to give up our rights and autonomy.

I guess that doesn't fully answer the question. I suspect zyxt9 can see the danger. I can. I have to be optimistic that we won't take things down an ugly path because I don't believe enough people would resist. Not if the technology appeared as the next Apple product.

 

[elrod817]

I guess I'll be a tin-foil hatter then, red. It might take me awhile to figure out quadratic equations on paper, but I'd still like to be me.

 

[zyxt9]

Sorry red, that was for thumb. Was typing it out on my phone so it took awhile. Should have quoted his post.

 

[redandguilty]

One of the big problems to machine-brain interfaces is that the body aggressively islolates anything you stick in a brain. Micro- and nanotechnology has stretched the time we can put a sensor in the brain up to months, but the answer might be to stick to wireless technologies, which are in their infancy even more than wired brain interfacing, but what's been done is pretty incredible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZieFvCtMCc0

I think we'd all feel better about this stuff if it stayed outside of our heads and we could take it off when we wanted.

...that depends on how remotely this technology work though. If a machine could interface with your brain from enough of a distance that someone could interface without your knowledge, that would be a problem...unless I covered my head in some kind metal shielding...hmmm...

ok I'm in http://blogs.suntimes.com/foreignc/signs_tinfoil_hats.jpg

 

[redandguilty]

Sorry red, that was for thumb. Was typing it out on my phone so it took awhile. Should have quoted his post.

No need to apologize. I just get confused too easily so I ask.

 

[zyxt9]

Elrod, I believe the connections will supply info to the brain more than control it; however, there will be contol options available for those who need it. For instance, instead of going to AA meetings, allow control of the addictive personality. This might need to be something only a judge can allow, but if the option is there many sane people would enable that app just like they do apps on their smartphones today.

In cases of mental illness the individual might not be able to provide consent but a judge can force the control. This is similar to mandated drug testing, psych counseling, anger management classes, etc., which judges currently rule as judgments...only more effective as it removes the decision making process from individuals who have demonstrated they lack the ability to control such behavior on their own.

Is there a danger, yes. There is the possibility of hacking or chip failure or other problematic scenarios. Still, I think there will be numerous redundant processes in place to prevent such things. What those will be, I'm not sure. Maybe forceful app installs can only be performed through hardwire connections? That would greatly reduce the chances of some stranger sitting next to you on a train from wirelessly tapping into you. Are scientists actively working through these preventions, I doubt they are at this stage. So is there a concern, yes...but I'm willing to take the risk and there are many others who would be willing as well. There have traditionally been risk takers who have made our current technology level a reality, this will be no different.

 

[Michchamp]

It's a pretty giant leap between a brain controlling a computer, and a computer controlling a brain/behavior.

If you're talking about a disabled person using an interface to put their thought onto a screen to communicate, that's one thing. But most of what you have said was about semi-organic nanobots, which might be the solution to a guy going Sandy Hook with his M4 once they were forcibly implanted in his coconut.

This is apples and oranges, both fruit, but from far different trees.

Btw, we spend more money looking for water on Mars, but I don't think Aquafina is going to be in business there anytime soon.

I agree. Certainly if you told me that the mass of American humanity had the potential to devolve into government mind-controlled bio-robots, I would be sort of concerned.

But if I were zyxt, I'd be more concerned with the real problems happening now, like the percentage of gun sales that are made without background checks, the easy availability of high capacity magazines and assault weapons, the political assault on the education system and teachers' unions, the failed war on drugs, government abuses of civil rights in the "War on Terror," the need to reign in the influence of money in politics after teh Citizens United decision... stuff like that.

 

[redandguilty]

I agree. Certainly if you told me that the mass of American humanity had the potential to devolve into government mind-controlled bio-robots, I would be sort of concerned.

But if I were zyxt, I'd be more concerned with the real problems happening now, like the percentage of gun sales that are made without background checks, the easy availability of high capacity magazines and assault weapons, the political assault on the education system and teachers' unions, the failed war on drugs, government abuses of civil rights in the "War on Terror," the need to reign in the influence of money in politics after teh Citizens United decision... stuff like that.

1st nation to control the best technology wins. Some of what you mentioned is a part of that though.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Elrod, I believe the connections will supply info to the brain...

In the last Bourne movie - that Bourne wasn't even in, curiously - we learned that in the Blackstone program, cognition and physical prowess were enhanced through taking pills; and it could be made permament with the injection of a virus.

I think I would go that route, more than the nanobot thingamedoo....

 

[byco42]

I agree. Certainly if you told me that the mass of American humanity had the potential to devolve into government mind-controlled bio-robots, I would be sort of concerned.

But if I were zyxt, I'd be more concerned with the real problems happening now, like the percentage of gun sales that are made without background checks, the easy availability of high capacity magazines and assault weapons, the political assault on the education system and teachers' unions, the failed war on drugs, government abuses of civil rights in the "War on Terror," the need to reign in the influence of money in politics after teh Citizens United decision... stuff like that.

Nos #1 and #2 are small potatoes compared to the others mentioned. The education system needs assaulting, because it's criminal in construct.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Nos #1 and #2 are small potatoes compared to the others mentioned. The education system needs assaulting, because it's criminal in construct.

My one year as a public school teacher in the LA Unified School District, I felt like I was trying to row a rowboat up Niagara Falls...